the Pucci factor

Pucci: The Dave Christian of Team USA?

http://www.usahockey.com/news_article/show/313583?referrer_id=752796

Jo Pucci, despite an undefined role on Team USA, is impossible to miss as you try to wrap your head around the makeup of this club.  As you memorize the numbers of star players, 14 Decker, 26 Coyne, 25 Carpenter, you see another superior skater with 24 on her back, taller than all those listed above, but clearly an impact player, and you look down the line chart, and it takes a while.  Tucked in the bottom, the 7th defenseman listed, is Josephine Pucci. You try to ignore her, but you can't. There she is on the point in the power play, and suddenly she's playing a period up front on a top line. And 24 is making plays like 14, 25 and 26.

If you read the USA Hockey link above, you can see she has a very special pedigree, and if you watch her practice, you see she has a fabulous work ethic to complement that glorious hockey stride.  You know, the stride that creates separation with the puck, or closes separation in pursuit of it.  All done zone by zone.  The more you watch, the more you realize that 24 needs to be memorized like 14, 25 and 26.

The numbers game also applies to those personally devastating cuts dangling over their heads.  There is no room for an extra forward or an extra defenseman.  Three goalies are mandatory, and that leaves 18 skaters: 4 lines, 3 sets of D, 0 wiggle room.  Except for "Pooch", a top 6 F OR a top 4 D, who despite a frightening concussion history, plays with abandon, AND that superior skating stride.

Flash back to 1980 Lake Placid. O'Callahan sits out early games with a trashed knee.  F Dave Christian slides seamlessly back to D, and Herbie's Miracle Men don't miss a beat.  That is Jo Pucci, the perfect swingman, a coaches' dream.  In this short season Pucci was originally listed as one of 9 D, then was changed to one of 13 F. Now she is back at D.  Don't be fooled by labels, she can be anything her former Harvard Coach Stone wants her to be.  Identify her by her skating stride, and memorize that number. 24. Place it anywhere you want, but there is a good chance she will be out there.  The Dave Christian of Team USA.

Angelic Assasin

Jammin' Jocelyne

Outside the rink she is best described as pretty: pale blond hair, blue/grey eyes and peachy skin.  But Jocelyne Lamoureux is known for her hockey personna, and both she and her identical twin sister Monique are known as "Disturbers." Nasty, dirty, pains in the butt. Royal pains. Clever with the stick and words to get under skin. And now Olympic hockey fans have another something to distinguish Jocelyne from her twin: Jocelyne ignited the line brawl last Saturday in Burlington, VT that finally got the hockey world talking about women's hockey.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday Night's All Right

Minutes after being ejected from the game late in the frenetic third period for brawling, SportsRap caught up with Jocelyne smiling and signing autographs for hundreds of little girls wearing hockey jerseys on the second floor of Gutterson Field House in Burlington. Here is the transcript of that interview

How did this all break out?
So Monique was getting cross-checked in the back of the head. Monique was kind of defenseless at that point so I grabbed whoever was on top of her (Courtney Birchard). We matched up and a couple of other people matched up and I think it got a little out of hand 'cause a few people were jumping from pile to pile instead of just matching up one on one.

I think it was a bigger scrum than needed to be. At a certain point you just have to stick up for your teammates. I think it should be one on one, not jumping from pile to pile.

Did this remind you of Victoria, four years ago (another similar USA-Canada line brawl)
Yeah, I wasn't on the ice for that one, (Was there a faint sense of regret?) but it was like that, yeah.

Did you have to show restraint not to drop your gloves? Because your opponent dropped her gloves and was throwing hands.
I mean everyone had their helmet on, I don't think anyone wants to break a finger on someone's mask. If something like that's going to happen, I think it just needs to be fair. If someone turtles on the ice, then they stop swinging, that's how men handle it in the NHL, and if that's gonna happen in our game I think it should be handled in a safe, safe manner

Are you looking forward to Montreal?
Yeah; hopefully it's a better game on our side.

Hey, third period you guys were fine
Third period we played really well. We'll take some positives from out of that and then fix some things from the first and second.

And then Joceylne, seated next to Monique, continued smiling broadly for the kids she was signing for. All in a day's work for the Red, White and Blue.

------------

Her USA squad was so thoroughly outplayed by Team Canada in the first two periods that it was reminiscent of the Maple Leaf's pre-1997 dominance, with many of the same characters leading the way. The Red and White's veteran line of Jayna Hefford (b. 1977), Hayley Wickenheiser (b. 1978) and Caroline Ouellette (b. 1979) scored the prettiest goal of the game, a 200 foot passing sequence finished off by Hefford from Wick and Ouellete.  The line has a new moniker, "That '70's Show."  Wickenhieser is on a mission. She has been stripped of any letters on her jersey, and is fighting to make the squad. She is still sore about her sub-par performance at the World Championships in Ottawa last spring, and is desperate to flip the script. She was brilliant in this contest, collecting 2 helpers and being a constant factor in each shift.

Hayley Wickenheiser Fighting Father Time

"I feel good," said the 35 year old Wickenheiser after the convincing victory. "Last year at the World Championships I had some injuries, I've got to get myself back. It was a great start for our team just to get confident and come back after a tough loss at the World's last year."

The ice was so badly tilted toward the USA net in the second period that Canada outscored the Yanks 2-0 and outshot them 12-2 despite a mid-period timeout by USA bench boss Katey Stone.  It was 3-0  halfway through the 3rd period until Brianna Decker tapped in a 5 on 3 PP marker prompting USA's about face as they made a game of it.

Things to take away from Burlington:  USA benefits much more from these games than Canada because they have a weaker schedule.  Canada is getting a steady diet of elite boys Midget teams (age 15-17) while USA has a mish-mosh schedule, making the Canadians much better acclimated to these high intensity tilts. This scenario is similar to the last Olympic winter Games in Vancouver, which became a story line fueled by this NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/sports/olympics/25whockey.html?pagewanted=all

USA's new GM Reagan Carey says that it's business as usual, the NGB's mission is to grow the game and that means having the women play exhibitions up and down the Eastern seaboard, and the opponent can sometimes be secondary. Based on the opening two periods Saturday, that spells trouble for Team USA as it did in Vancouver.

Other notes: USA's Lisa Chesson is the best women's hockey defenseman in the world.  Think of a female version of Nik Lidstrom and you are on the right track, only she is more soft spoken. For those who love skating and appreciate the game as it is meant to be played, she is a joy to watch...Kendall Coyne was the best USA forward. Her speed and tenacity will be very tough for Canada to contend with in Sochi...Hilary Knight is no longer the dominant center ice force she was in 2009, but her considerable backside has her dominating the corners now. She is tenacious, and won nearly every 50-50 puck in the corners, even a crucial 30-70 puck in the third period due to her will and her fabulous hockey tush.  Blocks out the sun, retrieves puck. She is completely healthy now, but a different player than four years ago. She is on the verge of stardom again, but in a new package...Jincy Dunne is hanging on, learning how to play the game at this high a level.  She was paired primarily with Chesson in Burlington, and did not get burned, and made some plays on the offensive blue line. According to the most knowledgable women's hockey mind in Boston, she is 7th of 8 D on this club, and unless USA changes their team makeup, they are only bringing six D...

More notes will be added to this blog following the Canada game Thursday in Montreal. Tune in to Fast Hockey, it will be worth the 5 clams. 

Jincy Revisited

When we last checked up on Team USA's Jincy Dunne back in June, we saw a wide-eyed girl having just celebrated her 16th birthday, trying to make a national team that had just won the world championship. No one could blame her for the deer-in-the-headlights demeanor. Fast forward to September and the daily grind of training for USA's "Bring on the World" tour and you see something entirely different, the unmistakeable look of a confident woman.

Dunne (far right) entirely comfortable with legendary vets.

"Hey, my coaches have put me here for a reason, they must have seen something," said Jincy after a recent 2-hour practice.  It was media day of sorts, and due to her being the youngest, Jincy is never neglected when the media comes calling on the USA women. Nickelodeon was filming her every move, and Dunne appeared entirely comfortable. USA Hockey's media manager Rob Koch has dug deep and come up with the ultimate list of youngest American Olympians (scroll down for list below), and if Jincy makes this squad, she will stand alone as the youngest woman hockey player ever to march in the Opening Ceremonies.  And she has found at least one reason why being sweet 16 is an asset in this often grueling process.

"It's more of a strength that I'm 16, my body will recover faster, which it did. Because everyone was sore on Wednesday, and I was too, but Thursday I felt fine and other people were really sore." She trusts in higher powers, whether it be her coaches, her family or God.  That unswerving faith has manifested itself into a woman who carries herself as a woman destined for greatness, which is impossible to ignore.

The Electrifying Tara Mounsey

A seasoned journalist threw out a comparison of Jincy to one of the world's greatest women's hockey players, the puck-rushing defenseman, swashbuckler Tara Mounsey.

"I see a lot of similarities in Jincy and Tara," said head coach Katey Stone.

Jincy Dunne, the Next One

"To me Tara was one of the best to play the position...I see a lot of Tara in Jincy. She handles the puck well, she has great composure, she plays with her head up. We don't need our D to lead the rush.  If they can spot a hole and jump into it, that's pretty great for us."  To use a couple of NHL Hall of Famers as examples, Stone doesn't want a Bobby Orr, she wants a Brian Leetch, and Dunne is the goods.

USA hasn't had that kind of pure rush jumper from the back line since, well, since they last won the Olympic gold with Mounsey.  Going back three months to Lake Placid, the women were in an insanely high tempo first scrimmage, fighting for spots on the national team, barely a month after winning the worlds. Dunne found herself on the ice in overtime with Kendall Coyne, unofficially the world's fastest woman hockey player, and decided to follow her up the ice.
"My team was telling me 'Go! Jump, jump,' and Kendall made a great play."  Coyne left the puck in scoring position for a 16 year old defenseman who had sailed 170' from her own net, wind flapping in her jersey, to put herself in position to pot the GWG in OT.  In her first scrimmage with Olympic hopefuls. It's the stuff of legend, and now she is being compared to one.

"Obviously that's an honor to be even thought of, to think of me like her (Mounsey), oh awesome. That's definitely something I can do (joining the rush)... My heart just tells me to play. I just think He (God) has really just blessed me as an offensive presence."

Less than four years ago Jincy was watching the women's gold medal game from Vancouver, and made up her mind that playing in the Olympics would be her destiny. She did some math and figured 2018 would be the year, except here she is 4 years ahead of schedule, on the cusp of being the youngest USA hockey Olympian ever, and she is ready. Now.

"I'm definitely set for it. God put me here and I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna do everything I can to make the team and help Team USA win a gold medal." Boom.

Youngest Women's Hockey Olympians*

Jincy Dunne (2014?) – 16 years, 8 months, 24 days

Lyndsay Wall (2002) - 16 years, 8 months, 27 days

Sandra Whyte - (1998) - 17 years, 5 months, 15 days

Angela Ruggiero (1998) -  18 years, 1 month, 8 days

Natalie Darwitz (2002) - 18 years, 3 months, 30 days

Sarah Parsons (2006) - 18 years, 6 months, 15 days

* Courtesy Rob Koch, USA Hockey

If and when Dunne makes the club, she goes to the top of the list.

Oly Girls with NHL Blood Lines

With the Stanley Cup finals still being contested in the last days of spring, the 2013-14 hockey season has started already for Team USA women up in Lake Placid. Two players with strong NHL bloodlines will become household names if USA wins the gold in Sochi 8 months from now.

Barely two months after teaming up for USA’s historic gold medal at the women’s World Championship in Ottawa, Amanda Kessel and Alex Carpenter are among America’s best 40 players fighting for their Olympic lives, a three hour drive from where they defeated Canada. Their first scrimmage was played under game conditions with international refs and white hot speed and intensity. The few dozen fans that wandered into Herb Brooks Arena saw a level of women’s hockey that has only been played once or twice, ever.

Golden Girl Amanda Kessel

“I don’t think it’s much different than playing Canada, us playing us,” said scoring star Kessel.

“It was quick, very quick,” said Carpenter. “People making smart plays. It was a good representation of how Canada is going to be.”

Alex Carpenter Dangling in Danvers

Carpenter just finished a dynamic sophomore year at Boston College. She talks, walks and plays like her old man, the former “Can’t Miss Kid” Bobby Carpenter of NHL fame. A product of Boston’s north shore, they are New England hockey royalty. 

Her linemate at the World Championships was Amanda Kessel, who is a Midwest legend, raised in Wisconsin and schooled in Minnesota, leading the Golden Gophers to new heights. She grew up playing fierce shinny games against her two brothers on the frozen ponds, Blake (a minor league defenseman in the Flyers organization) and the better know Phil, who is recovering from a broken heart after the Leafs first round collapse against the Bruins.

Brother Phil Falls Short in Beantown

“I didn’t go,” said Amanda, “But I saw it, kept up with it. Yeah, I was bummed out that they (the Leafs) lost, I was disappointed myself.” Amanda, in contrast to Phil, had the best season a women’s player has ever had, leading the Gophers to an undefeated record, winning the NCAA’s and the Patty Kazmaier award as best player, and then scoring the Golden Goal in the World Championships to break a third period tie. It was all in the family for Kessel.

“Yeah, they (my borthers) thought pretty well of my hockey, hard to  keep in great contact when you’re not around each other, but I know that they check up on me.”

The biggest challenge in Kessel’s dream season came from the Boston College Eagles, led by their dynamic scorer Alex Carpenter. Her one tally gave BC the lead in their NCAA semifinal thriller, but they finally fell in overtime to Minnesota.

Lady Gophers Remain Perfect

“We were waiting for that game all season, expecting it,” said Alex. “We held our ground, but we fell to experience. They had a lot more experience than we did.” When they went through the handshake line, she did not say a word to Kessel. They had never met.

That night Bobby Carpenter was in Atlantic City, scouting college games for the Devils, frantically checking his phone for score updates from Alex’s mom. “Yeah, he was trying to book flights out to Minnesota,” said Alex, laughing. She has no objections to being compared to her famous father.

Carpenters Squared

“I get it from teammates a lot that there’s something similar between us…for one I get that we look alike on the ice. Our vision of the ice is the same. I take that as a compliment because I know he was a pretty good playmaker back in his day.” But unlike Bobby, Alex has a special on-ice gift that allows the puck to find her.

“Yeah definitely, I know that couple of my teammates say that I know where it is around the net, where the right spots are, I guess its like an internal thing, I don’t really have to think about it, it just kind of happens, the puck just ends up there I guess.”

That gift propelled her to a 70-point season, good enough to lead Hockey East in scoring as a sophomore. She finished her year at the World Championships in hockey-mad Ottawa, playing on a line with her NCAA nemesis Kessel, in a setting that’s as close to the NHL as a woman player can be.

“The atmosphere was crazy, there were 18 thousand people in the Ottawa Senators rink, it was a little nerve racking at first, but after the first game against Canada and a sold out crowd, we kind of settled in and figured it out. It was fun.” Especially fun to beat Canada for a gold on their soil, something that had never been done before. Kessel recalled that historic third period in which her snipe made history.

The Golden Goal

“I thought we had great momentum that game, the team came out hard. I don’t know, for some reason I thought we were going to get the next one. It was a really exciting environment to be a part of.”

Two months later it is now next season, and Kessel and Carpenter are no longer strangers checking each other out from 1000 miles away; they sit next to each other in the locker room, two supreme scorers with NHL All-Star blood lines, joined in a journey to reclaim Olympic Gold.

USA women haven’t touched gold in over 15 years, and if they are to realize that dream, Kessel and Carpenter will be the ones on the cover of that box of Wheaties next March.

How the Americans beat Canada

Super Celi, Beating Canada North of the Border

Going into Ottawa this past April, Canada had hosted five IIHF women’s hockey World Championships, and each time the host had won gold with USA the bridesmaid. USA had hosted the World’s three times with the same result, Canada on top, USA’s dreams crushed, never more so than last year in Burlington, Vermont as the Americans lost in a shootout despite being the favorite. The Americans needed new blood to flip the script.

USA Olympic veteran and Wisconsin star Meghan Duggan was out with an injury in 2012, and watched the Burlington heartbreak from the stands.

“That was a painful loss,” said Duggan during the Sochi tryouts in Lake Placid. “My heart was obviously on the ice with the girls, and I know that we wanted to come back in Ottawa, we really wanted to take it to ’em.”

Four time Olympian Julie Chu echoed Duggan. “From when we lost in Burlington to when we got a chance to play in the 2013 games in Ottawa, it was our chance to kind of redeem ourselves.”

It was not those household names that carried the day for the Yanks up in Ottawa, but a new breed of American hockey player, smaller, and much faster. Three speedy smurfs created a line that Team Canada could not control: Kendall Coyne (5’2”), Brianna Decker (5’4”) and Amanda Kessel (5’6”).

“It’s a blast, its just so much fun,” said Coyne on the topic of playing up-tempo hockey with Kessel and Coyne. “That’s what we wait for, just to play together just be with people who are equally as fast and so talented, it’s just so much fun.

“I’m not the tallest one out there,” said the 5’4” Decker, “speed is one of my things I have to bring out there every game. I have a couple of players at my side that move very fast, it helps the game move quicker as well.”  Decker was a blur in Ottawa, sniping 6 goals in 5 games to lead the tournament.

So USA found itself in a familiar position this past April, tied going into the third period of the Gold Medal Game with Canada, a position that had resulted in disaster a year earlier, yet the dressing room was filled with positive energy.

“We talked in the locker room about all the sprints we had done, and everything we had done off ice and on ice just to get to this moment, to be here, these next 20 minutes are everything, that’s what really got everyone going,” said Coyne.

“You look around the locker room in Ottawa, and we all felt it,” said Olympic veteran Gigi Marvin. “We were just going to do what it takes to be the best team out there, and hoist that world cup.”

“I thought we had great momentum that game, the team came out hard (for the third period),” said Kessel. “I don’t know, for some reason I thought we were going to get the next one.”

Their second shift in that critical third period changed the balance of power in women’s hockey. It belongs in the same time capsule with the Gretzky-Lemieux goal from the 87 Canada Cup.

It started with Marvin snapping an outlet pass onto the tape of Kessel in full stride at her own blue line. She flipped the puck off the boards to elude the first defender to set up and odd man rush.  Decker sprinted to the far post, Coyne filled the middle and Kessel was closing fast at the top of the right circle with the game on her stick. You see Canada in full retreat, and just when you expected a goal mouth pass, Kessel simply sniped, blasting the puck where the goal scorers go, short-side shelf.  Coyne found herself jammed into an extremely tight Smurf sandwich as they celebrated madly seconds after the golden goal.

“I was like ‘Hi!’ I had a great view. It was awesome.”

Decker, the speedy decoy, provided the analysis.  “I think we needed to keep that pressure on and I think that’s how Amanda snuck that nice shot in. I couldn’t have been happier for her. I think that she deserved that goal more than anybody.” That golden goal created a new world order in women’s hockey heading into their next showdown in Sochi.  Ask Team Canada, the former bully on the block--speed kills.

The Next One

The Joy of Six

Jincy Dunne is a high school sophomore who loves cookies and plays varsity basketball. She also happens to be on pace to shatter the Team USA record as the youngest hockey Olympian, ever.  Her age, or lack of it, is making people's head spin. She's was the youngest player on USA's U-18 team that won silver in Helsinki this past January, two months AFTER winning 4-Nations gold on the senior national team with women's hockey legends like Julie Chu, Hilary Knight and Jesse Vetter. Only Natalie Darwitz has played on USA's national Team at age 15, but her first Olympic shift wasn't until she was 18. If Jincy does what most observers consider inevitable, she will shatter the record by nearly two years, playing in Sochi as a 16 year old.

On Point

Now, back to that hoops business. In an era where young athletes cut out all extra-curricular sports, Jincy just got through a winter season in which she played varsity basketball for her Fulton high school in the St. Louis suburbs and varsity hockey for a boys team at a high separate high school half an hour across town.  Holy Robby Benson!  No one plays hockey and hoops unless it's written into Hollywood scripts (for all you New Millennials, Robby Benson played a hockey player in Ice Castles and a hoopster in One on One). Seth Jones has NBA genes thanks to father Popeye, but he isn't spending any time shooting buckets away from the rink.  "I'm a point guard," said Dunne, who starts when her schedule permits.  "I don't shoot. Just direct a little."  And showing a trait that will soon be her signature, she gives a ton of credit to her hoops coach Dennis Shine for teaching her so much about the game and allowing her to play on her schedule in this season of sports chaos. "He always says 'If you aren't having fun, you are doing something wrong.'" For a girl who likes to stay in constant motion, she is having a ton of fun. Her high school basketball and hockey teams are only a fraction of the total Ms. Dunne has played on this winter, but you'll need a sharp pencil to follow along. She played on the two USA Hockey national teams which brings the total up to four, the Blues U-19 women's travel squad makes five. Her sixth was a boys AAA midget team with whom she practice, the same team she helped lead to the national championship game when they were bantams a year prior.

Six winter sports teams have not derailed her relentless pursuit of academic excellence, which will allow Jincy to graduate a year ahead of schedule next June.  And she likes to bake.  "Cookies are the only thing," she said on the phone from Missouri on Friday.  "I just love chocolate chip cookies...it's a homemade recipe from a school friend...I give most of them away." The fact that the last USA women's Olympic team had a nationally televised documentary about its love of chocolate chip cookies bodes well for Jinny.  She is the perfect fit for a team so committed to youth that they jettisoned an eager but aging superstar Jen Potter. USA has not won women's hockey gold in 16 years, when Potter was the 19 year old darling of the club.

Elite hockey players, future stars with Olympic aspirations, try to simplify their lives and focus on the one thing that will propel them to greatness, including ample time for rest.  Not Jinny. Her January return from the U-18 Championships in Helsinki is the stuff of legend: a hockey/hoops doubleheader on short sleep the day after getting back from Finland.  The following day she was baking cookies and plotting a business plan to take care of seniors. "Down time is OK, but I like to be busy," she said matter of factly.

Of all those teams she has played with this year, it is practicing with midget boys (15 and 16 year olds) that makes her the great defenseman she is.  The increased speed and physicality, that tiny time window  to make decisions, has forced her game to a higher level.  She admits that those traits of the boys game are superior to the women's game, but "maybe not the intelligence." When she describes her best attribute on the ice, it's enough to make coaches hearts melt: "I like making that good first pass, and then jumping into the play."  When questioned about what she likes best about hockey in general, she took time to think out her answer.  "I like being part of a team...how it is like a family. I like being a part of that family."  And it is her family home life that has shaped the character of the athlete that has Princeton's women's coach Jeff Kampersal gushing. "She could be the next best player in our country."

Dunne was first exposed to hockey when a younger sibling started playing roller hockey. Her parents reinforce the faith which is the foundation of her entire family, and keeps The Next One humble.  "She (mom) reminds me where your gift comes from. Faith is very important." Jincy's connection to family extends onto the ice: her defense partner on the Blues women's U-19 club is her older sister Jessica. When it comes to shooting from the blue line, "I can get the puck through (from the point), but Jessica is the shooter. I like setting her up."

Puck Love

Her absence of ego makes Jincy a sponge for hockey knowledge from some of the best sources in the game: Keith Tkachuk and Jamie Rivers from the NHL Blues organization and former USA Olympic defenseman Courtney Kennedy who was the USA's assistant coach at the U-18's. "She was fantastic," said Jincy, who worked very closely with Kennedy in Helsinki at the tournament in January.  "Each shift I came off the ice she would say 'This is what you did, this is what you can do better.'" There is no doubt Dunne is being groomed for national team glory, and she is responding.  2014 Olympic and Harvard head coach Katey Stone had the 15 year old at the Four Nations Cup last November.  "She was very supportive," said Jinny "especially her mentality and competitiveness.  I learned how important little things are to winning."  When pressed for an example of a little thing, she paused before sharing how vital it is for a defenseman to sprint at absolute top speed when retrieving a puck on a dump-in, to buy some precious time.

Of all the superstars Dunne was exposed to, she gravitated to national team captain and 3-time Olympian Julie Chu.  "She is so humble," said the protege, "and she gives 160%."  The two women share a prodigious work ethic and selfless dedication to their sport.  They appear to be destined for a symbolic torch pass in Sochi.

Dunne will be trying to be the youngest player in USA Olympic history, and not as one of the 17 forward spots available in Lake Placid next month.  Dunne is a defenseman, who will likely have USA's gold medal fate on her stick in the defensive zone against Canada if she makes the squad.  She is unfazed.  "Pressure is a privilege," she said, echoing a hockey cliche that she believes in deeply.

Her future is unimaginably bright.  There is no reason to believe she won't make the national team next month, and then fulfill her destiny in Sochi. In women's hockey, the NCAA is The Show, with 10,000 fans cramming into Wisconsin home games and elite Ivy League programs combining hockey excellence along with their precious diplomas. NCAA coaches will be in a feeding frenzy to land Dunne, the perfect player to help a program claim a national championship, but she refuses to consider those possibilities. "I'm just getting ready for Lake Placid."

A high school sophomore, with the women's hockey world as her oyster, turns 16 next week.  How will America's next Olympic sweetheart celebrate the milestone?
"I just plan on going to dinner with my family and eating a bunch of cookies!"

Daughters of Title IX

Angelic Assassins

It is the best rivalry in women's team sports, by far.  Thanks to Title IX, the NCAA and the Olympic Winter Games, Canada and USA women's hockey national teams blows the doors off any other team rivalry.  In the history of women's hockey there have 21 combined Gold Medal Games at the World Championships and Olympic tournaments. 20 have been fought as USA - Canada border wars. The competitive balance is razor thin:  there have been 10 World Championships contested since 2000; Canada and the U.S. have each won each won 5 golds and 5 silvers.  They are on a crash course for yet another Gold Medal showdown at the Sochi Olympics next February.

What makes elevates this rivalry is that the two teams are mirror images of each other.  Nearly every player on both squads attended NCAA schools, and many of these rivals were college teammates, some have been roommates.  It's almost reminiscent of Civil War lore in which family members and West Point classmates found themselves battling against each other. These hockey women appear to be in a warring state when they play: pounding bodies into the boards, flying down the ice and slamming pucks toward each other at breakneck speed.  In the classroom these Daughters of Title IX might be chasing post graduate degrees at the best universities in America, but on the ice they are warriors. The only drawback of this rivalry is that it is only recognized once every four years.  Their brilliant World Championship and 4-Nations matches remain a well-kept secret to all except for a tiny group of fans.

One of the casualties of the unfortunate National Hockey League work stoppage this season was the absence of the wildly popular outdoor game, the Winter Classic, and the accompanying HBO TV series that precedes it, "24-7."  Many hockey viewers enjoy the masterful story-telling in 24-7 as much as the live game broadcast.  The time is right for a 24-7 type of program to focus on the Canada-USA women's hockey rivalry leading up to the Sochi.  Their 6 preliminary games, 3 in each country, would be perfect filming opportunities as their rivalry heats up to a fevered pitch with the Olympics in sight.

USA takes Gold on Canadian soil, ratcheting up the Olympic tension

There's never been a better time to get women's team sports in the spotlight than this time prior to the Olympic Games, and there's never been a better vehicle than 24-7.  

History in Ottawa

It's hard to imagine that there's any new ground to cover in with USA-Canada women's hockey.  What's to know? They show up every year in the World Championship GMG (Gold Medal Game), they are the only nations to have won Olympic gold, and both teams are spawned through high octane national programs and NCAA scholarships.  But there are historic firsts to report:

1) USA defeated Team Canada Tuesday for their fourth World Championship in five years, their FIRST on Canadian soil.  If you don't think that's a big deal, you didn't see the puddle of tears at the ScotiaBank Centre in Ottawa at the home team's blue line as the Star Spangled Banner played during the ceremonial hoisting of the victorious nation's team flags.  Never before have American hockey women celebrated gold in Canada, and it hurt. A lot.

Bitter Pill

2) Although Team USA has participated in the Winter Games since the 1990's, Sochi 2014 will see the first women's Olympic hockey coach for the Yanks.  It took them 16 years, but Katey Stone will be the first.  Judging from her team's performance in Ottawa, she is the right choice. Harvard's varsity coach for last 19 seasons has just taken a 5-ring sabbatical, turning her program over to assistant Maura Crowell.  USA Hockey executive director Dave Ogrean has always been a beacon of enlightened thinking when it comes to the often chauvinistic thinking that envelopes the hockey world.  He has been advocating for women's hockey since hosting the 1994 World Championships in Lake Placid, and he played a major role in the hiring of Stone.  He shared a lot of hugs in Ottawa Tuesday night as he handed out gold medals and bouquets, but his longest and most resonant hug was saved for coach Stone. She is the last Pioneer in this sport, and he is her facilitator.  Together, along with Team USA, they have passed their first test with flying colors.  They are now the favorites to win their second gold in their history in Sochi.  Watching Stone walk down the victorious post-game blue line and warmly hug each player with a helping helping of maternal love is something unique for the Yanks, and can only be deemed positive.

The Last Pioneer

3) The best women's player in the World, torch passed. It's official, for anyone within shouting distance of the Scotia Bank Center Tuesday night, Amanda Kessel has wrested the torch of greatest women's player from Hayley Wickenheiser.  With the game tied 2-2 early in the third period, Kessel stormed down the right wing and WIRED a wrist shot past Canada's superb goalie Shannon Szabados.  The lightning bolt proved to be the GWG in the GMG, an cherry on the sundae that includes an undefeated NCAA season for her Minnesota Gophers, a national scoring title, an NCAA gold and the Kazmaier award as the U.S. college player of the year.  And unlike big brother Phil, she is delightful.
Wickenheiser got plenty of ice time during crunchtime, but was largely ineffective.  She generated several shots, but all from poor angles and rarely threatening.  She looked positively miserable accepting the Silver medal IIHF trophy, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  The passion still burns bright, but the eyes are hollow.

 

Kessel (#28) Number ONE with a Bullet

Russia beats Finland to win the bronze.  For the team hosting the Winter Games, this will clearly spark interest. Remember this name: Nadezhda Alexandrova.  She is the Russian goalie who out-dueled superstar counterpart Nora Raty of Finland 2-0 to capture their first WC medal since their 2001 bronze. Alexandrova got the Directorate award as the top goalie in the WC, ahead of 3 amazing goalies: Raty, Szabados and US's Jesse Vetter.  The Russian team is managed by household name Alexie Yashin, and their squad is positively brimming 10 months prior to Sochi.  Having Russia on the medal podium can only spell good things for women's hockey.

Alexandrova Foils the Finns

A refreshed batch of story lines for a sport that might need some juice if it is to endure as an Olympic sport.  Having Russian fans fill the 7000 seats in the Shayba Arena next February will go a long way to preserving women's hockey as an Olympic sport.