FÜSSEN, GERMANY – Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team will play for the gold medal at the 2009 IIHF World Women’s Under-18 Championship after a 6-1 victory over Sweden in Friday’s semifinals. Canada will face the United States in Saturday’s gold medal game (11:30 a.m. EST/8:30 a.m. PST).

Saturday’s game will not be broadcast, but will be updated live at hockeycanada.ca.

“Our ultimate goal was to reach the gold medal game and we accomplished that,” said Canadian head coach Stephanie White. “Every game we have improved and our goal will be to be to play our best game of the tournament tomorrow.”

On Friday, Melodie Daoust (Valleyfield, QC/Sélects, Midget AA) had a hat trick and added an assist as Canada defeated Sweden in the semifinals for the second year in a row. Laurie Kingsbury (Valleyfield, QC/Sélects, Midget AA), Jamie Lee Rattray (Kanata, ON/Ottawa, PWHL) and Brittany Phillips (Lauder, MB/Westman, Midget AA) also scored for the Canadians, who scored six unanswered goals in the final 32 minutes after the Swedes had opened the scoring. Cassie Seguin (Ingleside, ON/Ottawa, PWHL) made 21 saves to record the win in goal.

“We played really hard tonight and we’re going to continue this momentum right into the gold medal game,” said Rattray.

Canada will be looking for its first-ever gold medal at the IIHF World Women’s Under-18 Championship. It lost 5-2 to the United States in the gold medal game of the inaugural world championship in Calgary, AB in January 2008.

Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team includes two goaltenders, six defencemen and 12 forwards. Eighteen of the 20 players were members of Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team for a three-game series against the United States in August in Lake Placid, NY, and all 20 participated in the 2008 National Women’s Under-18 Championship in Napanee, ON, including six members of Team Ontario Red, which captured its fifth consecutive gold medal.

The National Women’s Under-18 Team is a key component of Hockey Canada’s Program of Excellence, which, along with the under-22 program, helps identify, evaluate and develop female hockey players for Canada’s National Women’s Team.