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. 

Good bye to Angela

She was a victim, both Gold-medal goals scored at even strength while she was on the ice, but that is hardly a fair assessment of her play in what in all likelihood was her final game of organized hockey. She led all players with 6 shots on goal and over 27 minutes of playing time. she generated offense singlehandedly in the first period, went into combat with Gillian Apps in the second period, and pushed the play relentlessly in the third period until it was over.

A Harvard-trained spokesperson who is currently getting her Masters from the U. of Minnesota in media, was red-eyed puddle of tears in the mixed zone, as teammates Chu and Potter took the mics trying to explain how they failed in this one-game tournament.

Ruggiero always has so many distractions in her life, you imagine they plague her mind when she plays. A magnificent talent with every tool for the game, even the men's game, she has been plagued by turnovers and the occasional head-loss in big games, often ignored by the media because of her "superstar" stature. In these Olympic Winter Games she was making news throughout because of an impending job with the I.O.C. that she landed the day before the Gold medal game. I this game however, Angela played with laser-like focus. She was the epitome of skill in the first, and selfless brawn in the second. Taking on Canada's toughest and most energetic wide-body (with all due respect to Haley Irwin) Apps in all the combat zones, Ruggiero spent herself nobly in defeat.

there was no self-promoting happy talk in the post game, no justification for yet another defeat to Canada. Just a respectful hand shake through a misty-eyed emotional haze, as she strode from one Olympic endeavor to the next, the future one in street clothes.

two taps doom U.S. golden dreams

The Kid Delivers

The opening minutes of a USA-Canada Game, men or women, is a tension convention. Waiting for the first goal, which is often the death knell for the victim, is as riveting as it is uncomfortable. Think of a long tailed cat weaving through a room crowded with rocking chairs, or being a mother on an important phone call with a toddler climbing furniture. Maybe the most apt analogy is a room full of chain smokers inside a huge powder keg. When the puck is in your end, especially if you are an American seeking gold against Canada, BE CAREFUL, or the arms cache known as Canada Hockey Place will detonate.

The first period of the 2010 Women's Gold medal game is a tight affair, with all the tension a fan can tolerate. Hilary Knight bumps Canadian goalie Shannon Szabados, Haley Irwin amps it up by decking the helmetless Jocelyn Lamoureaux on her mandatory trip to the players bench. Neither act is called for a penalty. Darwitz throws a testing snap shot, Gina Kingsbury fires off the rush, and finally the irresistable force known as Haley Irwin forces USA's Lisa Chesson to hook her down--the Canucks are a man up. Hand sweat time. Suddenly there is a loose puck off a rebound and Marie-Philip Poulin pounces...you wait for the explosion. But veteran Angela Ruggiero, 12 years her elder, wills her stick to reach the puck a fraction of a second earlier, and the threat dissipates, temporarily.

Then USA's Knight draws a power play, which evolves into a 5 on 3, and the Yanks move the puck perfectly to set up Caitlin Cahow for a back door one-timer, except Cahow stops the puck before firing, and a grade-A chance becomes just another good save for Szabados.

Back to 5 on 5 hockey, inside the U.S. zone. Harvard trained Canadian Jenn Botterill muscles possession of the puck, and U.S. forwards Karen Thatcher and Erika Lawler both turn to watch her drive down the wall. Fatal. The sound they heard next will surely haunt them.  Two taps of the stick on the ice by Poulin. She had slipped into a gap in the slot, the sacred scoring slot, and was open and begging for the puck. Botterill, hungry for a fourth Olympic gold, delivered the disk. The sounds got louder: first Poulin's stick crashing down on ice and puck, propelling the biscuit into the back of the net, and a millisecond later, a roaring cacophony from 17,000 citizens of Canuckistan roaring in unison. Think 747 jet liner passing 10 feet overhead. The brilliant Poulin adds another later in the first, Szabados slams the door, Game, set, match.  USA's braintrust will spend years agonizing over the missing offense from absentees Krissy Wendell and Sarah Parsons as the Yanks are shut out in the GMG.

Thatcher and Lawler, usually the brightest smiles in the room, stumble through the mixed zone looking like they are choking on their own vomit. The sound of a tapping hockey stick will echo for 4 long years.