updated 6:00 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2006

TURIN, Italy - The U.S. women’s hockey players gathered in a circle at center ice, raised their sticks and waved them to their fans in one sweeping arc over their heads.

It was a routine repeated game after game after game in these Olympics and before, but this time was different. You could see it in their eyes, red with tears and looking at anything but the giant group hug being staged by the exuberant, wiggling heap of yellow jerseys behind them.

The Americans had been beaten, and for the first time since women’s hockey went international in 1990, by someone besides Canada. The North American monopoly had been broken.

Sweden won 3-2 in a shootout in the Olympic semifinals and will play Canada, a 6-0 winner over Finland in the other semifinal, for the gold medal on Monday.

“This has been a long time in the making for our game,” said American defenseman Angela Ruggiero, a three-time Olympian. “They say there’s no parity in women’s hockey. Well, now you know better. It doesn’t make me happy, but that’s hockey.”

The architect of the Swedish upset was 19-year-old Kim Martin, a cool, 5-foot-4 wisp of a goalie with a brick fortress painted on her mask.

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She stopped everything the Americans shot at her in the final 48:56 of regulation and overtime, finishing with 37 saves, and then turned away all four American attempts in a shootout.

Maria Rooth, whose four years at Minnesota-Duluth paved the way for dozens of other European players to the world’s best training grounds, had both regulation scores in a 3½-minute span and the clinching shootout goal.

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When she was only 15, Martin led the Swedes to the bronze medal in Salt Lake City. On Friday, she was the difference in a watershed win that decisively proves women’s hockey is growing under North America’s considerable shadow.

“This is the greatest thing to happen to women’s hockey in Sweden and everywhere around,” Martin said. “We knew we were getting better and better all the time. We needed to beat the U.S. or Canada to show it.”

The Americans often seemed to be begging for their first loss to Sweden in 26 meetings, playing carelessly and tentatively despite a heavy advantage in shots. Both of Rooth’s goals were gifts on U.S. giveaways, leaving goalie Chanda Gunn helpless.

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