Hockey star Fillier fuels Canadian attack in 12-1 win over Swiss

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This article was published 03/02/2022 (1361 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Young gun Sarah Fillier led the attack as Canada’s women’s hockey team got off to a dominant start at the Beijing Olympics with a 12-1 win over Switzerland.

Fillier scored the first two goals as the Canadians built an 8-0 lead through two periods.

The 21-year-old standout notched her first-ever Olympic goal just 64 seconds into the first period.

“It is a dream come true. I have been waiting a long, long time for this,” Fillier said. “I don’t think it has sunk in yet. I really did not know how it went in. I had to watch it on a replay.”

The Canadians outshot the Swiss 70-15.

There was some bad news for Canada on Thursday as forward Melodie Daoust left the game in the second period after taking a hit from Swiss defenceman Sarah Forster.

Canada faces the Finns on Saturday, the Russians on Tuesday and the Americans on Feb. 8.

Canada is the reigning world champion after a 3-2 overtime win over the U.S. in August ended the Americans’ five-tournament gold-medal run.

Women’s hockey was one of a few competitions that got underway Thursday prior to the Games’ opening ceremony on Friday (7 a.m. ET) at the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest.

On the slopes, moguls superstar Mikael Kingsbury started his Olympic title defence in fine fashion with the top score in qualifying.

The reigning Olympic and world champion from Deux-Montagnes, Que., is attempting to become the second men’s moguls skier to win back-to-back gold medals. Fellow Canadian Alexandre Bilodeau accomplished the feat in 2010 and ’14.

Kingsbury is poised to defend his crown after a first-place run of 81.15 advanced him to the men’s final.

Although he was the only competitor to crack the 80-point mark, Kingsbury says it was far from his best run.

“I can improve on my top air. I have harder degree of difficulty I can do. I can do my jumps better. At the bottom I had the 1080 and I’ve skied that course a good second and a half faster than I just did,” he said.

In the women’s competition, Montreal’s Justine Dufour-Lapointe qualified for the final with 71.45 points to place 10th.

Dufour-Lapointe won gold in Sochi in 2014 and then silver at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.

The moguls finals are on Saturday.

In curling, Canada’s mixed doubles team of John Morris and Rachel Homan split their opening two games in Beijing.

The Canadians fell 6-4 in the opener to Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds, before rebounding a few hours later with a 7-6 win over Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten in the nightcap.

The curling event is being held at the Ice Cube in Beijing.

The venue — first called the Water Cube — was used for competitions like swimming and diving at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games. The 50-metre pool was drained and transformed into a curling facility in 2019.

“It’s tough out there. We’re seeing lots of misses but we’re all learning from the ice and it’ll get better and better as we go on,” said Homan.

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After four draws of play, Italy was the lone unbeaten team at 2-0. China, Great Britain, Sweden and the Czech Republic were next at 2-1.

Canada was alone in sixth place at 1-1 ahead of Norway, Switzerland and the United States (all 1-2) and winless Australia (0-3).

Round-robin play continues through Monday morning.

Medal games are set for Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2022.