IIHF Women’s World Championship: 2023 Group A Preview, Projected Gold Medal Favorite, and Team USA Predictions

The terms “pandemic” and “COVID-19” will – thank goodness – be in use far less often when the IIHF’s next big event faces-off in Canada, 2023’s IIHF Women’s World Championship beginning this Wednesday, April 5th. Though that doesn’t mean the after-effects of 2020 and 2021’s disruptions (and 2023’s grim politics) aren’t still glaringly evident in the ice hockey federation’s calendar.

The Women’s World Championships, like the men’s “World Championships” which occur almost every spring, are pluralized in brand-name due to the promotion-and-relegation divisions in which the IIHF’s lower-ranked nations compete, hoping to win enough times in a row to promote and get a crack at the elite Worlds. Understandably, many of the lower-division tournaments were cancelled or postponed during the COVID era of international pond shinny. But while the IIHF men’s divisions have set about competing on a standard schedule again, women’s hockey nations are still being forced to participate in reverse, with the elite tournament of 10 top-ranked teams coming before 90% of the divisional Q-events of the cycle.

Nobody complained about that in 2021, given the circumstances. But given that it’s years after the pandemic now, you’re compelled to wonder why the IIHF can’t figure out how to put the preliminary rasslin’ on first and “Thunder Rosa vs Britt Baker D.M.D.” on last, like any competent sports promotion does. The specter of “Division 1” ice hockey following a World Championship event is as anticlimactic as if the NCAA held its 6-round championship hoops tournament in early March, then put the “First Four” on TV in April, with the winners to qualify for the next season’s NCAA Tournament instead of this year’s Round of 64.

Update: As of press time, the IIHF has surprised by getting a handful of Division 2 and Division 3 women’s events completed prior to the big-shots facing off, though women’s Division 1 remains a morass of delays and awkward timing.

Maybe the IIHF is weary from its number of women’s hockey scandals endured over the past 6 years. USA Hockey brought extra attention to the 2017 Women’s World Championship for all the wrong reasons, nearly inspiring an all-gender boycott of the Worlds from each U.S. national team by treating the USWNHT like scrubs from Division 2, then inviting rank amateurs to replace Hilary Knight’s legendary gold-medal squad at the Women’s Worlds that year. It was a nightmare that may have become reality if all USA Hockey player-representatives didn’t join to force the sketchy, regressive federation’s hand by threatening the boycott.

The United States team was involved in the IIHF’s next major malfunction too, though not under such ugly circumstances. The 2019 Women’s World Championship gold medal game between host Finland and the U.S. women’s team might have marked a hinge point at which Europe’s cool-headed defense and teamwork finally became a real match for the speed and sniping of North American women’s teams. Finland held the score 1-1 well into overtime in front of the seminal distaff goaltender Noora Räty, then appeared to snap the tie and win a groundbreaking world championship for the Lionesses…and all of the continent.

Any women’s ice hockey fan who’s been around for at least a few years knows exactly what happened next. This promotional tweet from the 2021 WWC gives an excellent rundown:

With the Women’s World Championships just 1️⃣1️⃣ days away,@juliatocheri takes a look at Canada’s first opponent.

Nobody will want a win more than Finland, who tasted golden glory for the first time ever – only to have their overtime goal overturned. 😳 pic.twitter.com/lSSNTO33bJ

— BarDown (@BarDown) August 9, 2021

The above video’s caption is half-sad and half-ironic, since the answer is yes – considering that a mysterious, cis-male VAR official totally disallowed a goal scored (and awarded) by women that would’ve changed the sport forever – it does get a whole lot more “fairy tale” than that.

WagerBop’s biggest problem with 2019’s fiasco wasn’t that a golden goal was overturned by VAR. Video replay is widely used in international soccer matches, and almost everyone in soccer accepts the “forensic” determinations of VAR, even in a sport that inspires riots and assassinations. The lasting stain of Finland ’19 is that the IIHF’s dodgy communication skills left players, fans, and coaches in Helsinki confused as to why the gold medal ceremony was being held up at all. Perhaps the Lionesses wouldn’t have flung-off their helmets and gear, then plunged into a celebratory love-in near center ice, if they knew a VAR system would be double checking the would-be golden goal. Telling a happy, triumphant, exhausted roster that their championship didn’t count, and that they had to go do it all over again, was the definition of unfair.

Following the era of COVID-19 cancellations, Team Finland – and IIHF women’s hockey outside of North America – fell victim to another ill-timed episode. Räty’s national team coaches began feuding with the world’s best female goalie in true “Slap Shot” fashion in the early 2020s, with former HC Pasi Mustonen threatening to bench his own linchpin if she stayed on for the Winter Olympics after missing 2021’s IIHF Women’s Worlds due to an injury. Mustonen was Suomi-sacked during the Olympics, but it was too late. Frustrated with the U.S. immigration system and unsatisfied with 2 seasons toiling for Kunlun Red Star, Räty announced her retirement from international hockey in 2022. What makes the Finnish federation’s clear willingness to move on from Noora so strange is that there’s no young goaltender in the Lady Lions’ depth chart who’s even shown to boast Räty’s ceiling of performance, let alone her iconic consistency.

Finally, the IIHF’s politically unavoidable ban of Team Russia during the Ukraine War takes the 4th-best women’s team in the world out of the WWC ranks for 2023. At a time when women’s medal-round games are outpacing the NHL in TV ratings, the distaff World Championship can scarcely afford to go back to a time when all available European foes played for miracle 0-0 draws against the North American skaters, while Team USA and Team Canada plowed toward the WWC gold-medal game with equally skilled lines.

It’s potentially worse for a sporting event to have 2 practically identical co-favorites lead the way than to boast a single superior team in the bracket. WWC round-robins of the past have become a finger-tapping exercise while everyone waits for an “intramural” finale fought between Canada and the United States. (Western Europe’s prior mastery over Russia and Japan used to make IIHF bronze medal chases low-key too.)

But happily – at least if you’re a Hockey Canada supporter – that’s not quite the case in 2023. This spring, there’s definitely a single stand-alone favorite to win gold at the IIHF Women’s Worlds.

There’s a big, fat underdog in the mix as well, a team that might just draw some heavy “‘dog” betting action to beat the Canadians in April. Not too much is known about this underdog, but we hear that its colors are Red, White, and Blue.

IIHF Women’s World Championship: Projected Team USA Odds and Medal Favorites

Men’s senior IIHF World Championship odds have appeared at sportsbooks before even a hint of the women’s odds can show up this season, even though the men’s tournament has been wisely moved back to late May, when only 2-to-4 of the NHL’s rosters are left unavailable to pluck skaters from.

Yes, what you read about TV ratings in the above section is accurate. A total of 60+ million Americans (and over 300 million North Americans) watched Canada beat the United States in the women’s gold medal game from Beijing, marking our women’s domestic squads as a more-popular watch than A) the NHL and B) the crummy half-baked men’s rosters at recent Winter Olympics (thanks to the NHL). Broadcasts, replays, and highlights from the women’s finale in China were ultimately viewed by as many as 3 billion people around the globe, numbers that would make commissioner Gary Bettman fall to his knees and convert to Quakerism if an NHL playoff game came close to producing them. Yet bookmakers are still convinced it’s more worthwhile to post betting markets on an oft-overlooked men’s IIHF tournament in May 2023, as opposed to a best-on-best women’s gala that faces off on NHL Network on the first Wednesday of April.

It’s a bummer for those of us who prefer to cover women’s hockey a lot of the time, since even a handshake deal with a sportsbook doesn’t give you rights to blog about markets that don’t exist until zero hour. I tried to convey my frustration in a recent tweet to a colleague, set to the tune of “Half a Person” by The Smiths:

I booked myself in at the I
Double-I H F
I said the women's games are best on best
The women's games are best on best
And do you have a vacancy
For a beat writer
Oh, oh, oh

— Kurt Boyer (@KurtBoyer7) January 28, 2023

There’s a dose of sexism at play for sure. A men’s tournament with a TV fanbase of 300-million strong wouldn’t get passed-over by North American sports betting sites. No circumstances would prevent Bovada Sportsbook, Paddy Power or another  “international” odds-maker from putting out futures-odds on Sidney Crosby vs Elias Pettersson for a world hockey clash, even if UFC’s Conor McGregor was slated to handicap-brawl with Jake Paul and Butterbean on the same night.

WagerBop can only protest that our friends at FanDuel and elsewhere – about whom we know just enough to be dangerous – have a single, sneaky alibi as to why the men’s IIHF odds are more interesting to gamers than week-advance WWC odds would be.

We already know who’s taking the pond for Team USA, Team Canada, and 8 other squads in Brampton next week. Speculators can save their pennies while fans keep the pennants warm, because Kendall Coyne-Schofield and her usual All-Star cast (with a few changing faces) is going to skate for the USA in April. In fact, the rosters at this year’s Women’s Worlds can be 95% gleaned from last year’s delayed WCC played in September.

The same cannot be said for the Men’s IIHF Worlds, as usual, as the NHL’s most likely Stanley Cup contenders’ rosters must be counted out of any national team’s plans for the event. It creates a sort of poker-hand strategy for those making an IIHF gold-medal pick before the end of the regular season, since the NHL players who don’t appear in the playoffs at all comprise the surest talent pool for Worlds teams to pick from.

Right now, for instance, Sweden looks like a fabulous men’s pick at 5-to-1 odds, considering how the NHL standings are shaking out. But if the Nashville Predators make a surprise playoff run, that will change, along with the betting odds on the 2023 men’s Worlds. By contrast, it doesn’t matter if the Boston Pride wins a championship in a given season, at least vis-a-vis how the IIHF women’s squad is going to look, anyway. Boston forward Becca Gilmore will be available to skate for USA Hockey throughout 2023. Many of the USWNHT’s skaters are now playing internationally full-time on sponsorship deals. The Canadian women’s team is not only in a similar sunny place from a roster-building standpoint, but full of momentum and fresh gold bling.

The 2-team domination of WWC medals creates a more stable, stationary quality to the betting odds than found near the top of the men’s division. Though what can be so  “stationary” in game-forecasts when Canada has begun whooping the Yanks at every turn? Team Canada, led by veterans like Natalie Spooner, Sarah Nurse, and the seemingly ageless sniper Marie Philip-Poulin, beat the United States women for gold medals at the 2021 and 2022 World Championships.

But those games were closely-fought between benches and on the scoreboard. It was the 2022 Winter Olympics that re-established Canada as an annual gold medal favorite, and which could relegate USA to 2/1 World Championship odds.

Why Canada Will Be Favored to Win WWC Gold in 2023

We can’t be too hard on the USWNHT for losing its 2nd out of 3 consecutive North American showdowns in February ’22. The vaunted U.S. team was coming apart at the seams, or at least at all spokes of the age-spectrum. Hilary Knight’s shorthanded goal in USA’s gold-medal game defeat was her last in the Winter Games, as the veteran begins retirement. But the squad’s superstar in her prime, Brianna Decker, fell with a grotesque injury during the Beijing Games.

Last but not least, the club’s goaltending corps let Stars & Stripes down against Canada, first when the upstart Maddie Rooney allowed 3 goals in under 8 minutes to blow a mid-game lead in the round robin, then when veteran Alex Cavallini floundered in a gold medal match that wasn’t as close as “3-2” implies.

As negative for Team USA as the shaky mid-game goaltending was Kendall Coyne Schofield just vanishing as a point-scoring threat in the medal round. Coyne Schofield remains the swiftest skater in all of women’s hockey (among those with elite IIHF qualifications, anyway) but in Beijing, she was reduced to being “that pro tryout kid” at your local pick-up game who skates for the inferior side, circling and wheeling around perimeters but never spurring their forward-line to get the opposing GK in trouble.

Hearteningly for the Stars & Stripes in 2023, the United States skaters scored a trio of wins over Canada at this year’s Rivalry Series, though in trademark style, the Habs rallied to win the final 4 games and procure a 4-3 victory in the exhibition series.

Nela Lopusanova’s amazing junior IIHF season for Slovakia underscores that Team USA could use a youth movement. As of the Rivalry Series in February, the USWNHT didn’t ice a single skater under 24 years old. That’s pretty ancient in women’s hockey terms, considering the handful of 30-somethings still in the mix.

The upside is that if the Yanks do regain their form sometime between now and the next Winter Olympics in Italy, winning scores over Canada should come immediately and decisively. The “2-to-1 underdog” U.S. squad has earned way too many gold medals, collectively and individually, to do anything but take a kill-shot if the Habs falter.

Update #2: The USA roster for the Women’s Worlds just unveiled today does include some NCAA talent making the trip to Brampton. That shows that skipper John Wroblewski and the USWNHT recognizes its problems at the very least, something which USA Hockey as a rule is legendarily bad at. 

Team USA will meet Canada in an April 10th round-robin game after opening the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship against Japan, Switzerland, and Czechia.

Finland’s temporary low ranking could lead to tasty futures odds on Suomi to win a bronze medal in 2023, an honor that the Finns should still be favored to vie for in spite of the largely pedagogical task of advancing from Group B.

Look for Switzerland and Japan to become 2 key bronze-medal nemesis for Finland and/or Sweden to have to deal with, especially if either can avoid NA in the quarters.

Group A at the 2023 Women’s Worlds: Prediction Tips and Notable Dates

WagerBop is thrilled to report the round-robin promotion of Team Japan, a women’s squad that won our first 2022 Winter Olympics prediction as a gambling underdog, on route to a banner tournament (for our women’s hockey blog, and for Smile Japan as well).

Japan’s distaff squad may appear included in the IIHF’s “higher” division Group A instead of the 2023 Women’s World Championship “play-in” round-robin of Group B due only to the suspension of Russia’s “Pink Machine.” However, the truth is that Smile Japan has been rising in the IIHF and Olympic ranks for decades.

For instance, just look at Finland and Sweden toiling in Group B this season. Even with Finland’s goaltending taking a big hit, passing up those 2 countries has been no easy picnic for Japan, due to the nation’s enduring weakness on women’s ice.

Having lost to Switzerland 2-1 in the quarterfinals last year, the underwhelmingly sized Japanese team can still be a frustrating pick due to its challenge to score goals. It’s not a great idea to pick Smile Japan (against-the-spread or otherwise) on this coming Wednesday, considering that the team opens up against Team USA. The United States team defeated Japan 10-0 at the last Women’s World Championship. But the upstarts remain quietly effective in everything but fast-break offense and high-slot sniping against WWC nations ranked 3-thru-10.

We think that Japan’s goal-scoring numbers will naturally improve as the squad keeps the puck in the opposing zone against Group A teams more often. Too many prognosticators look at tiny skaters like 4’10” Remi Koyama of the Seibu Princess Rabbits and think the Japanese will never get anywhere. But to paraphrase a quote from Godfather III, you would do well to remember (Mr. Luchessi) that women’s hockey isn’t just hockey played by women. It’s a whole different sport with different rules, and muscular slap-shots (or brutal crash-scrambles in the crease) aren’t the main tool utilized by women’s teams trying to score. The most crucial knack in women’s hockey goaltending remains handling rebounds well so that players experienced in “ringette” plays near the net can’t capitalize with a tic-tac-toe. That’s why the USA and Canada remain impervious to the defensively stout Finns and Japanese as of 2023 … but it’s why 5 other teams are vulnerable.

Japan can easily beat Czechia in a low-scoring game on April 6th, if coach Yuji Iizuka is wise enough to let the team play a loose game against the United States that doesn’t injure or fatigue a delicate lineup as of the previous day in Brampton. The squad’s main goal in Group A should be to finish 4th or better (aka above the group’s cellar) and hopefully avoid meeting Suomi in the quarter-final round on April 13th, since Finland (and potentially Sweden) will rack up as many blow-out victories over the Group B nations as the United States and Canada will flourish-as-usual vs Group A.

Remember that all 5 Group A teams will qualify for the medal round, with only 3 Group B qualifiers making it in, making the Group B schedule a little bit higher-pressure in theme. WagerBop likes Hungary, the home country of generational Team Canada goaltender Shannon Szabados, to reach the quarter-finals against USA or Canada on 4/13.

United States Women’s Team Outlook and WWC Medal Prediction

Wagering the most decorated IIHF team of the last 5-10 years at 2-to-1 betting odds is certainly a freak scenario that readers can take advantage of as it occurs. We aren’t sure, though, that 2023 will be the year the Yanks begin conquering the Habs again.

The special advantages that the USA will have in preparation this April will be just as gainful for Canada too. The favorites will figure-skate through a Group A schedule that doesn’t include Finland or Russia on it, the Habs’ 2 most dangerous opponents in a typical WWC outside of Team USA. The Canadians’ great goalkeeping and blue line corps will ensure that even U.S. snipers have an uphill battle. However the tournament’s marquee Group A contest goes on 4/10, it’s hard to imagine Team Canada surrendering its ample momentum on home ice when the medal round comes around, and the ’23 World Championship’s almost inexorable GMG on 4/16.

It’ll be time to pick the United States to win gold again as soon as Team Canada shows a weakness as marked as the USA’s goaltending and checking effort in Beijing…or after the next teenage phenom tallies a goal or 2 for Stars & Stripes in the Rivalry Series.