“Goaltending is our strength,” Wickenheiser said. “[St. Pierre] has kept us in a lot of games this year.”

But St. Pierre she was hardly dominant in giving up three goals against the Finns on Tuesday.

Neither the U.S. nor Canada is coming in off its best hockey. The Canadians gave up their first lead of the tournament when they fell behind 3-2 in the second period against Finland. The United States took nearly the whole first period to get on the board against Sweden.

“It was one of those hard-going games,” said U.S. forward Julie Chu ’06, who intends to be a freshman at Harvard next year. “There wasn’t a lot of finesse out there except for our last goal. Sweden played their hearts out. We tried to be patient.”

Although several U.S. players, inlcuding Ruggiero, had sufered from the flu this past week, U.S. defenseman Karen Bye said yesterday that the illness was no longer a factor.

The combination of the Scandinavians’ desperation combined with the North American’s anxiety made the semifinal games closer than anticipated. But when it was all over, those emotions were released.

“It really hit me when the buzzer sounded—that’s it—we just made the gold medal game,” Chu said. “There wasn’t anything guaranteed up to that point.”

Now that the gold medal game is here, both teams are eager to set aside past records and create some new history.

“I love playing Canada. It’s my favorite game of the year,” Ruggiero said.

“We can see everything in front of us,” Shewchuk said. “And we’re ready for it.”

—Material from the Associated Press was used in the reporting of this article.