ÖSTERSUND, Sweden – Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team fell 4-3 to Finland in its lone pre-tournament game ahead of the 2023 IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship on Thursday.

• Éloïse Caron (Saint-Hyacinthe, Que./Limoilou, CEGEP) and Alex Law (Whitby, Ont./Durham West, OWHA U22 Elite) scored the first international goals of their career.
• Jordan Baxter (Coquitlam, B.C./Delta Hockey Academy, CSSHL) rounded out the scoring.
• Piper Grober (Toronto, Ont./Durham West, OWHA U22 Elite), Caitlin Kraemer (Waterloo, Ont./Kitchener, OWHA U22 Elite) and Abby Lunney (Holland Landing, Ont./Central York, OWHA U22 Elite) had an assist each.
• Canada outshot Finland 40-11.

Next Game:

Canada vs. Finland – Sunday, January 8 (2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT)

TSN and RDS, the official broadcast partners of Hockey Canada, will broadcast 13 games from Östersund Arena; please check local listings for details.

Quotes:

“Obviously this is not the start we wanted, but sometimes it is good to take a loss at the beginning and get it out of our system. We are going to learn from this and we are going to get better. We did not see any selfish plays, which is always great to see when a team first gets together. Finland had a great game, they blocked a lot of shots and played tough. We have to battle harder.”
• Head coach Courtney Birchard-Kessel (Mississauga, Ont,/Princeton University, ECAC) on her team’s performance.

“We were nervous for our first game as a team, but we came out hard and learned a lot moving forward for this Sunday. It is a dream come true to wear the Maple Leaf and popping one in the net feels awesome. It was a hard-fought shift from my linemates and we ended up getting a backdoor shot [and scored]. We need to be in the moment, that is something that was said to me, take it all in, have fun, be confident in ourselves and own our strengths.”
• Law on what is needed moving forward.

“Playing for Team Canada is an incredible feeling; wearing the jersey has been a dream of mine so wearing the Maple Leaf is very cool. The feeling of scoring is always beautiful, doing it with Canada is amazing. We just need to adjust the little things, shoot more and have all of us give a little more effort to succeed in the worlds to try to win the gold medal.”
• Caron on wearing the Maple Leaf.

For more information on Hockey Canada and Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team, please visit HockeyCanada.ca, or follow along through social media on on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.