Canada, U.S. prepare for Olympic women's ice hockey quarterfinals

Feb. 13 (UPI) -- After wins in the preliminaries on Tuesday, powerhouse Canada and the United States have both booked a seat for the women's ice hockey quarterfinals.

Defending champion Canada beat 2010 Vancouver bronze winner Finland 4-1, while the three-time Olympic silver medalist Americans showed no mercy to the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) with a 5-0 victory.

Eight teams are divided into two groups for competition in Pyeongchang. With two victories in hand, Canada and the United States were ranked the first and second teams in higher-ranked Group A, respectively.

Finland settled for the third and the OAR for the fourth.

The lower-ranked Group B is made up of the Sochi bronze winner Switzerland, a unified Korean team, Sweden and Asian champion Japan. With two wins, Switzerland tops the group, followed by Sweden, while Japan was ranked the third and the unified Korea team the fourth on goal difference.