MILAN — The Milan-Cortina Winter Games don’t officially open until Friday night but the U.S. women’s hockey team didn’t bother waiting for the opening ceremonies, blitzing Czechia 5-1 in its group-play opener Thursday before a packed house at the Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena.
Hayley Scamurra had two of the goals while Alex Carpenter, Joy Dunne and Hilary Knight also scored. Tessa Janecke contributed a pair of assists.
With Vice President JD Vance looking on, the U.S. went ahead to stay on a power-play goal from Carpenter with less than five minutes left in the opening period. Leila Edwards set up the goal, feeding Megan Keller in the high slot. Keller then blasted a slap shot that Carpenter redirected in for a 1-0 lead.
But that was all the U.S., ranked No. 1 in the world by the International Ice Hockey Federation, would get in a first period in which they built a 14-3 advantage in shots.
The Americans, who were larger and much, much faster than the fourth-ranked Czechs, doubled the advantage on Dunne’s goal 3:13 into the second period. Janecke set up the score, skating behind the net, then delivering a short centering pass for Dunne on the edge of the crease.
Eighty-three seconds later Janecke dug the puck out from along the boards, flicked it behind her back to Scamurra, who spun and shot to make it 3-0.
Barbora Jurickova got Czechia on the board with just more than 11 minutes left in the second period, emerging from the penalty box to take a pass from Natalie Mlynkova at the blue line, setting up a one-on-one with U.S. goalie Aerin Frankel. That was a battle Mlynkova won by lifting the puck over Frankel’s right leg and into the back of the net.
But Knight, playing in her fifth Olympics, pulled that back 2:10 before the second intermission, taking a pass from Carpenter at center ice, skating across the blue line near the right boards, then using her body to fend off a challenge from Czechia’s Klara Seropszkova before lifting the puck over the shoulder of goalie Klara Peslarova. The goal was Knight’s 13th in Olympic play.
Scumurra closed out the scoring with her second goal from the middle of the right faceoff circle less than six minutes into the third period.
The win was the Americans’ eighth in as many tries in Olympic openers, in which they’ve outscored opponents 49-6.
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