1 week Ago By The Hockey News
Heading into the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, Italy is moving up from the Division 1B World Championships winning gold. They'll move within reach of the top teams in the world climbing to the Division 1A Worlds next season. In their opening four games of the World Championships, Italy did not relinquish a goal.
Italy opened with a 12-0 win over Slovenia, which they followed with a 2-0 win over Kazakhstan. Italy continued to dominate beating Latvia 6-0 and Korea 7-0 to secure their promotion. Martina Fedel, who played for the University of Guelph this season stopped all 60 shots she faced across the games.
Italy gave no room for a counterattack outshooting their opponents 193-60 in their opening four games. 18-year-old Matilde Fantin, who will play NCAA women's hockey at Penn State next season is Italy's leading scorer through four games with four goals and seven points along with 30 shots on goal. Italy added key pieces to their roster prior to this tournament including Kristin Della Rovere, Kristen Guerriero, and Kayla Tutino.
Defender Nadia Mattivi, who was named the SDHL's Defender of the Year , has been an on ice leader for the Italians. They'll wrap up their World Championship Division 1B tournament, before heading up to the Division 1A level, against host Great Britain..
