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One of the best rivalries in sports resumes tonight as the Canadian and U.S. women’s national hockey teams open their 2024-25 Rivalry Series in San Jose, Calif.
The five-game barnstorming tour, designed to showcase the top two teams on the planet in the time between their higher-profile showdowns at the world championships and the Olympics, continues Friday night in Utah and Sunday in Idaho before concluding in February with a pair of games in Atlantic Canada.
The Rivalry Series was created after those 2018 Games to give these teams more opportunities to play each other. The stakes (and the intensity) are obviously much lower than at the Olympics and the world championships, but the series has produced some dramatic moments of its own. In each of the last two years, Canada rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win the final four games and take the series.
PWHL training camps open next week, and the new season starts Nov. 30. Last year, four Rivalry Series games were played before the PWHL’s New Year’s Day launch. But with the season beginning earlier this time, it was less feasible to fit seven Rivalry Series games into the league’s schedule.
For more on the Rivalry Series and how the PWHL is creating new opportunities for Canadian and U.S. players, read this story from the Canadian Press.
