Canada and the U.S. are practically guaranteed to win medals for women’s ice hockey in the Winter Olympics — the only question every four years is who gets the gold and who the silver.

On Monday, the two sides will begin warming up for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games with the first of six exhibition games, starting at 7 p.m. at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

Veteran Canadian star Hayley Wickenheiser disputes assumptions that women’s hockey is still a two-country race, however, noting Sweden won the silver medal at the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006.

“Canada and the U.S. are the top two teams when it comes to skills, but anything can happen at the Olympic Games. On an off-day for us or the Americans, the Swedes and Finns are capable of beating either Canada and the U.S. and they have been and are in the hunt each time out now.”

Monday’s Canada-U.S. hockey exhibition game is a joint fundraiser between Hockey Canada and Community Living Victoria, an agency that supports people with developmental disabilities.

“It’s been a year and half to put this together and we’re pretty excited to be a part of it,” said Frank Bourree, president of Community Living Victoria, when the game was announced.

“We wanted to tap into the Winter Olympics and what it might bring to Victoria. We called Hockey Canada and they were interested.”

Others involved in the landing of the event include the City of Victoria and SportHost Victoria.

“This will likely be the gold-medal game at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and it’s pretty cool to be able to preview and showcase that to the Island,” said Bourree.

Ticket response has been strong, with pre-sales of about 4,000. With Victoria being a notorious walk-up town, a crowd approaching a 7,000 sellout may be possible.

The U.S. has won the last three meetings between the sides, and six of the last eight.

“We need to focus on our game and not worry about what [Americans] do,” said Wickenheiser, the 1998 Nagano Winter Games silver medallist and 2002 Salt Lake City and 2006 Turin Games gold medallist, who spends a part of each summer training in Victoria.

Although the Island is best known for producing numerous Summer Olympians for Canada, Monday’s women’s hockey exhibition kickstarts its association with the 2010 Winter Games. The mammoth nation-wide torch relay begins in Victoria Oct. 30 with the arrival of the Olympic flame from Greece, while 2010 teams from several nations in snow sports will conduct their pre-Games training camps at Mount Washington.

The women’s hockey team players spent the weekend hosting educational events, including a seminar on female hockey opportunities Sunday at the Memorial Centre and a class on team building and fundamentals at Esso Fun Day at the Archie Browning Sports Centre.

“We like to talk to the young players about the opportunities that are available to them now,” said Wickenheiser. “When I was a kid playing, there was no chance for things like university athletic scholarships for women’s hockey. The female hockey players now have the opportunity to set those kinds of goals for themselves.”

Monday’s Canadian pre-game skate, from 10 to 10:45 a.m. at the Memorial Centre, will be open to the public.

Team coaches also have made themselves available to Island female youth hockey coaches this weekend.

“We can get so focused on our day-to-day training, but we are always mindful that we are role models to young Canadian female athletes and we take great pride in that and try to get out into the communities in which we play,” said forward Jennifer Botterill of Winnipeg.

The tour continues Oct. 16 in Spokane, Wash., Dec. 12 in Denver, Dec. 15 at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, Dec. 30 at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., and concludes Jan. 1 at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa.

Meanwhile, Wickenheiser — a rare Summer and Winter Olympian — has seen her other sport, softball, ejected from the Summer Games. The IOC votes Friday on whether to allow golf and rugby sevens to replace women’s softball and men’s baseball in the Summer Olympics. Regardless of that vote’s outcome, softball and baseball are out of the Games. Wickenheiser, who played on the diamond for Canada at the 2000 Sydney Summer Games, says that is a blow to women’s softball and female sport in general.

“That’s very disappointing,” said Wickenheiser, CBC colour commentator for softball in its last Summer Games appearance, last year in Beijing.

“It’s one of the only times there has been an all-female sport in the Games. But it may have unfairly been linked in the minds of some with the steroid scandals associated with pro baseball, which it has nothing to do with. Hopefully, women’s softball will get back into the Summer Games.”

cdheensaw@tc.canwest.com