CALGARY, AB -The Canadian Hockey Association announced on Wednesday the roster for Canada's 2001 National Women's Team that will compete at the IIHF Women's World Hockey Championship April 2-8, 2001 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"We have a great mix of youth and experience, and are looking forward to the challenge of competing in Minneapolis against the top Women's hockey nations in the World," said Gaëtan Robitaille, General Manager of Canada's National Women's High Performance Programs.

Head Coach Danièle Sauvageau, with assistants coaches Melody Davidson and Wally Kozak, named a roster of 20 players comprised of 2 goaltenders, 7 defencemen and 11 forwards.

Canada's roster includes 16 members from last year's team that captured a gold medal at the 2000 Women's Worlds held in Mississauga, ON.

"As a coaching staff, we are excited about the group of players we have assembled for this year's Worlds," said Danièle Sauvageau, Head Coach of Canada's National Women's Team. "The evaluation process over the past seven months gave the coaches the opportunity to use a number of different players from our elite pool and make some difficult decisions in forming this year's roster."

Ten members of Canada's Women's Olympic Hockey team, which captured a silver medal at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, are on this year's World Championship roster. Also, ten players are graduates of Canada's NIKE Under 22 Program, a program designed to better prepare elite women's hockey players for international competition.

Canada has won a gold medal at all six Women's World Hockey Championships (1990, 1992, 1994, 1997, 19). Other nations competing at the Women's World Championship in Minneapolis are: USA, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Kazakstan, China, Japan and Germany.

Canada's 2001 National Women's team will take part in a pre-competition camp from March 26- in Toronto, ON, including exhibition games versus Finland and Germany.

Canada will play Kazakstan in their first game of the World Championship on April 2, 2001.