The 1998 Olympic women's ice hockey tournament was the first year that featured women in ice hockey competition. It was anticipated that the women's gold medal match would feature Canada versus the United States. Canada was favored to come out on top as they had won all the competitions in previous years in women's hockey, with the United States perpetually finishing second, while no other national teams could match their level of play. However, the United States beat Canada in the final and became the first country to win gold in women's ice hockey at the Olympics. Petra Vaarakallio scored the first-ever goal in women's ice hockey at the Olympics in 1998. She had won bronze at the 1992 World Ringette Championships but stopped playing

ringette Ringette is a winter team sport played on an ice rink using ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag-tips, and a blue, rubber, pneumatic ring designed for use on ice surfaces. While the sport was originally created exclusively for female c ...

after receiving a six-month suspension for kicking an opponent who was lying on the ice. There were no qualification tournaments, the host Japan played alongside the top five nations at the previous season's

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

Rosters

Preliminary round

''All times are local ( UTC+9).''

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Final round

Bronze medal game

Gold medal game

Medalists

Final rankings

Statistics

Scoring leaders

List shows the top ten skaters sorted by points, then goals. ''GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/− = P

Plus–minus Plus–minus, ±, +/−, or variants may refer to: * Plus–minus sign (±), a mathematical symbol which can mean either plus (+) or minus (−), or can indicate the uncertainty of a measurement or statistic * Plus–minus (sports), a sport ...

; PIM = Penalties in minutes; POS = Position''
Source
eurohockey.com
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Leading goaltenders

Only the top five goaltenders, based on save percentage, who have played at least 40% of their team's minutes, are included in this list. ''TOI = Time on ice (minutes); GA = Goals against; SA = Shots against; Sv% = Save percentage; SO =

Shutout In team sports, a shutout (North American English, US) or clean sheet (Commonwealth English, UK) is a game in which the losing team fails to score. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketba ...

s''

Broadcasts

Television broadcasts of the women's tournament by

The Sports Network The Sports Network (TSN) is a Canadian English language discretionary sports specialty channel owned by the Sports Network Inc., a subsidiary of CTV Specialty Television, which is also a joint venture of Bell Media (70%), also owned by BCE ...

were produced by Paul Graham.

References

External links

IIHF – 25 years ago, women joined the Olympics

Whockey – Women's Hockey 1998 Winter Olympics

* ttp://www.passionhockey.com/hockeyarchives/mondefem1997.htm – Championats du monde feminins 1997
la84 foundation – Nagano 1998 Official Report (182–187)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ice hockey at the 1998 Winter Olympics - Women's tournament Women's tournament

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

Olympics The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...

Women's ice hockey in Japan