-Unbelievable: The former head coach of the Canadian women’s hockey team announced her return to the squad.

Unbelievable: The former head coach of the Canadian women’s hockey team announced her return to the squad.

ALGARIE — In order to guarantee that players can catch a plane to Beijing in less than a month, Canada’s women’s hockey team will enter a bubble and forfeit any remaining games prior to the Winter Olympics.

Since COVID-19 entered their ranks in December, the women have not yet come together as a cohesive unit.

Gina Kingsbury, director of hockey operations for Hockey Canada, told The Canadian Press, “I’ve got about half of our group back with us and the other half joining us here shortly.”

“Everyone is doing fantastically. We’ve all received two vaccinations.

The roster for Canada’s Olympic women’s hockey team is still pending. The preliminary round begins on February 2, with Canada taking on Switzerland, two days prior to the opening ceremonies in Beijing.

Two of Canada’s three remaining Rivalry Series games against the United States were scheduled for this week in Alberta. Additionally, the game scheduled for next week against a men’s team from the Alberta Junior Hockey League has been postponed.

Everybody going to the Olympics in Beijing needs to do two pre-departure tests and come out negative. China advises against boarding the aircraft if either test is positive.

“We have to exercise extra caution as we are in a critical window of time leading up to Beijing,” stated Kingsbury.

“We would like to play as much as we can, but it is not worth the risk to play any games or invite outsiders into our environment during the crucial and dangerous 14 days before we travel to Beijing.”

Before Hockey Canada’s deadline of January 19 to submit its team nomination to the Canadian Olympic Committee, the 26 women who are still in centralization must be reduced to 23.

For sure, we’ll be announcing that ahead of time, according to Kingsbury.

With the players present at Target Field for the announcement, the United States, who defeated Canada 3-2 in a shootout for Olympic gold in 2018, revealed its Beijing roster during Saturday’s NHL Winter Classic in Minneapolis.

When the Canadians gather in Calgary once more, they will withdraw.

“We aim to maintain our close-knit group going forward, ensure everyone is present, and safeguard ourselves to the fullest extent possible to ensure everyone is qualified to travel to China and participate in the Games,” Kingsbury stated.

We’re considering bubbling our group, which is akin to our previous approach prior to the World Championships. We’ll make sure that we’re avoiding anyone outside of our group and that we’re even very careful with each other in our group because we’ll be pretty much limited to the hotel and the rink.

We are unable to prevent the on-ice portion. As a team, we must practice together and compete together.

Six of the nine Rivalry Series games were played between Canada and the United States; Canada won the final two in overtime in St. Louis on December 15 and December 17, earning a 4-1-1 series record.

According to Kingsbury, the Canadian women took charter flights to avoid interacting with the public while traveling on commercial airlines, but the virus still affected their team.

The remaining games in Minnesota on December 20, Edmonton on January 3, and Red Deer on January 6 were canceled. The women’s Olympic roster announcement was scheduled for December 22, but it was postponed due to their holiday break.

Ann-Renée Desbiens, Emerance Maschmeyer, and Kristen Campbell, the goalies, were already selected for the team; three skaters from the group of 23 needed to be released.