Women’s sledge hockey is fairly new to the international stage but it has not taken long for a rivalry to get going between Canada and the United States.

For the second consecutive year Brampton’s Cruisers Cup tournament, running from Nov. 6 to 8 at South Fletcher’s Sportsplex hosted international competition with the two national teams playing a three-game series.

Canada wound up with the gold medal with players on the squad including two members of the Cruisers Sports for the Physically Disabled, Brampton’s Claire Buchanan and Mississauga’s Danica McPhee.

Both were on the Canadian team which lost 5-1 in 2014 to the USA in the gold-medal final of the first International Paralympic Sledge Hockey Women’s International Cup. For that tournament, a team from Europe made the trek to Brampton. This year the women’s division included just the two teams playing three games over three days.

Points were awarded for each period won. Canada won the first game 4-3 on Nov. 6, the second 5-2 on Nov. 7 but lost the final contest on Nov. 8 4-3. Canada finished with 9.5 points to 5.5 for the USA.

Buchanan and McPhee agree the addition of some new players have improved the Canadian team. They also improved during a training camp in Leduc, Alberta, over the Thanksgiving weekend. Their goal now is to get ready for 2018 when women’s sledge hockey will be played as a demonstration event at the Paralympics –20 years after women’s ice hockey first appeared at the Olympics.

Buchanan, 27, was born with spina bifida but has been active in sport through the Cruisers, growing up playing with mostly males in sledge hockey and wheelchair basketball, and in track and field. She even played wheelchair basketball at the University of Alabama, where she studied journalism with aspirations of being a sports reporter.

Being in the southern United States, it was difficult to play sledge hockey but she moved back to Canada last year and found out that Canada was establishing a women’s sledge hockey team and eagerly got back.

McPhee, 25, said she was not very interested in sports when she was growing up. However, she signed up to play both sledge hockey and wheelchair basketball after a spinal injury in February of 2013. While vacationing in Cancun, Mexico she jumped off a wall thinking there was sand below but landed on concrete.

She said after playing both sports she said hockey has won out.