With a roster speckled red and white, Italy's victory in women's hockey is Canada's too

Chris Jones reports from Milan.

It was Italy’s victory. It was Canada’s, too.

The Italian women’s hockey team, Olympic qualifiers only as hosts, beat Japan 3-2 on a thrilling Monday morning in Milan, earning them an improbable quarterfinal appearance.

As the final anxious seconds ticked away, Daniele Sauvageau, the team’s Canadian general manager, looked at 35-year-old Laura Fortino, a gold-medal winner with Canada in 2014 who now wears Italian blue, both with tears in their eyes.

For the 63-year-old Sauvageau, a Hockey Hall of Fame coach and builder and the general manager of the PWHL’s Montreal Victoire, it was the purest form of celebration, the culmination of another grand adventure in the game she loves.

Three years ago, Sauvageau was approached by the Italian Ice Sports Federation to build a competitive team out of limited parts: There are fewer than 500 women registered to play in Italy, and Milan didn’t have an ice rink. The Italians appeared in one previous Olympics, in Torino in 2006, when they lost 16-0 to Canada and finished eighth. 

Italy defeats Japan to advance to their 1st Olympic women's hockey quarterfinals

Sauvageau took the job and began scouring the world and her hockey memories for possible talent. She began a list of names and realized that she might be able to make a decent team. “I thought, 'These players have more potential than anyone might believe,'” she said.

One of her first calls was to Fortino, who was playing with Team Harvey’s on the PWHPA's Dream Gap Tour circuit, having played her last game for Canada in 2019. To qualify to play for Italy, Fortino would have to spend two seasons in the Italian domestic league. She decided to go for it, moving first to Bozen, and then to Caldaro.

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