U.S. women rout China, 12-1, in hockey

Two days into the women’s Olympic hockey tournament, the two acknowledged superpowers of the sport -- the United States and Canada -- have each made history with a double-digit rout of an earnest but hapless opponent.

On Sunday it was China’s turn to be schooled. Jenny Potter of Edina, Minn., set a U.S. women’s single-game Olympic record with five points (three goals, two assists) and became the U.S. Olympic career points leader as the second-seeded Americans opened the Vancouver tournament with a 12-1 romp at the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird Arena.

If the Americans hadn’t held back, it could have been a repeat of Canada’s record-setting 18-0 victory Saturday over Olympic first-timer Slovakia.

“I get uncomfortable when a score gets lopsided,” U.S. Coach Mark Johnson said. “It’s a situation where you want to take positive things away from a game. You just look for the best opportunities, get stronger as a team and move on.”

Potter increased her point total to 26 in her fourth Games, passing the 24 points by Katie King.

“There’s a lot of great players that have gone through USA Hockey and continue to follow,” said Potter, who has an 8-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son.

“Great accomplishment and I’m very humbled, but our goal is to bring home the gold medal. This is a team game and I think this team is very special.”

Meghan Duggan scored twice and fellow Olympic rookie Monique Lamoureux had four assists as the U.S. outshot China, 61-7. Molly Schaus, the U.S. starter, faced only five shots over 52 minutes before being replaced by Brianne McLaughlin, who gave up a power-play goal to Jin Fengling with 2 minutes 21 seconds left.

China’s coach, Hannu Saintula of Finland, took the loss stoically. His team has some skill but was easily moved off the puck and couldn’t hold off the stronger U.S. players in its defensive zone.

“Without this game we can’t learn anything,” he said, “and it’s a good lesson for us how to learn ice hockey.”

Outside of the U.S. and Canada, whose hockey federations have invested time and money in their women’s programs for more than a decade, and second-tier women’s hockey nations like Sweden and Finland, the talent level drops dramatically.

But four-time U.S. Olympian Angela Ruggiero, who scored the game’s first goal, said it’s unrealistic to expect the field to be deep so early in the evolution of the women’s game.

“You can’t expect a whole nation to adopt a sport overnight and have thousands of girls start playing,” she said. “You’ve got to give it some time.

“I know in the U.S., from the exposure we got for winning the gold in ‘98, there was a huge influx of girls and women that started to play. We had 5,000 registered in 1990. We have over 60,000 registered now. That’s only 20 years.”

She also said the Americans weren’t trying to run up the score against China.

“I deeply admire and respect all the players in China. They do this full time. There aren’t that many players that they can draw from. It isn’t a traditional sport there,” she said.

helene.elliott@latimes.com