Tessa Janecke scored the biggest goal of her career in Ceske Budejovice Sunday night. The Penn State forward scored the golden goal at 17:06 of overtime to lift Team USA to gold at the 2025 IIHF World Championships. USA won the game 4-3 over Canada.
“Games between these two teams are always classics and tonight was no different,” said American head coach John Wroblewski. “We had players up and down the lineup step up for us. It was a team effort I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
After a scoreless opening period, the teams played a torrid two minutes in the second as Caroline Harvey and Abbey Murphy scored only 29 seconds apart. Only 1:47 later however, the game was tied as Danielle Serdachny and Jennifer Gardiner scored for Canada.
In the third, Laura Stacey collided with American goalie Aerin Frankel, who was named the tournament’s best goaltender, forcing her from the game. Gwyneth Philips came in midway through the third and was spectacular.
After Taylor Heise scored to give USA a lead in the third, Sarah Fillier answered back again sending the game to overtime.
In overtime, Philips turned aside 10 shots for Canada making big save after big save. Then, with the puck behind Canada’s net, Janecke forced a turnover off the stick of Jocelyne Larocque which ended up with Heise. Heise found Janecke who made no mistake beating Ann-Renee Desbiens for gold.
Poulin Named MVP
Marie-Philip Poulin led the tournament in scoring with 12 points. She was named tournament MVP for her efforts. Frankel was named Best Goaltender, while Caroline Harvey was named the tournament’s Best Defender.
The tournament All-Star team, as voted by the media, included Klara Peslarova (Czechia), Renata Fast (Canada), Ronja Savolainen (Finland), Poulin (Canada), Kristyna Kaltounkova (Czechia), and Kelly Pannek (USA).
All Eyes Turn To 2026
With USA holding top spot as World Champions, all eyes turn toward the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic Games. Canada and USA will be the heavy favourites to again meet for gold. In 2022, Canada won gold in Beijing. While Canada wasn’t victorious in Czechia, they’ll be using the loss as motivation heading to the Olympics.
“I think any world championship you want to win, but leading up to the Olympics, it’s even more amplified,” said Renata Fast. “It also gives us more motivation and more ways to reflect individually and collectively and figure out what we need to work on so that in 10 months or so we can be on the other side.”
