Jason La Rose
GAME NOTES: CANADA VS. DENMARK (NOV. 9)
Less than 24 hours after finishing off a win over Japan, Canada’s National Women’s Team gets right back to work at the 2026 IIHF Women’s World Championship as it takes on host Denmark in its penultimate preliminary-round matchup.
Last Game
Canada used a full team effort to improve to 2-0 in Group B, getting goals from nine different players and points from 16 (no one recorded more than two) in a 9-0 win on Sunday. Four defenders found the back of the net—Chloe Primerano (with her first National Women’s Team goal), Erin Ambrose, Kendall Cooper and Sophie Jaques—and Ève Gascon turned aside all 14 shots she faced to record her first win and shutout with the national team.
The Danes found the win column for the first time Saturday night, erasing an early two-goal deficit to beat Japan 3-2 in a shootout. Trailing 2-0 after the first period, Nikita Bergmann got Denmark on the board just 47 seconds into the second and Teresa Christensen tied it with 2:56 left in the third. Frederikke Foss provided the shootout winner in the fifth round in support of goaltender Emma-Sofie Nordström, who made 30 saves in regulation and overtime before turning aside four of five Japanese in the shootout.
Last Meeting
You have to back more than four years to find the last time the Canadians and Danes matched up; playing a pre-tournament game in Rødovre ahead of the 2022 Women’s Worlds, Sarah Fillier and Marie-Philip Poulin made history with the seventh and eighth four-goal games in the annals of Canada’s National Women’s Team as part of a 14-1 win. Fillier added two assists for the first six-point game by a Canadian in more than a decade (and the most recent), one of eight players with multi-point performances.
What to Watch
While any Canadian player could have received Player of Game honours in the well-rounded win over Japan, it was Rosalie Tremblay who got the nod—another feather in the cap for the mature-beyond-her-years 18-year-old. Tremblay has had quite a last 12 months; in November 2025, she captained Quebec to its first-ever gold medal at the U18 Women’s National Championship, taking home the Most Valuable Player award after posting six goals and 10 points in six games. Two months later, she helped Canada to silver at the 2026 IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship with seven points (3-4—7) in six games, and in August she was the youngest member of Canada’s National Women’s Development Team for a three-game series against the U.S., scoring a goal as the Canadians won two of three from the Americans. Now she finds herself in Herning at her first IIHF Women’s World Championship, centring the top line as the youngest to play for Canada at the tournament since Captain Canada herself, Marie-Philip Poulin, at the 2009 Women’s Worlds. Oh, and she hasn’t been too bad as a freshman at the University of Wisconsin, scoring six goals in as many games for the perennial powerhouse Badgers.
We could highlight Nordström here after making a combined 85 saves against Finland and Japan, but the goaltender—a 2026 fifth-round draft pick of PWHL Hamilton who turned 24 last Thursday—could be due a night off with the Danes in action again Tuesday against Sweden. Veteran captain Nicoline Jensen, 34, is playing in her 16th Women’s Worlds across all divisions, Josephine Asperup, also 34, is playing in her 15th (leading all players in average ice time with 30:48 across two games), and Silke Glud, 30, is in her 12th (second among forwards with a 22:47 TOI average), but they are outliers—the youth movement is strong for the hosts. Both regulation-time goal scorers against the Japanese are still teenagers—Bergmann is 18 and Christensen is 17—and five others have yet to reach 20. And as far as Canadian content goes? In addition to Nordstrom, Foss is skating with the University of New Brunswick, Christensen with the Ontario Hockey Academy in the OWHA U22 Elite League and Freya Ekberg with Purcell Hockey Academy in Kimberley, B.C.
A Look Back
The Canadians and Danes have met only twice in international competition. In addition to the 2022 exhibition game mentioned above, you have to go all the way back to the 1992 IIHF World Women’s Championship for the other meeting.
Angela James and Andria Hunter paced the offence with two goals each, Geraldine Heaney had three assists and Manon Rheaume—who is part of the Canadian contingent in Herning as an assistant GM—recorded the shutout in a 10-0 win.
All-time record: Canada leads 2-0 Canada goals: 24 Denmark goals: 1