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.
