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Unique playoff format at women's tournament
By KIRK PENTON, SUN MEDIA

The World Women's Hockey Championship isn't run like your average international tournament, so here's a quick look at the format from here on in:

- Only three teams -- Canada, the U.S. and Finland -- are eligible to win the gold medal because they all finished first in their pool.

They will all play each other in a round robin pool format. The teams with the two best records -- most likely Canada and the U.S. -- will meet in Tuesday's gold-medal match.

- The three second-place finishers in each pool will play a round robin as well. The team with the best record after that will meet the third-place finisher from the top-tier pool -- likely to be Finland -- in Tuesday's bronze-medal game.

- The three third-place finishers in each pool will also play their own round robin, and the team with the worst record at the end of that will be relegated to the second tier of international women's hockey, which is known as Division 1.

STILL PROUD: Defenceman Gillian Ferrari and her teammates were still talking about the standing ovation Germany netminder Viona Harrer got after her stellar performance in its 8-0 loss to Canada on Thursday night.

"Like Delaney (Collins) said, that moment made me feel proud to be Canadian," Ferrari said. "People on our team were in tears. They really were. That was amazing."

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