Canada Will Host 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup

The 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup tournament kicks off in Germany June 26 and the reigning CONCACAF champion Canadian team will be playing the defending two time FIFA world champion Germans in the opening match in Berlin.

The Canadians regardless of how they fare in this 2011 event already know they have qualified for the next FIFA women's world cup tournament.

FIFA recently announced that Canada will be the host nation for the 2015 Women's World Cup event. In addition to Canada getting the automatic bid as the host nation, the women's tournament is finally being expanded from 16 to 24 teams.  


The details are still being worked out in terms of the dates (which will be June-July) and sites, but Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal, Ottawa, Moncton, N.B., and Halifax were the cities mentioned as potential  World Cup match sites.  Only six cities will host games at the 2015 tournament, so one city will eventually be eliminated from the potential host mix.

The cool thing is the FIFA Women's World Cup tournament will be back on the North American continent for the first time since the US hosted it in 2003 and knocked off the Canadians 3-1 in the bronze medal match.   The US hosted and won it in 1999 with that memorable shoot out over China..

If you're wondering where's Toronto in this list of cities, it wasn't included in the FIFA bid because it will be busy hosting the 2015 Pan American Games from July 10-26.

Happy that our neighbors got the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, and we look forward to playing them on their home soil four years from now.

Team USA Women vs Team Canada For 2011 World Championship Gold

There will be two familiar foes skating against each other for the 2011 Women's World Ice Hockey Championship in Switzerland on Monday night.. (1 PM CDT) 

The defending back to back world champions Team USA got off to a slow start in their semifinal rematch with Russia and gave up an early goal, but unleashed 33 first period shots to erase that early deficit and take a 2-1 lead over the upset minded Russians at the end of the first period.  Team USA continued to show off their offensive firepower as they advance with a 5-1 win and get a shot at a Women's World Ice Hockey Championship threepeat    .

Team USA won the previous IIHF Women's titles in 2008 and 2009.

Meanwhile in the Canada-Finland semifinal rematch with Finland the good news was Finnish goaltender Noora Raty stopped 74 Canuck shots.    Unfortunately for them four got past her to propel Team Canada to a 4-1 victory and another clash for women's hockey supremacy between Team USA and Team Canada..

The Finns and Russians will battle each other for the bronze medal on Monday night .

USA! USA! USA!

Canada's going down on Monday!
 

Hey Renee, Canada's Going Down In The 2011 IIHF Women's Ice Hockey Championships

Was flipping through the various cable channels a few nights ago when I stumbled upon the third period of the USA-Sweden match in the IIHF women's hockey tournament.     Had forgotten the tournament was happening this month in Zürich, Switzerland.and started on April 16.

Don't care if it is 'your game', in this tournament Team USA are the two time defending champs and so far are playing like it.

Team USA was in Group A in the preliminary round and knocked off Slovakia 5-0, Russia 13-1 and Sweden in the aforementioned match 9-1 to win their group and get the bye to the semifinals.

Your Canadian women were in Group B, and beat the host Swiss 12-0, Kazakhstan 7-0 and Finland 2-0  to win their group and also earn a bye into the semis.

The semifinals happening today are group play rematches.  Canada plays the Finns while we get the Russians with the winners going to the gold medal match.

The semifinal losers will play for the bronze.medal. 

But you know who we want in the gold medal match and it'll be on like Donkey Kong again.

USA! USA! USA!.

2011 Women's World Cup Draw

On Monday the draw to put together the groups for the initial phase of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup was held in Frankfurt.

The only thing we knew going into the draw that happened at 12:00 PM CST my time yesterday was that two time defending FIFA women's world champion and host nation Germany was in Group A.

That's a nice segue into who the other members of that group will be.  Canada, Nigeria and France are the other three nations in what has turned out by some soccer analysts reckoning as the 2011 FIFA women's tournament's 'Group of Death'.   

Group B is comprised of Japan, New Zealand,  our southern neighbors Mexico and England

Group C is consider by some analysts to be the other tournament 'Group of Death' and is made up of the United States, North Korea, Colombia and Sweden

Group D will have Marta-led Brazil, Australia, Equatorial Guinea and Norway

To break down what this all means, check out the analysis from the Women's Professional Soccer website


The 2011 Women's World Cup will kick off June 26 with the two time defending champion Germans playing in Berlin's Olympic Stadium against Canada.

Our Canadian neighbors are pissed because they didn't get a top seed despite winning five straight matches to take the CONCACAF title.

Send your attack beavers to FIFA headquarters, people.   They made the decision to go by world ranking, which is how the number one ranked Team USA got one of the group seeds despite having to do the two leg playoff with the Italians to get in. .


After that opening match in Berlin with the Germans, Canada's Group A tournament road doesn't get any easier.  They take on France in Bochum on June 30 and finish July 5 with the Super Falcons of Nigeria in Dresden.   

Mexico takes on England in Wolfsburg on June 27, Japan in Leverkusen on July 1 and closes Group B play with their math against New Zealand in Sinsheim on July 5  

The first Group C match for FIFA number one ranked Team USA will be on June 28 in Dresden against North Korea.   They'll then face off July 2 in Sinsheim against Colombia and finish group play in Wolfsburg on July 6 against Sweden

Top two teams in each group go to the knockout  round and we'll need to be paying very close attention to what's going on in Groups A and D.  

If Team USA wins Group C, they'll be matched up against the Group D runner up on July 10 in Augsburg.    However, it would also be in the upper half of the bracket with the Group A winner.  If Team USA is the runner up, they would play the Group D champ in Dresden on July 10

If things break right for Team USA and they keep winning, the defending 2008 Olympic champs will hopefully find themselves in Frankfurt on July 17 playing for their third world championship. 

15 other teams have that same dream, and we''ll see in a few months how this all plays out.