Canada vs Sweden at the Women’s Worlds: New-Look Team Canada Opens Today in Denmark

Photo: Wikimedia Commons user Justin, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). File photo from the Canada–US Rivalry Series in 2024, not taken today.

Nine o’clock this morning, Eastern time, the puck drops in Herning, Denmark — a rink most Canadian hockey fans could not find on a map — and Team Canada starts its world championship with a roster that looks nothing like the one that went to the Olympics nine months ago.

Canada opens the 2026 IIHF Women’s World Championship against Sweden at 9 a.m. ET, live on TSN1 and the TSN App. The tournament runs November 6 to 16 in Herning and Esbjerg, and for the first time it is being played in November, moved from its usual April slot so it does not collide with PWHL training camps.

The headline is who is not there. Captain Marie-Philip Poulin, the face of this team for more than a decade, is home recovering from knee surgery. She is not the only absence: Brianne Jenner, Sarah Nurse, Natalie Spooner, Jocelyne Larocque and Blayre Turnbull are all out too, along with goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer.

Video: Hockey Canada — Highlights from Canada’s 5–3 pre-tournament win over the United States, October 28, 2026.

Canada vs Sweden: a new-look roster with seven debuts

Hockey Canada named a 25-player roster on October 19 with seven players making their world championship debuts — Kendall Cooper, Caitlin Kraemer, Rebecca Leslie, Sara Manness, Hayley McDonald, Rosalie Tremblay and Sarah Wozniewicz. Two of them, Tremblay and McDonald, are 18. Leslie, an Ottawa Charge forward, gets her first senior-team shot at 30 after a huge season in the PWHL.

Thirteen players remain from the Olympic team that took silver in Milan in February, and 19 of the 25 play in the PWHL, with six more coming from the NCAA. The crease still belongs to Ann-Renée Desbiens, backed up by Ève Gascon and Kayle Osborne. Up front, Sarah Fillier, Daryl Watts and Emma Maltais carry the scoring load.

The bench has changed as well. General manager Gina Kingsbury and head coach Troy Ryan stepped down in May, and the keys went to Montréal Victoire GM Danièle Sauvageau and head coach Kori Cheverie. This is the first tournament of a brand-new four-year cycle aimed at the 2030 Olympics, and the message from Hockey Canada is blunt: the rebuild starts now.

Who is wearing the letters for Team Canada?

With Poulin out, the captaincy is split. Defenceman Renata Fast and forward Laura Stacey will co-captain the team, with Kristin O’Neill as the alternate. Fast is the only player on this roster who wore a letter at the Olympics. Together, Fast and Stacey bring 261 games of international experience, 81 of them at the world championship — and they will need every bit of it with this many new faces around them.

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Canada Sweden women’s hockey: the warm-ups told two different stories

Canada split its two pre-tournament games against the United States last week, and the two results could hardly have been more different. On October 28, the newcomers announced themselves: Kraemer and Tremblay both scored in a 5–3 win, Sarah Fillier buried the winner with 8:15 left, and Desbiens stopped 23 shots. Three nights later, the Americans answered with a 4–0 shutout, Tessa Janecke and Kirsten Simms scoring on the power play.

So which Canada shows up against Sweden? That is the honest question hanging over this opener. Sweden’s domestic league has been running since September, so the Swedes arrive with game legs Canada is still finding. Canada has beaten Sweden comfortably at past worlds, but this is not the roster that did it.

Women’s Worlds 2026 schedule: Canada’s road through Group B

After Sweden, Canada faces Japan on Sunday, host Denmark on Monday and Finland next Wednesday, all in Herning. The top four in each group reach the quarterfinals on November 13, with the semifinals on November 15 and the gold-medal game on November 16.

One change worth knowing: the IIHF has scrapped the old tiered group format, so Canada and the United States are on opposite sides of the draw for the first time in 15 years — they cannot meet before the final. Canada has won a record 13 world titles and reached every final but one, but it arrives as the reigning silver medallist after losing the 2025 final to the Americans in overtime. Two silvers in ten months — the Olympic final in Milan, then that worlds loss — is exactly the kind of thing that either breaks a team or sharpens it. We find out which one starting at nine this morning.