Can women’s hockey avoid a major black eye at the Sochi Olympics by preventing a repeat of the brawl that marred a recent US-Canada game? That ugliness of that confrontation between two gold-medal contending teams was a YouTube disaster for the image of women’s hockey.

MIKE GROLL/AP
Canada's Gillian Apps (l.) is hit by Anne Schleper of the United States during the third period of a Four Nations Cup women's hockey game, Nov. 6, 2013, in Lake Placid, N.Y. Canada won 4-2.