Blanked by Britain, Canadian field hockey women in tough at Olympic qualifier

Canadian goalkeeper Rowan Harris shone in a losing cause Saturday as the Canadian women’s field hockey team fell 2-0 to Britain in its opening match at the FIH Olympic Qualifier tournament.

The British women have won medals at the last three Olympics, earning bronze in London and Tokyo and gold in Rio.

The 16th-ranked Canadians in contrast, have sat out the last seven Olympics, last taking part in 1992 in Barcelona where they finished seventh. They were fifth in 1984 and sixth in 1988.

The top three finishers at the eight-country tournament in Spain will book their ticket to Paris this summer. There is a simultaneous eight-team women’s tournament in India with the identical format and qualification path.

Canada is in a pool with Great Britain (7th), Spain (8th) and Malaysia (18th). Like their male counterparts, the Canadian women have to beat two of the three teams in their pool to advance to the semifinals. 

Then they’ll have to win one of their last two games to qualify for Paris.

The 17th-ranked Canadian men start their qualifier on Monday in Oman.

Saturday’s game was a reunion of sort for Canada coach Danny Kerry, who previously coached both England and Britain, and assistant coach Kate Richardson-Walsh, a former Britain captain.

Tessa Howard, in the 18th minute, and Anna Toman, in the 36th, scored for Britain. No. 8 Spain blanked No. 18 Malaysia 7-0 in the earlier Pool B game.

Howard beat Harris via penalty stroke with the second goal coming on a penalty corner shot that deflected through defenders.

‘Lots we can work on’

Harris faced more than 10 quality chances and 11 penalty corner attempts.

“I’m really proud with how the team showed up today,” said Canada captain Nat Sourisseau. “Great Britain is an incredible team, multiple Olympic medallists.

“I think we showed up and surprised ourselves with what we can do. Yes there’s lots we can work on and learnings we can bring forward, but we can feel happy with what we put out there today.”

While Britain is unranked by the International Hockey Federation (FIH), England is seventh, Scotland 17th and Wales 26th.

Canada faces Malaysia on Sunday.

Pool A is made up of No. 4 Belgium, No. 12 South Korea, No. 13 Ireland and No. 28 Ukraine.

The Canadian women booked their ticket to Valencia in November by finishing fourth at the Pan American Games in Santiago. Canada lost 3-0 to eventual champion Argentina in the semifinal and 2-0 to Chile in the bronze-medal game.

The Pan Am Games title earned No. 3 Argentina direct qualification to the Paris Olympics.

The Canadian women missed out on the Tokyo games after losing 4-3 to Ireland in a 2019 penalty shootout after the two-legged series ended knotted at 0-0.