Hilary Knight's Golden Goal Caps 2011 Women's Worlds

There really isn't a lot to say about the Final:  another back and forth power struggle between the two elite nations of women's hockey, ending in overtime with a near delayed penalty empty net own goal against the Americans, before Hilary Knight ended it the proper way for Team USA:

BTW, if anyone has a video of Jenny Potter's 2-1 goal for the USA, it'd be great if you could post it in a FanShot.

The Americans are back on top of the international hockey world.  The World Championships are roughly equal to the Olympics in terms of roster quality, although this first WC after the Olympics is a bit of an early test of the program's true strength.  Younger players, recent retirements, players deciding to start families all comes into play at this point.  While the Americans may have won their third straight World Championship, not winning the Olympic gold is still looming over the program for the time being. 

Hilary Knight's reputation, however, could not be higher after this tournament.  She dominated the tournament in terms of scoring, and capped it off with the winning goal.  Canadian legend Hayley Wickenheiser was a -3 on the night in contrast, so there's reason to legitimately believe the Americans are moving ahead of the Canadians in terms of women's hockey supremacy.  The USA now holds the #1 spot in the IIHF World Ranking, and can take solace in the fact that in these best on best competitions, their only blemish in the past four years has been a loss on Canadian soil.  On the Americans' home ice and neutral ice, Team USA reigns supreme. 

But this tournament was about more than the North American power struggle.  We're seeing that in at least one position, the Europeans are starting to match their more powerful rivals across the sea.  The MVP of the tournament was Slovakian goaltender Zuzana Tomcikova, who may be staking claim to being the top women's hockey player in the world.  However, she didn't even win the top goaltender honours as seen by the IIHF Directorate, who chose the equally compelling Noora Raty of Finland for the prize.  For the competitive balance of the sport, at least the European countries are learning to stop the skilled Canadian and American women's shots...  now it's all about putting the pressure on their goalies by generating a lot more chances of their own.

Coupled with the improved play of the European nations is the decline of the Asian teams.  It used to be common to see all of China, Japan and Kazakhstan at these tournaments, but next year it will be six European teams at the World Championships with no Asian representatives.  Kazakhstan's relegation to Division 1, coupled with Japan's withdrawl this year due to the natural disasters, and China's stunning relegation from the Division 1 level may all be part of the evolution of the sport:  the nations with greater hockey infrastructure and more access to higher competition levels may be a sign of the future.  And for Russia, pushing Finland to overtime in the bronze medal game, it's an encouraging start to the four year cycle that concludes in Sochi in 2014.

The season is over for now.  Next year, they'll all be back at it again in the NCAA, CWHL, and various other domestic leagues that house the best women's players on the planet.  Here's a look at the final standings for the entire World Championships, which saw 34 nations compete at varying levels, including three brand new participants:

2011 IIHF Women's Worlds Final Standings

Rank	Country	2012 Tournament
1	USA	Championship
2	Canada	Championship
3	Finland	Championship
4	Russia	Championship
5	Sweden	Championship
6	Switzerland	Championship
7	Slovakia	Championship
8	Kazakhstan	Division 1
9	Germany	Championship
10	Norway	Division 1
11	Latvia	Division 1
12	Austria	Division 1
13	China	Division 2
14	Czech Republic	Division 1
15	France	Division 2
16	Denmark	Division 2
17	Italy	Division 2
18	Great Britain	Division 2
19	The Netherlands	Division 2
20	Australia	Division 3
21	Hungary	Division 3
22	Slovenia	Division 3
23	Croatia	Division 3
24	Belgium	Division 4
25	New Zealand	Division 3
26	South Korea	Division 4
27	Iceland	Division 4
28	Romania	Division 4
29	South Africa	Division 5
30	Poland	Division 4
31	Spain	Division 5
32	Bulgaria	Division 5
33	Turkey	Division 5
34	Ireland	Division 5
DNP	Japan	Division 1
DSQ	North Korea	Division 3