On Thursday 21 March to Saturday 23 March, the currently 4 best women’s teams for seniors will compete in a 4-nation tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden. The event will be held in Ruddalen Indoor Arena during 3 days. Sweden is reigning World Champion and will play Norway, the United States and Finland in a straight series. The Swedish Bandy Federation arranges everything together with the local club SK Höjden in Gothenburg.
The tournament will be important for all four teams as a possibility to extend the national team season and as a good indication for next year’s World Championship.
Of course it will be a big focus on the USA Women’s team coming from overseas for this tournament. The team had a quite unusual preparation on Monday night this week with a rink bandy game at Augsburg Arena in Minneapolis. It was a good training opportunity and a fun and exciting event.
The USWNT, as they call themselves, met the men’s elite club Flying Sparrows. Prior to the start of the match, USWNT coach, Chris Middlebrook instructed the Flying Sparrows team (including several current and former female players) to not go lightly on the women. And they didn’t at all. The ladies scored the first goal of the match, but then the ice became tilted for the duration of the first 25 minutes. But Team USA did not give up. They made corrections in their defensive zone and started playing smarter, overall. The result was many offensive opportunities and quite a few goals for the women’s team. While the Sparrows were ultimately victorious, the women and men ended up tying the second half of the game, 5-5.
The USWNT also got a new set of jerseys, a powder blue made-in-America threads. The USA Women’s team will proudly show them in Sweden!
