For Noora Raty, a continental divide is the difference between bronze and gold

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — When Noora Raty sprawled facedown on the ice Monday afternoon at Gangnung Hockey Centre, she clearly lamented the goal she had just allowed even though there was no shame in allowing it. This is the state of women’s hockey for the rest of the world, those who don’t wear the maple leaf of Canada or the stars and stripes of the United States. And it’s a shame.

Raty might be the best female goaltender in the world, though anyone who looked only at the scoresheet from the United States’ 5-0 drubbing of her Finland squad in the Olympic semifinal wouldn’t know it. She faced 157 shots in five games in these PyeongChang Games. Her prone position after the third U.S. goal might not have been frustration. It might have been pure exhaustion.

“As a goalie, you want to face a lot of shots,” Raty said, “and that’s what I’ve been getting.”

This is life on the outside of the Canada-U.S. women’s hockey axis, and it looks demoralizing. Canada faced the Olympic Athletes from Russia in a semifinal late Monday, so the U.S. had to wait to see . . .

Source :- washingtonpost