With 2023 being the 25-year anniversary of women’s ice hockey making its Olympic debut, I thought it would be fun to look back at the tournament with some data viz! Specifically, my sunburst goal involvement viz, which you can learn more about how to interpret in my viz reference.
The tournament featured six teams: Canada, China, Finland, Japan, Sweden, and the United States. A full round-robin was played for the preliminary rounds, and the top four teams — in order: USA, Canada, Finland, and China — advanced to the medal rounds, with Finland beating China 4-1 for the bronze medal and the United States beating Canada 3-1 for the gold.
United States
The ultimate gold medalists, the United States, had a clean sweep of the round-robin, including a 7-4 victory over Canada where they scored six goals straight in that last 13 minutes of the game. They also scored the most goals in the tournament with 36. The goal involvements were well-distributed across the team, with four players — Karyn Bye, Cammi Granato, Katie King, and Gretchen Ulion — all having eight points.
Canada
Canada started off their Olympic with a dominating 13-0 win over Japan, but ultimately lost their last two games, both against the United States, and took home the silver medal. They were led by Danielle Goyette, who scored nine points, eight of which were goals — the most goals scored by a player at the tournament.
Finland
Petra Vaarakallio scored the first goal of the tournament, and in women’s ice hockey Olympic history by extension, during Finland’s 6-0 win over Sweden. Finland then secured third place in the preliminaries and the bronze medal game, only dropping games to the ultimate gold and silver medalists USA and Canada. Riikka Nieminen scored 12 points throughout the tournament — three more than the next highest player.
China
China got to the medal round by beating Sweden 3-1 and Japan 6-1, with the latter game featuring a hat trick by Wei Guo. Xiuqing Yang, tied for the most points on the team during the tournament with Hongmei Liu at five, opened the scoring in the bronze medal game with an unassisted goal, but China ultimately fell short of securing a medal.
Sweden
Sweden’s goal scoring at the tournament was led by youth. Sweden’s top point scorer with five points was 18-year-old Erika Holst, who had two goals against Japan in what would be Sweden’s only win in the tournament. Sweden’s next top point scorers, tied with three points each, were 18-year-old Maria Rooth and 16-year-old Therése Sjölander.
Japan
Host nation Japan didn’t manage to win any games during the tournament but scored two goals – one against Finland scored by Akiko Hatanaka and one against China scored by Masako Sato. Both goals were on the power play, with all goal involvements on the two goals coming from different players.
