USA Wins Women’s Hockey World Championship 2025 After OT Battle With Canada

The Women’s Hockey World Championship on Sunday marked the start of another exciting chapter in the U.S.-Canada women’s hockey rivalry.

Team USA defeated Canada 4-3 in the 2025 championship final, with Tessa Janecke scoring an overtime goal to bring the trophy home to the United States.

Janecke scored a close-range goal with less than three minutes left in the first period of overtime after getting to the puck before goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens. She then skated off and threw her stick in the air to celebrate.

“I saw a turnover and went to the net, hoping to put it in,” Janecke told TSN. “There’s nothing like it… It was just so much fun.”

The rivals have met in six of seven Olympic finals and competed for gold at 23 of 24 hockey world championships, including the gold-medal match last year, which Canada won 6-5 in overtime.

It was the United States’ 11th crown, and they are getting close to Canada’s 13. When Team USA hosted the tournament, they got sweet revenge for losing the previous year, and they set a precedent in the Arena Ceske Budejovice in preparation for the Olympics the following year.

“Just shows how strong we are as a group and how much we can persevere through anything. I wouldn’t want to do it with any other group,” Janecke added.

Following a scoreless first quarter, the U.S. took a 2-0 lead with goals from Caroline Harvey and Abbey Murphy in quick succession before Canada tied the game with four goals in two minutes and sixteen seconds.

After she seemed to lose a cell phone on the ice during her team’s victory over Germany in the quarterfinals, Harvey mimed holding a phone to her ear to celebrate the opening goal.

Jennifer Gardiner scored her sixth goal in her debut world championships, and Danielle Serdachny blasted through traffic to get one back, but Canada missed two power plays immediately after.

However, the United States capitalized on a power play early in the third period and, with a 5-on-3 advantage, took the lead once more through Taylor Heise.

Sarah Fillier jumped on a stray puck to equalize with less than six minutes left, sending the game into sudden-death OT after Canada rebounded from the sucker punch and scored another penalty.

In the longest game in women’s world history, Janecke scored the game-winning goal off Heise’s pass after Gwyneth Philips made some vital stops in overtime. The U.S. lost their first-choice goalie, Aerin Frankel, to injury in the third period.

“That was a great pass by Heise, so that was awesome,” Janecke stated.

Earlier, after the Czech Republic had led 2-0 at the end of the first session, Finland defeated them 4-3 in overtime to earn their 15th bronze medal in the competition.

With 122,331 participants, the tournament was a huge success in the Czech Republic, surpassing the previous record of 119,231 set in Winnipeg, Canada, in 2007.