GANGNEUNG, South Korea — A 5-0 barrage in the semifinal game leaves little doubt about the readiness of the US women’s hockey team to play for gold. Maybe Thursday afternoon will be the moment these players break the Canada curse, ending the run of four straight Canadian golds. Maybe they will take those lessons from last week’s thisclose group-play loss to the Canadians and turn 40-plus shots and a bunch of close calls into goals, mix it up with the bitter heartbreak of a 4-year-old gold-medal meltdown in Sochi, and turn it all into sweet revenge in PyeongChang.
Maybe they do that, and become one of the few rousing success stories of an otherwise disappointing American Winter Olympic Games showing. Or maybe they don’t, and become one more just-missed opportunity in a red, white, and blue sea of them.
No matter what happens, know this about the 23 women on this roster and the handful more who just missed making the Olympic team: Test their resolve at your own peril. Whether fighting for hockey results in the rink or pay equity in the boardroom, they do not back down and they do not split up.
“Everything that we’ve accomplished together, both on and off the ice, I think we’ve shown that this group does extraordinary things in big moments, and that’s what we’re looking forward to in the gold-medal game is to do something extraordinary,” said Hilary Knight, one of four goal scorers against Finland.
For all they’ve done on the ice, it was what they accomplished together back in March 2017, what they risked, and what they challenged to make a stand against pay inequity that may have them better prepared to challenge the Canadian juggernaut. By holding tight against an antiquated, outdated, clearly biased USA Hockey pay structure and by standing firm, they would skip defending their World Championship title until that inequity was fixed, risking their own personal achievements for the betterment of the sport as a whole, and they cast themselves as important warriors in the fight for equality.
By winning that fight, this team came into these Olympics triumphant, no matter the medal outcome. The players also came to PyeongChang as close as a team can be.
“I don’t think there’s any amount of team building that could equate to what we went through in March,” said Monique Lamoureux-Morando, who along with twin sister Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson has been a leading voice for change. “We stuck together and we trust each other.
“The amount that our team has been through in the last two years, four years really, I don’t think there’s anything that can really break that apart. We’re a tight-knit group.”
Lamoureux-Morando, speaking after Monday’s game, then looked at the assembled media, setting her eyes on former Olympic and World Cup soccer champ Julie Foudy, who is covering the Olympics for ESPN.
“We’re really proud,” she said, “To kind of put a stamp in women’s sports history, but we’re certainly not the first to do it. Julie Foudy is right there and is one of the ones who paved the way for us. We’re certainly aware of the women that have come before us and sure hope there’s a lot that come after us.”
The long-term effect of what the hockey team did is undeniable. A four-year contract signed in March reportedly includes a base salary that went from about $6,000 annually to near $70,000, more bonus-based incentives that could push that number into the six figures with Olympic gold, better travel budgets, a $50 per diem equal to the men, and child care and maternity leave provisions. That is the reason they garnered support from every major professional players’ union, men or women; why tennis pioneer Billie Jean King was texting them encouragement; why high school players contacted by USA Hockey to serve as scabs offered a resounding “no”; why the Women’s Sports Foundation honored them as Wilma Rudolph Courage Award winners; and why these women, like the soccer trailblazers before them, should and always will be remembered.
But the short-term effect can be similarly powerful, pulling a team together and then pushing it forward.
“Oh yeah,” Foudy said shortly after the game. “When you go through something like that where you’re essentially as a group saying we care more about changing this for the better and progressing this sport than we do about us playing in the World Championship, and if it means we have to give up a world championship, we have to give up an Olympics, we care so deeply about this issue that we’re going to personally sacrifice everything as a group to get it done. You go through that with teammates? There’s a bond that you just can’t replace. Because it’s scary. It’s frightening. You have to lean on each other.”
More than anything, Team USA wants to win the gold, and with a convincing, lopsided, and no-doubt win over Finland, Thursday’s gold-medal game is looming, teasing, almost mocking with its tantalizing payoff.
Maybe this will be the first Olympics in the last five that our neighbor to the north doesn’t win. In the gold-medal rematch, there’s no doubt the arena will be thick with intensity and enmity, no doubt it will host one more chapter in one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports.
As the US women streak toward another big game, as they continue to excel amid the overall disappointment of American results here in PyeongChang, let’s pause to remember the other kind of warrior ethos that brought them here, the one that gave them the courage to stand up for what was right and just.
And win.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Globe_Tara.