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HÄMEENLINNA, Finland Ìý– ±«ÓãÖ±²¥ goaltender Charline Labonte of Boisbriand, Que., earned her easiest victory ever with a four-save effort and Martlets teammate Catherine Ward of Mt. Royal, Que., was credited with one assist in her official IIHF debut as Canada opened the 2009 women's world hockey championship with a lopsided 13-1 win against overmatched China on Saturday.

Canada, which led 5-1 after one period and 9-1 after two, got goals from nine diferent players. Rebecca Johnston, Hayley Wickenheiser, Gillian Apps and Sarah Vaillancourt paced the Canadian squad with two goals apiece. Single markers were tallied by Carla MacLeod, Caroline Ouellette, Marie-Philip Poulin, Meghan Agosta and Haley Irwin.

Poulin is the youngest player on the squad, having just turned 18 in late March. Her goal came on the power play, with Canada going a modest 2-for-5 with the advantage in the contest.

Wickenheiser and Vaillancourt had five-point games with three assists each to go with their two goals. Irwin had a four-point performance in her world championship debut as she also had three assists in addition to her goal.

Canada, which outshot China 75-5, pelted netminder Yao Shi with 40 shots and seven goals before she was replaced late in the second period by Dandan Jia, who faced 35 shots in the final 23 minutes and 36 seconds.

Canada meets Sweden on Monday in Pool B play of the preliminary round. The Swedes beat Canada for the first time at the Four Nations Cup in November with a 3-2 overtime win.

The nine-time champion Canadians are attempting to reclaim the world title they lost to the U.S. last year in Harbin, China.

Canada set team records Saturday for the fastest two and three goals scored in history. MacLeod and then Ouellette struck within 10 seconds of each other starting at 3:53 of the first period to better the previous record of 11 seconds. Vaillancourt made it three goals in a span of 46 seconds to beat the previous top time of 55 seconds.

Sun Rui scored China's first goal against Canada in nine years at 14:05 of the first period. She knocked down a floating pass from Jin Fengling to beat Labonte on China's second shot of the game for a power-play goal.

China has less than 200 female players compared to over 77,000 in Canada. While Chinese government began putting more resources into its women's hockey team to qualify for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, China head coach Paul Strople of Halifax said his team's goal at these world championships is simply to avoid being one of two teams relegated to the world 'B' championship in 2011.

In other action, Julie Chu and Hilary Knight each had a hat trick as the U.S. routed Japan 8-0. The U.S. outshot their foes 74-8.

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