US-Canada women's Olympic hockey rivalry set to resume in group stages

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The last thing Cammi Granato and her U.S. women’s hockey teammates needed to see after a 10-hour bus ride through the Maritimes was arriving at their hotel and finding the Canadians staying at the same place.

It was bad enough the two heated rivals had to confront each other on ice. In those early days — the late 1990s and 2000s — of what’s developed into one of the world’s fiercest rivalries, the two sides were ready to drop their gloves when and where ever.

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"We’d have like a four-game tour through say, Nova Scotia, and you’re on the bus and get to the hotel, same hotel as Canada, and we just played them the night before," Granato recalled. "The elevator door opens and there’s five Canadians in it, and they’re looking at you like `You’re not getting on this elevator. And if you do, you’re not going to be very happy.'"

Granato, the first women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and captain of the first women’s team to win a hockey gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, laughs at the memory now. And yet, hate is not too strong of a word to describe the steam-hot grudge the two teams had developed for each other.

"Oh, it was real. It was a real hate," Granato said. "That’s the team that is always standing in your way of what you want."

Gold has always been the goal, with the next chapter of U.S. versus Canada beginning Tuesday when they meet in a Group A preliminary round game at the Beijing Olympics.

Canada players gather together before a preliminary round women's hockey game against Finland at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022, in Beijing.  (AP Photo/Petr Josek)

The Americans enter the