If there’s one thing that can make U.S. women’s hockey players set aside school rivalries and join together in a common goal, it’s destroying Canada. Well, capturing a World Championship to be more exact, but beating Team Canada in order to do it.

Just over a week after falling to Minnesota 6-2 in the NCAA women’s hockey championship, co-captain Angela Ruggiero and sophomore Julie Chu traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia to join Natalie Darwitz, Krissy Wendell and Kelly Stephens—the Minnesota first line that exploded for 10 of their school’s 11 goals in the Frozen Four en rote to the title—amongst others to compete for the U.S against the world’s best.

When teams U.S.A. and Canada meet each other tonight in the gold medal game, Ruggiero and Chu will face off against Canadian Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03.

“If Canada wins, my country is victorious, and if the US wins, my teammates are victorious,” said junior Nicole Corriero, a native of Thornhill, Ontario. “I think in this particular game, however while rooting for such former teammates as Jen Botterill, I will primarily be rooting for Julie and Angela.”

Harvard radio (95.3 WHRB) will stream the gold medal game tonight at 7 p.m. via internet stream at http://www.whrb.org.

—Staff writer John R. Hein can be reached at hein@fas.harvard.edu.