Underdogs and overtime winners: The latest from the Milano Cortina hockey rink

The GIST: Grab a Tim Hortons double-double and throw on that lucky jersey — it’s officially the time of the Olympics when Canadian joy is intrinsically linked to a small rubber puck. Let’s skate through the latest hockey headlines from the rink.

🐶 Uncharted territory for Canadian women: For the first time ever, Team Canada women’s hockey are clear-cut underdogs ahead of today’s 1:10 p.m. ET gold medal match against Team USA. Olympic history favors the red and white — Canada’s won five of seven gold medals at the Games — but recent history? That’s squarely with the Americans.

• Canada’s lost seven straight games to their archnemesis, including a 5–0 blanking in the group stage. The Canadians will have the inimitable Marie-Philip Poulin back on the ice for today’s rematch, but this youthful American team is a juggernaut, outscoring opponents 31–1 at the Games.

• Still, Canada has one edge: experience, their core has faced adversity before. Look no further than the 2014 gold medal game, where both MPP and Brianne Jenner lit the lamp with less than four minutes left to force overtime. Counting this veteran team out? Never.

😅 Forward Mitch Marner sends Canadian men to semifinal: Fans from coast to coast to coast collectively exhaled when Marner scored in overtime yesterday, sending the boys to the semis with a nail-biting 4–3 win over Czechia. It was the team’s first taste of tribulation this tourney, overcoming two one-goal deficits and a Czechian skater surplus in the win.

• It wasn’t all good news though as captain and two-time Olympic gold medalist Sidney Crosby exited the game in the second period with a lower-body injury. Someone bake this anti-littering advocate a restorative banana bread before Friday’s semifinal.