Team Canada players pose with their gold medals and the championship cup after beating the United States in the final at the IIHF Women's World Hockey Championships in Utica, N.Y., Sunday, April 14, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Adrian Kraus
CALGARY – Women afforded the same amount of job opportunity as men at world hockey championships creates a new dynamic on Canada’s team, although the same equality has yet to be extended to women for the 2026 Olympic Games.
The International Ice Hockey Federation has expanded women’s rosters to 22 skaters and three goaltenders from 20 and three for both the women’s championship and under-18 women’s championship starting in 2025.
Canada opens defence of its women’s world title April 10 against Finland in Ceske Budejovice, Czechia.
A more immediate effect is Canada will carry 25 players for the first three games of its Rivalry Series with the United States in November to adapt to extra personnel.
“There’s an advantage from a critical experience perspective and from a management perspective,” Canadian team general manager Gina Kingsbury said. “You think, ‘This is great, I get to bring two more players.’
“But there’s also another line of thinking, ‘OK, now we’re seeing that we’re being treated the same as the men in some ways.'”
Teams will still dress 20 skaters and two goalies per game, but two more skaters means internal competition for playing time during a tournament, said Canadian head coach Troy Ryan.
“That rule is allowing you to provide the opportunity for more athletes and with that positive comes some potential dynamics within the team that are going to have to be managed,” Ryan said. “The communication around it is going to have to be very important.
“It makes it even more competitive. Once you select that roster, it gives you a little bit of room there, if you need to make a change.”
An expanded roster also gives Ryan the wiggle room to include a player he doesn’t yet have an airtight opinion on with less risk.
“It’s not a real gamble, but it allows you to take a little bit more of a chance on a potential athlete, whether that’s a power-play specialist, or a younger player who has had limited experience, and you’re not sure if they’re ready,” he explained.
“It’ll allow some of those decisions to be made a lot more comfortably than they possibly were made in the past.”
The 48 players invited to September’s training camp in Thorold, Ont., were informed expanded world championship rosters were likely to be approved by the IIHF at the end of that month.
“They were surprised and then I think happy about the additional two spots that are available now,” Kingsbury said.
Women’s Olympic hockey rosters are still 23 players compared to the men’s 25.
The IIHF didn’t respond to emailed questions about whether women’s Olympic rosters will also expand to mirror the men’s in Milan-Cortina, Italy, in 2026.
Kingsbury wasn’t hopeful. The International Olympic Committee and organizing committee would consider it late to adjust athlete numbers at the Winter Games.
Among other women’s hockey changes announced at the IIHF’s recent semi-annual congress was a reshuffling of world championship pools starting in 2026, which eliminates a preliminary-round game between Canada and the U.S.
Starting in 2026 – in a host city yet to be named – the women’s championship will revert to “snake” seeding for its pools. That format matches the men’s under-20 championship and women’s under-18 championship.
In an attempt to reduce lopsided scores, the IIHF began seeding the top countries in one pool and lower seeds in the other in 2012.
A problematic optic was a team could go winless through the A pool, yet play a quarterfinal against a Pool B team that won four games to get there.
Whether countries such as Hungary and Norway will be ready to hold their own against the Canadian and American women – and avoid gaudy scores that are a lightning rod for criticism of international women’s hockey – remains to be seen.
Canada will host the 2026 women’s under-18 championship and the 2027 women’s championship with dates and locations yet to be announced.
The annual Rivalry Series between Canada and the U.S. was reduced from seven to five games this winter to account for players on both teams now full-time pros in the PWHL.
The series starts Nov. 6 in San Jose, Calif., followed by games Nov. 8 in West Valley City, Utah and Nov. 10 in Boise, Idaho. The Canadian leg is Feb. 6 in Halifax and Feb. 8 in Summerside, P.E.I.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2024.
