Canadian women clip U.S. in worlds final preview

Canada held on to defeat the United States 2-1 on Friday in a preview of this weekend's gold-medal game at the women's world hockey championships in Hameenlinna, Finland.

Jennifer Botterill — on the power play — and Caroline Ouellette scored in the second period for Canada (4-0).

Jayna Hefford assisted on both goals to become just the third Canadian player to reach 200 helpers in international competition. Hayley Wickenheiser and Danielle Goyette are the others.

Charline Labonte made 11 saves for her first win since the opening game of the tournament. Kim St-Pierre recorded shutouts in Canada's two other contests.

Canadian coach Melody Davidson is undecided as to who would start in net for Canada in Sunday's gold-medal game against the Americans.

"It's incredibly hard," Davidson said. "Charline played well enough to play on Sunday. Kim played well enough in those other two games to be able to play and I could probably throw Shannon (Szabados) in there and she'd be outstanding as well.

"It'll probably just come down to a gut feeling because how do you choose?"

Monique Lamoureux scored for the U.S. with 1:58 left in the third period, but the Americans couldn't get the equalizer as they pressed in the final two minutes.

Molly Schaus stopped 25 shots for the U.S. (3-1).

The match was essentially meaningless as the archrivals were already guaranteed to meet Sunday in the final for the 12th consecutive time.

But don't try telling that to the players

"I don't think there's such a game that doesn't mean anything when we play them," Ouellette said. "This is why we train and why we play for Canada, to play in those games, in the greatest games.

"It's important to enjoy tonight, but tomorrow back to business because they're going to be better the next game."

Canada is 9-2 against the U.S. in world championship gold-medal games, but the Americans won last year's showdown in Harbin, China.

Coming into Friday's matchup, Canada and the U.S. had outscored their opponents by a combined 51-1.

Sweden, which beat Russia 8-0 on Friday, will meet Finland for the bronze medal Sunday.