The Washington Capitals recently announced they were partnering with the U.S. Women’s National Ball Hockey Team. Specifically, they are sponsoring the team’s final evaluation camp before the World Championships next June in Switzerland. With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to take a (data viz-centric, naturally) based look at the last Women’s Ball Hockey World Championship, to see what the competition looked like then in anticipation for next year.
The last Women’s Ball Hockey World Championship took place June 21-27, 2022 in Laval, Québec, Canada. Six countries competed: Canada, Czechia, Great Britain, Lebanon, Slovakia, and the United States. The group stages consisted of a full round-robin; the teams with the fewest points (Great Britain in 5th and Lebanon last) competed in a match for 5th place while the top four advanced to the semifinals. The top seeded teams from the group stages, Canada (first seed) and Czechia (second seed) won their semifinal matches against Slovakia (fourth seed) and the USA (third seed) respectively. Slovakia upset USA for the bronze medal, while Canada triumphed against Czechia for the gold medal.
If you ever have questions about understanding/interpreting these data visualizations, check out my data viz reference.
Canada
Canada was a goal-scoring powerhouse, scoring over a third of the goals scored at the tournament and boasting 5 of the top 10 points scorers at the tournament. They were led by Carol-Ann Upshall, who scored 19 points (7 more than the next highest point scorer on any team) and was named Most Valuable Player of the tournament. Their only loss of the tournament came in their group stage game against Czechia, where a 3-3 draw after regulation and overtime ended in a shootout loss.
Czechia
Lucie Manhartová continued her excellence at Women’s Ball Hockey World Championships, leading Czechia with 12 goal involvements and being named Best Forward of the tournament, following up on her selections to the All Star Team in the 2017 and 2019 iterations of the tournament. These goal involvements included a hat trick against Great Britain, and being involved in both goals in Czechia’s 2-3 loss to Canada in the gold medal game.
Slovakia
A little over six months before she became an international superstar with her performance (and lacrosse goal) at the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship, Nela Lopušanová was dominating in ball hockey as well. She led Slovakia’s point scoring with 10 goal involvements, and was involved with both goals in the 2-0 win over the USA in the bronze medal game.
USA
Sarah Hughson led the way for the USA in terms of goal involvements with 7. She picked up a hat trick in their group stage game against Great Britain and was named to the tournament’s All Star Team. However, the scoring was perhaps front-loaded in the tournament, as they failed to score in their last three games. USA ended up losing 0-1 to Czechia in their final group game, 0-6 to Czechia again in the semifinals, and 0-2 to Slovakia in the bronze medal game.
Great Britain
Great Britain scored 14 goals throughout the tournament, but 12 of them came against last place Lebanon – six in their group stage game and six in the fifth place match. Stephanie Towns was particularly dominant, scoring a brace in both games to lead Great Britain with eight goal involvements.
Lebanon
Lebanon struggled during the tournament, failing to win a single game. Britni Yammine was the main driver of goals, being involved with three of the four goals Lebanon scored.
