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Canada's under-18 women's hockey team doesn't expect it to be easy for much longer.
Canada blasted Finland 17-0 Wednesday to improve to 3-0 at the inaugural world women's under-18 hockey championship. All three of their wins have been blowouts, but some tough teams loom ahead in the tournament playoffs.
Canada has a day off to prepare for its semifinal clash against Sweden, which lost 6-2 to the United States to finish second in Pool B with a 2-1 record. The winner will likely face the powerful Americans in Saturday's final.
"It's going to get tougher and tougher," said defenceman Tara Watchorn, who had two goals and two assists and was named Canada's player of the game against Finland. "We know that the Swedes are good. We're going to see them on Friday and maybe even the Americans if we make it.
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"It's going to be good competition from now on in."
Forward Bailey Bram, who also scored twice and set up two others, said Canada will do its utmost to prepare for Sweden on Friday.
"We all know that Sweden's going to come out hard and that they're a good team," Bram said. "They're fast and they're big and they move the puck well. We'll be ready for them. We've been practising hard."
Marie-Philip Poulin notched her second hat trick of the tournament for Canada and added an assist, while Camille Dumais also had a four-point outing with two goals and two assists.
Leslie Oles and Brianne Jenner each scored twice, Laura Fortino scored once and set up four others, Audrey Cournoyer and Jessica Jones each had a goal and two assists and Carolyne Prevost had a goal and a helper for the Canadians.
Natalie Spooner continued her torrid scoring pace with five assists to give her 11 points in three games, second only on Canada to Poulin's 12 points.
Watchorn leads all defencemen in scoring with four goals and four assists.
"I've always kind of been labelled as a offensive defenceman, but I've really been working on my defensive game too," said Watchorn, who had seven family members, including her parents and grandparents, in attendance from her hometown of Newcastle, Ont. "I hope to keep contributing both offensively and defensively just so we can hopefully win that gold medal at the end.
"I've worked so hard for this my whole life. It's just amazing to be here right now. I'm just trying to enjoy the experience."
It's back to the drawing board for Finland, which lost close games to Germany and the Czech Republic before Wednesday's one-sided affair.
"Of course I was disappointed that the difference was so big, but we will learn and we will practice," said Finland's head coach Seppo Karjalainen. "We have goal now. We have seen what kind of game they can play. We have to learn."
Elsewhere, the Czech Republic edged Germany 3-2 thanks to Alena Polenska's second goal of the game with just 0.8 seconds left in regulation. The Czechs will now take on the U.S. in Friday's other semifinal. Russia finished 0-3 in the preliminary round after a 6-2 loss to Switzerland.
Canada built up a 6-0 lead in a first period which saw Finland manage just two shots on net. Canada racked up eight more goals in the second, while the Finns failed to record a shot. Canada scored three times in the third while the Finns enjoyed their best period with four shots on goal.
Despite trailing by such a large margin, Karjalainen was proud of his players for not giving up.
"We wanted to show that we have lion here," Karjalainen said, pointing to his chest. "We wanted to show our spectators here that we have big lion and big heart here and we wanted to let everyone see that we are trying."
Finnish goalie Jenna Juutilainen played the entire game for Finland and stopped 32 of 49 shots she faced. Finland's other goalie Piia Raty suffered a knee injury on the second day of the tournament, but Karjalainen said she could be ready for action again on Friday.
Delayne Brian and Amanda Mazzotta split the netminding duties for Canada with Brian making two saves and Mazzotta stopping four shots.
In the Americans' win over Sweden, Kendall Coyne led the U.S. with two goals and an assist. Brianna Decker also scored twice, while Amanda Kessel, the younger sister of Boston Bruins' forward Phil Kessel, had a goal and two assists.
