UMD women’s hockey storybook needs last-chapter revision
BOSTON, MASS.—It was an incredible ride, this storybook journey of the first UMD women’s hockey team. To be a true storybook, though, required the perfect ending, and that last chapter was not forthcoming when the Bulldogs failed to claim the national championship in Boston over the weekend.
It seemed too much for a reasonable person to hope for that the Bulldogs could make a genuine run at winning the Women’s WCHA championship in their first season. They won it. Then came the league playoff, which they also won. In the course of those conquests, UMD, with a mixture of about eight scholarships, some walk-ons, and some refugees from the previous club team, had to defeat the University of Minnesota’s three-year powerhouse, which had been to national tournaments its first two years.
Having proven 3-1-1 domination of the Gophers en route to earning the automatic West berth in the final four, it was deflating to lose 3-2 to the same Gophers in the semifinals on Friday. After that, it was fully understandable that the Bulldogs wouldn’t have a thing left for the third-place game, and ultimately lost 5-4 to a Dartmouth team that was thrilled to take third.
It also might have been discouraging to the Bulldogs that Minnesota, after getting voted in ahead of the higher-ranked Harvard defending national champions, would go on and win the national championship with a 4-2 victory over No. 1 ranked Brown in Saturday night’s final at Matthews Arena on the Northeastern campus.
But the UMD players handled the weekend in impressive style. There was disappointment, but no overflowing of tears. There was some bitterness about having engaged in two physically battering games, accepted their penalties with minimal complaint, but had to question why their foes were not similarly penalized. But they only congratulated their opponents.
At the post-game interview sessions, the UMD players not only didn’t complain or alibi, and in fact wound up laughing, which proved they enjoyed the opportunity. This is a team that has had fun all season, and they treated the ultimate disappointment in the same context — it wasn’t going to ruin the fun of the season.
And, it left a carrot dangling out there ahead of them for next year.
“This was a new team and a new experience,” said Maria Rooth, an import from Sweden and the second-leading scorer on the team. “Are there things we can take away from our experience here? Oooooh, yes.”
Jenny Schmidgall had two goals and three assists out of the six goals scored by the Bulldogs in the tournament, and wound up with 41 goals, 52 assists for 93 points to lead the nation in a stunning season culminated by being named as the West’s only All-American. As usual, despite still being criticized by Gopher followers for leaving that program’s “team concept,” Schmidgall only talked about the team.
“We played hard,” Shmiggy said. “But we learned some things here, too. We know that when we’re up 2-0 or 4-3, the game isn’t over and we’ve got to keep playing our best to the finish. But the experience should just make us a better team next year.”
The Bulldogs were up 2-0 on Minnesota in the semifinals as Schmidgall set up Rooth in the first period and Michelle McAteer in the second and goalie Tuula Puputti was brilliant. The netminder was victimized when Minnesota’s Nadine Muzerall, shooting a desperation try from the left side as she fell to the ice, got lucky as the off-target shot deflected off defenseman Pamela Pachal’s skate and the ricochet went through Puputti’s legs.
Midway through the final period, Muzerall scored again, coming out wide on a wraparound to score. The winner came two minutes later when Tracy Engstrom’s shot from the left circle hit the right pipe and the carom hit Puputti in the back and dropped in. Both came on power plays, as referee Krista Knight, after calling seven penalties on the rugged Gophers and six on the Bulldogs through two periods, called only four penalties in the third period, all on UMD, which set up the Muzerall and Engstrom goals — both on power plays.
Coach Shannon Miller, who put this team together from a start that consisted of a half-dozen scholarships, some pretty good walk-ons, and a cluster of refugees from the former UMD club team, found the sudden one-sidedness of the calls unexplainable. “We deserved every penalty we got,” she said. “But in front of the Gopher net, our players were getting knocked down with cross-checks and run over and knocked down, and that wasn’t called.”
Miller also praised her players for playing through that adversity, and she noted that despite having to kill four penalties, the Bulldogs outshot Minnesota 16-5 in the third period, making it 42-27 for the game. “That tells you that 5-on-5, we dominated,” Miller said, proudly.
No question, the Bulldogs left everything on the Matthews Arena ice in that game. But they came back, gamely, in the third-place game Saturday afternoon. After falling behind 2-0, the Bulldogs rallied for a goal by Schmidgall in the second period, and goals by Erika Holst, Schmidgall and Rooth in the third to gain a 4-3 lead. However, Dartmouth freshman Carly Haggard got loose behind the defense twice, to score on a break-in with a turnover and a breakaway with a long pass, and Dartmouth won 5-4.
Referee Sarah Perkins issued seven penalties to UMD to four for Dartmouth, even though Dartmouth’s 6-foot defensemen Liz Macri and Correne Bredin flattened every UMD player that got near the net with heavy hits throughout the game.
Miller said she was proud of how her team played through that adversity, but being emotionally spent and then having to use up so much of her top players physically to kill penalties was tough to overcome. UMD got only 22 shots, meaning Dartmouth goalie Meaghan Cahill became the first opposing goalie to make fewer than 20 saves, with 18, against a Bulldog team that averaged 47 shots a game all season.
A Boston reporter asked Miller about her team “taking so many penaltiesÂ…”
“Wait a minute,” Miller interrupted. “Taking a lot of penalties, or being given a lot of penalties? There’s a difference. It was very physical out there, and we were given some penalties, but we controlled what we could — we didn’t hit back, we didn’t slash, we didn’t run people.”
After Minnesota won the championship game by building a 4-1 lead on goals by Courtney Kennedy and Laura Slominski in the second period, and by Nadine Muzerall — her 49th — and Winny Brodt in the third, Kennedy, a big and rugged defenseman, acknowledged that the Bulldogs could have the state championship as long as the Gophers, who beat UMD only twice in six tries, could have the national championship trophy.
Miller was right on with her assessment of the tournament. “Going into the tournament, I thought the winner of our game against Minnesota would take the hardware home,” Miller said. “The Gophers have a very good team with good size and strength, just like we have. It didn’t surprise me that they won the championship. We were one goal shy of making it to the big game.”
So the perfect storybook ending wasn’t forthcoming for UMD’s first-year wonders. Or maybe it was destined to be a two-year storybook before the Bulldogs find the happy ending.
(umd women’s hockey cutlines)
[CUTLINES:
1(Sikio slides)/ UMD’s Hanne Sikio managed to get a shot off after being tripped, forcing a save by Dartmouth goaltender Meaghan Cahill in the third period of the third-place game at the women’s national college hockey tournament. UMD’s Jenny Schmidgall followed the play, and Big Green defensemen were Kristin Romberg (20) and Correne Bredin (12). Dartmouth won 5-4.
2(sikio-shmig attack)/ UMD’s Hanne Sikio (10) and Jenny Schmidgall (16) attacked the Minnesota net in the women’s college hockey semifinals in Boston. Gopher goaltender Erica Killewald, the tournament’s most valuable player, tried to cover the puck as Winny Brodt (5), Courtney Kennedy (2) and Tracy Engstrom (24) helped. Schmidgall, Brodt and Kennedy made the all-tournament team.
3(shmiggy stopped)/ UMD’s last chance to erase Minnesota’s 3-2 lead was stopped when goalie Erica Killewald stopped Jenny Schmidgall (16) in the closing seconds. UMD’s Maria Rooth (27) and Joanne Eustace (9) followed, while Gophers Nadine Muzerall (4), Winny Brodt (5) and Courtney Kennedy (2) defended.
(cutlines from women’s national hockey tournament)
cutlines…
1/ Dartmouth freshman Carly Haggard beat UMD goaltender Tuula Puputti with 2:19 remaining Saturday, her third goal of the game to break a 4-4 tie and give Dartmouth a 5-4 victory in the third place game of the women’s national college hockey tournament. UMD defenseman Pamela Pachal arrived too late.
2/ Carly Haggard, a freshman from Dartmouth, fooled UMD goaltender with a deke and was about to score her second goal of the game, giving the Green Wave a 4-4 tie with 3:26 remaining. Just 1:07 later, Haggard completed her hat trick to give Dartmouth a 5-4 victory in the third-place game of the women’s national tournament.
3/ Maria Rooth celebrated after scoring a shorthanded goal midway through the third period that left Dartmouth goaltender Meaghan Cahill depressed and gave UMD a 4-3 lead in the third-place game of the women’s national college hockey tournament. Dartmouth rallied to win 5-4, however.
4/ University of Minnesota hockey players celebrated their 4-2 victory over top-rated Brown Saturday at Matthews Arena in Boston in the championship game of the national women’s college hockey tournament.
Gopher women beat No. 1 Brown 4-2 for national puck title
BOSTON, MASS.—Many hockey observers figure it’s inevitable that the University of Minnesota hockey program wins the national championship every few years, and on Saturday it happened again, but this time with a twist. The Gopher women’s team did what the men haven’t done since 1979, beating No. 1 ranked Brown 4-2 at Matthews Arena in the final game of the women’s national college hockey tournament.
The Gophers (32-6-1) spotted Brown a 1-0 lead, and gave up the final goal of the game, but got a goal from defenseman Courtney Kennedy early in the second period, another from Laura Slominski late in the middle session, and two quick ones from Nadine Muzerall and Winny Brodt in the third to take command.
Center Muzerall and defensemen Kennedy and Brodt were named to the all-tournament team, as was Brown goalie Ali Brewer and forwards Jenny Schmidgall of UMD and Carly Haggard of Dartmouth. Gopher goaltender Erica Killewald, who outdueled Kazmaier Award-winner Brewer by making 34 saves to Brewer’s 26 in the title game, was named tournament most valuable player.
Brown (25-4-3) got its first-period goal from Kim Insalaco, and came back for a power-play goal with 6:55 left by Kristy Zamora to give Minnesota coach Laura Halldorson some anxious moments.
“Brown didn’t quit, and when they got that late goal, we had to keep playing sound defense,” said Halldorson. “This is the highlight of my coaching career, although we just approached it as a game we had to win. It hasn’t sunk in yet.”
The Gophers, who finished second to UMD in the Women’s WCHA race, and lost to UMD in the W-WCHA playoff final, overturned that trend by rallying from a 2-0 deficit to beat UMD 3-2 in Friday’s late semifinal.
“We’ll let them have the state championship, as long as we can have this,” said Courtney Kennedy, whose rugged play on defense made her offensive imput secondary all season — but not in the title game.
The Gophers had yielded that goal to Insalaco with 2:42 left in the first period, but until they could score, nothing was certain.
“We wanted it,” said Kennedy. “Brown is a great team, like Harvard, or UMD or several other top teams. But even when we were down 1-0, I never thought we weren’t going to win. We were saying we needed to shoot and go to the net for rebounds. I knew we needed a goal, and on that play, my sister (Shannon) gave me a pass and I took a shot, then I went for the net.
“After I shot again, I was on my back, so I never saw it go in.”
The kamikazee rush and her defense-crashing follow-up proved pivotal in igniting Minnesota’s attack. The Gophers outshot Brown 16-10 in the second period and Slominski, a former Ms. Hockey from Burnsville, scored on a pass from behind the net by Muzerall with 1:11 left.
“The first goal was big, and the second goal was huge,” said Halldorson. “Then those two quick goals in the third really gave us some room.”
Muzerall, the nation’s leading goal-scorer, notched her 49th at 3:43 to make it 3-1, and Brodt, who fed Muzerall on her goal, scored herself at 4:41 to make it 4-1.
Brown, however, came back to outshoot the Gophers 18-7, and Killewald’s goaltending was tested. But, just like the entire Gopher team, that test was passed with flying colors.
Dartmouth rally flattens UMD 5-4 in 3rd-place game
BOSTON, MASS.—Try as they might, the UMD women’s hockey players were not too convincing Saturday afternoon. With their hopes of ending a remarkable first season with a national championship, they couldn’t convince themselves to play with full intensity in the third-place game of the national women’s college tournament.
After rallying from deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 to finally gain a 4-3 lead midway through the third period, the mostly-flat Bulldogs were ultimately flattened when Dartmouth’s Carly Haggard scored two goals just 1:07 apart to complete a hat trick and send the Green Wave to a 5-4 victory at Matthews Arena.
Afterward, the Bulldogs weren’t too convincing, either.
“I thought we played very well,” said UMD coach Shannon Miller.
“We went out and really played hard,” said captain Brittny Ralph.
Nice try, but it was obvious the Bulldogs had left everything on the ice in their emotion-draining 3-2 loss to Minnesota Friday night. They worked hard, but their passes weren’t crisp, their reactions were a step slow, and they were, as they say, a bubble off in their synchronization. It might have been physical, from the draining game the night before, or it might have been mental, from being unable to reclaim the psyche of going for the championship.
“It was probably a little bit of both,” said Ralph, acknowledging that there had been a few holes in the UMD game.
The biggest hole is that the Bulldogs — who came into the tournament averaging over 47 shots a game, and who outshot Minnesota 42-27 in the Friday game — got only 22 shots against Dartmouth, and were, in fact, outshot in every period for a 39-22 total. The 18 saves made by Dartmouth goaltender Meaghan Cahill were the fewest any UMD goaltender has made all season.
True, Dartmouth also had to rebound from the disappointment of a semifinal loss, but the Green Wave’s 4-2 loss to Brown was expected, being their fourth in four games against the Bears, and there was no doubt they had more to play for in the third-place game.
“We were picked for sixth in the East,” said Dartmouth coach Judy Parish Oberting. “There was so much controversy over whether Dartmouth even belonged here. So we came into this game thinking, ‘Wouldn’t a third-place finish be nice?’ ”
Tuula Puputti, UMD’s sparkplug goaltender who joined the team at semester break from Finland as the final piece of the team’s championship puzzle, was not the reason for the loss, but she truly was part of the team effort, struggling to cover easy rebounds and mishandling the puck several times, which was most uncharacteristic for her.
That’s how the game opened, with Lauren Trottier flipping a puck goalward. It appeared Puputti was trying to make a play with the puck and mishandled it, and it wound up skittering past her for a goal at 0:24.
The Bulldogs once again were the victims of a flurry of penalty calls, as referee Sarah Perkins hit them for four of the five infractions whistled in the first period. When the Green Wave appeared to be pounding the Bulldogs with heavy hits, the penalties were rare, causing Miller to wait after all three periods to discuss the call-selection with Perkins.
The reaction? Michelle McAteer was called for another penalty at 0:18 of the second period and Dartmouth defenseman Liz Macri scored with a screened power-play slapshot at 0:47 for a 2-0 lead.
The Bulldogs got untracked when the incomparable Jenny Schmidgall scored with a screened power-play shot from the left point at 3:49, her 40th goal of the season, and the Bulldogs came into the third period down only 2-1.
At that point, they seemed to rise up and take control of the game, just at the right time. With their best offensive assault of the game, the Bulldogs attacked on the first two shifts. Hanne Sikio ripped a shot that glanced off Cahill’s facemask for a save, and Pamela Pachal followed up with a hard shot from 35 feet that hit the left pipe. Erika Holst finally came through with a goal at 1:38, and it was 2-2.
Haggard, a feisty little freshman from British Columbia, regained the lead at 3-2 for Dartmouth with a shot that hit Puputti, bounced up in the air, and eluded the goaltender before tumbling across the line at 4:52.
It didn’t seem to matter, when, just 29 seconds later, Schmidgall notched her 41st goal by stabbing a loose puck past Cahill for a 3-3 deadlock.
When Ralph went off for holding, Schmidgall set up Maria Rooth for a shorthanded goal at 11:36, and the Bulldogs had their first — and only — lead of the game at 4-3. It was the 52nd assist and 93rd point of the season for Schmidgall.
The lead proved all too brief. The Bulldogs held it until just 3:26 remained, when Haggard picked off the puck when the Bulldogs botched a breakout, and she zoomed in from the left circle. A right-handed shooter, Haggard made a good move to her forehand and scored at the right edge.
Visions of overtime might have appeared, but with 2:19 remaining, Kim McCullough picked off a casual UMD pass in the Dartmouth zone and fired a long diagonal pass across the neutral zone. There, at full flight, was Haggard, breaking beyond the defense. She caught the pass and broke in alone, this time throwing a deke at Puputti and cutting to her left to score with a backhander.
“As I was skating down, it looked like she already knew I was going to my forehand, so I decided to go to the backhand,” said Haggard.
That was it. The Bulldogs played fiercely through the final two minutes, but the magic that had carried them through the season to the final four would not reignite. Dartmouth, trying to prove it belonged in this select field, finished 21-12, and UMD, shorn of its hopes for a national title, finished 25-5-3 — already armed with incentive for next season.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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