Pierre Alain: The players know if you are nervous

The Canadian team ruled the tournament from beginning to end. During their five games, they scored 36 goals and conceded just one.

"It is our second title; we also won two years ago. I was an assistant back then, but now, I am the head coach. It is always important to win for Canada, it is our main goal. We assume that the players will be well-prepared, will sacrifice for the team and play to win," Alain said after the game with a medal on his chest.

However, the Americans weren’t an easy opponent for his team, especially in the second and third periods, when they dominated the game and created heavy pressure on the Canadian defence, but weren´t able to turn that pressure into goals. The Canadians managed to withstand many American power plays and held their attackers out of the shooting positions. "We have practiced the penalty killing for a long time. Since August, when we held a camp focused on this. You have to work on your specialty teams for such short-duration events like this one. We worked a lot on this," explained Alain.

The team was backstopped by Emerance Maschmeyer in net, who let in only one goal in the tournament. She was unbeatable against the States. The choice of goaltender wasn’t difficult, according to the head coach: “We talked about it yesterday. Until then, we didn’t think about it. We chose Emerance Maschmeyer. She was our choice and she was fantastic."

At what point did the experienced coach definitely believe that Canada would capture the gold medal? "After the first period. I was sure. We played responsibly, we were all in the game. All four lines played well, so I felt good," admitted the coach. According to his words, he wasn’t nervous: "I have been doing this job for 27 years and, in 2002, I learned some things with my team. When you’re nervous, the players will know it. When you’re not, they know it too."

The Canadians and their coaches will come back with gold medals around their necks and great feelings about this whole tournament. "Everything was great: the fans, the hotel, the buses, the people, the team hosts. This is the second time I´ve been to a tournament like this and it was all great this year. It was an honour for me to be a part of it,! confirms the satisfied coach.

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