From UMD’s stars to fill-ins, everybody played role in NCAA title
Riana Burke was never more than a spare goaltender in her two years with the UMD women’s varsity hockey team, but her performance Thursday night was strictly first-line when she and fellow-seniors Brittny Ralph and Kellie Frick addressed the turnout of appreciative fans that filled the Holiday Inn ballroom to pay tribute to the school’s first NCAA championship team.
The only full games Burke got to start and tend goal for the UMD women’s hockey team this season was when Tuula Puputti was gone, among the top six Bulldogs who played for Finland and Sweden in the Four Nations tournament, which meant Burke was the victim of two heavy midseason losses at Minnesota. Burke showed what she was made of, by declaring the 4-0 and 8-0 losses the best time of her life.
That’s why, after the high-profile stars such as Maria Rooth (41 goals), Hanne Sikio (34 goals), Erika Holst (25 goals) and others, the perspective of the team from Burke’s backup perspective was a highlight of the Bulldogs celebration for two formative by superlative years.
“I got to travel all around the country with some of the best hockey players in the world,” said Burke, who is from Robbinsdale. “Only 22 girls got to experience what I did. Among the things I’ll never forget, were Michelle McAteer dancing — dancing on the ice, dancing in the locker room, dancing all the time. I’ll remember our bus drivers; we always loved our bus drivers.
“And our coaches, who knew exactly what to say, and always said the right thing, whether we needed a kick in the butt, or a pat on the back. I’ll never forget when the coaches came out with wigs on at our last practice before the NCAA tournament last week, and we were doing things like seeing how far we could slide on our stomachs on the ice. The St. Lawrence players were watching, and must have wondered what we were doing. But we won. So it worked.
“I wouldn’t trade one minute of my time with this team for anything.”
There was plenty of emotion, and mutual love and respect among team members, and the reception was just the right lighthearted touch after the Bulldogs defeated Harvard 6-3 and St. Lawrence 4-2 last weekend at Mariucci Arena to win the first-ever NCAA tournament for women hockey players. Coach Shannon Miller recalled how chancellor Kathryn Martin told her she had three years to win a national championship, and after last weekend, Miller reminded her that it only took two years. But Martin reminded Miller that she had a whole year to assemble the team, so it did take her three years.
Miller chose personality and chemistry as well as skill, as she combed the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland for the players on this team. They partied together, played together, and wound up with a blend of team camaraderie, willingness to work hard, while retaining the capacity of sheer fun, which may be unprecedented in college sports. The ‘Dogs began play last season with a sweep at Wisconsin, which featured defenseman Pamela Pachal punching out an aggravating opponent, and progressed undefeated into February in a Cinderella first season culminated with the WCHA title, the league playoff title, and trip to the ACHA final four.
Then they came back to pull together even harder this season, making up for the loss of Jenny Schmidgall, who was having a baby, to again win the league playoff title and this time roar through the NCAA tournament to write their name into history.
Athletic Director Bob Corran read a proclamation from Mayor Gary Doty, in which he thanked the players for their effort, and their impressive representation of Duluth, and proclaimed: “March 29, 2001, UMD Women’s Hockey Day.”
But the simple statements of thanks by Ralph, and Frick’s display of the giant heart-shaped fabric she put together with the names of every player represented as a symbol of the team’s collective heart, and Burke’s heartfelt overview, spoke volumes about the team’s concept.
The teamwork was also underscored when Miller recalled the team’s post-tournament celebration at the Minneapolis Radisson last Sunday night. Holst, a Swedish star center who missed the event because she is skating with Team Sweden in preparation for next week’s World Tournament, asked if she could have her picture taken with the trophy. Someone jokingly asked: “What did you contribute to the team?”
Holst said: “One-twentieth.”
Everybody played a role. No more, and no less.
Have you heard the news? UMD’s women secretly win NCAA
You may have heard by now, but UMD won the first Women’s NCAA hockey tournament championship. Or, you may not have heard.
The state of women’s sports right now is that the quality and caliber has risen to impressive heights, but the presence of fans and the pressure those fans can bring to bear on the media have lagged behind. Far behind. UMD has not drawn very well in its two spectacular seasons of women’s hockey existence, and yet officials are genuinely thrilled to get as many as they do. The Bulldogs, with 1,000 or 2,000 a game, are among the top couple of teams in the nation for attendance.
A lot of hockey fans — good hockey fans — have resisted any urge to go and watch the UMD women play. They read about the Bulldogs in the papers, and on such places as “duluth.com,” and they may even tune in 96-Lite FM to listen to a game now and then, but they haven’t gotten around to going down to the DECC to watch them play. Too bad. What they would have seen, last season and this, is an impressive array of talent gathered from all over the world to represent UMD. They have been recruited from Duluth, from the Twin Cities, from Canada, from Sweden and from Finland by coach Shannon Miller, but they have had a unique, upbeat chemistry from the first day of practice a year ago.
Last year’s team was one of the most compelling stories in Division I college hockey in years, sailing undefeated through the first 19 games of their existence before losing at New Hampshire on Feb. 5, 2000. They won the Women’s WCHA, the league playoff, and went to the unofficial, coaches association/USA Hockey final four, where they lost and finished fourth. This season, there was some question about whether the Bulldogs could come close to last year’s accomplishments without Jenny Schmidgall, who took the season off and had a baby in January. Smiggy, the nation’s leading scorer last year, is trying out this week with the U.S. National team for the World Tournament, which will be held in Minnesota starting next week. Let’s just say that if she DOESN’T make it, there’ll be an investigation.
At any rate, Miller’s concerted coaching effort was to prod the returning players to step up boldly and fill the void left by Schmidgall, and, sure enough, by working together the Bulldogs wound up as the best team in the nation. Fans, however, still accepted the team from afar, rather than from the turnstiles. The official stamp of approval on women’s college hockey came last weekend, when, for the first time, the NCAA held its first official tournament. The NCAA selection committee had four areas of information from which to choose four at-large teams. Despite what you may have read — repeatedly — in Twin Cities newspapers, it was not a hair-splitting decision to exclude the Gophers from the Frozen Four. The propaganda machine churned out the news that the committee went strictly by the “Pairwise Power” computer rankings, and the Gophers were fifth in that listing.
But the computer ranking was only one of four criteria used by the committee. In the other three, the ratings were: 1. Dartmouth, 2. UMD, 3. Harvard, 4. St. Lawrence, 5. Brown, and 6. Minnesota. The Pairwise had 5 and 6 reversed. So the Gophers excluded themselves, by losing and tying UMD on the last weekend of the regular season, then being blown out 4-0 by Ohio State in league playoff semifinals, and also losing to Wisconsin in the league playoff third-place game. That dropped the Gophers to sixth. Right before the selections were made, it was announced that the Gophers had sold only 1,500 tickets. You could read that however you chose; I viewed it as a suggestion it could be much more if the Gophers were to get selected.
That didn’t happen, which led to much consternation. The Gophers wanted to put on a first-class show as host of the prestigious first tournament, but they also fully expected to be there playing. When they faltered and failed to make it, they still wanted to put on a great show, but if they hustled to sell 5,000 to 9,000 tickets for the games at Mariucci Arena, those folks would be getting a three-day overdose of how wonderful the UMD program was. The Gopher sports information staff did a great job of coordinating and spewing out information and press conferences throughout the tournament. They couldn’t have done better if the Gophers had been involved, although the enormous Gopher-spewing PR machine would have kicked in via the Twin Cities media. There was one 25-inch feature advancing the tournament which never mentioned any of the four teams involved, but analyzed what a tough sell it was because the Gophers had been left out.
I was criticized by sources at Bierman Athletic Office a couple weeks ago for suggesting that MSC stood for “Minnesota Sports ChannelÂ…oops! Midwest Sports Channel.” I must admit, I was impressed that MSC was slated to carry both semifinals and the championship from the women’s tournament. On about Wednesday, however, it was announced, somewhat subtlely, that MSC had changed plans. Instead of covering the NCAA women’s semifinals and final, it would instead pick up the feeds of NCAA men’s regional hockey. Just a coincidence, I’m sure, that MSC was carrying the Minnesota-Maine men’s game from Worcester, Mass., instead of picking up the UMD-Harvard women’s NCAA semifinal at Mariucci Arena.
What else would you expect from “Minnesota Sports Channel,” where the “U of” is in such tiny letters preceding the call letters that you can’t quite hear it pronounced. You just know it’s there.
At the Friday semifinals, a woman went to Mariucci Arena to see the UMD-Harvard game. She might have gone to see the Dartmouth-St. Lawrence game, too, but sometimes these games involve separate session tickets. So she resisted the $7 parking lot and found a $5 lot. Then she went into the arena to buy a ticket. They said it was $24. She hesitated, but bought one. The ticket itself had “$20” inscribed right on it. She complained, but the ticket person said regardless, the ticket would cost her $24, take it or leave it. She took it, but already was perturbed at being up to a $30 investment before considering a program or popcorn.
She noticed two groups of people arriving just as she did, having also already paid for parking. There were four people in one group, two in the other. They paused, looked at the ticket prices, found out that the $20 tickets were going for $24, and turned around and walked back out the door into the chilly night.
I was repeating that incident to a friend of mine, and he said he could explain the discrepancy between $20 and $24 because he had brought his less-than-1-year-old baby with him to the game, in his arms. He didn’t have to pay $24 for a ticket for the baby, but he did have to pay $20, which was the student ticket price.
Yet another friend said he hurried to the game and asked for a ticket and bought it with his bank account debit card, and it wasn’t until he was going to his seat that he actually checked the price and realized he had undergone a major-league gouging.
Now, we aren’t going to blame the University of Minnesota for the high cost of tickets. It undoubtedly is the NCAA’s call. As for the bait-and-switch markup on the listed ticket price — who knows? Maybe the powers that be figured that only 3,000 would show up, and they’d be such diehards they’d pay whatever cost was established. Or reestablished. But in my humble opinion, women’s hockey would have been better served if 9,000 fans had been there, paying $10 apiece, rather than 3,000 paying $24 apiece. And if the games were on MSC, or some other independent channel with an actual social conscience.
The good news was that when UMD returned to campus Monday afternoon, there was a nice little gathering to greet the players, who looked good considering that they not only had to beat St. Lawrence 4-2 in the title game, but also had to survive their post-game celebration back at their hotel Sunday night. In the background, a couple of people who happened to be there and saw the wholesome look of satisfaction and excitement on those bright, smiling faces, said, “We’ll have to go to some games next year.”
Bulldogs, Saints square off to decide first NCAA women’s title
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—UMD women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller came into the NCAA Frozen Four prepared to win the whole thing, so it meant walking the fine line between preparation and any assumptions. So while preparing to face Harvard in Friday’s semifinals, Miller also did a thorough investigation of No. 1 ranked Dartmouth, which was playing in the other semifinal.
The Bulldogs came through, erupting for five third-period goals to beat Harvard 6-3, but their chance to knock Dartmouth out of the season-long No. 1 spot can’t happen — the Green Wave was upset 3-1 by St. Lawrence in the first semifinal.
So UMD will go after the institution’s first-ever NCAA championship today at 5 p.m. against St. Lawrence at Mariucci Arena. Dartmouth and Harvard will tangle in the 1 p.m. third-place game.
“In our first year, we set a goal of reaching the final four, and we did that,” said Miller. “This year we set a goal of winning the final four. The fact that we’re playing St. Lawrence definitely does not mean we have any comfort level. It means I have to spend some long hours studying tapes of St. Lawrence, because all my preparation was done for Dartmouth.”
UMD ( 27-5-4) got their first taste of St. Lawrence (24-7-3) in the season-opening series at the DECC, back in October. Nobody knew what to expect from the Bulldogs, who were playing their first games without Jenny Schmidgall, who took the year off to have a baby. But UMD whipped the Saints 7-0 in that opener, as Maria Rooth scored a hat trick. The next night, UMD played a better game, but fell behind 2-0 in the first period and had to rally for a 4-3 victory, with Erika Holst scoring the tying goal with 7:46 left and Laurie Alexander scoring with 3:58 to go to win it.
“That was way back on the first weekend in October, and while we learned a lot about our opposition, we also learned a lot about ourselves,” said Paul Flanagan, who, like Miller, is in only his second year as head coach at St. Lawrence — a school in only the fourth year of its women’s hockey program. “I was impressed with UMD in October. They have size, and a lot of strength with that size, as well as speed and skill, and they’re very well-coached.
“Last night, against Harvard, I saw what I expected from them. We’re sky-high coming off beating Dartmouth, but it gives us a huge emotional shot being underdog and pulling off an upset.”
While the Saints are preparing for how to stop Rooth, who also scored a hat trick in the semifinal victory over Harvard, Miller said she has some plans to deploy against St. Lawrence.
“Our defense has to do a real good job,” Miller said. “Their top goal-scorer [Amanda Sargeant] will require some special attention, and I think this game could turn out to be a great goaltending duel. Tuula Puputti is playing really well for us, and their goaltender is a little lefty [Rachel Barrie] who looked really, really good against Dartmouth.”
Sargeant is a sophomore with 19 goals-20 assists for 39 points, and Barrie is a freshman in the nets. Sophomore Shannon Smith (11-24–35) and senior Caroline Trudeau (15-13–28) and junior Jessica Wilson (13-11–24) give the Saints good balance. Gina Kingsbury, another freshman, is a quick, feisty forward who has had a strong rookie year at 14-14–28.
Those stats are a far cry from UMD’s high-scoring contingent, led by Rooth (40-30–70), Hanne Sikio (33-34–67), Erika Holst (25-27–52), Joanne Eustace (15-24–39), Sanna Peura (17-21–38) and defenseman Satu Kiipeli (10-28–38).
Scoring statistics, of course, mean nothing now. When St. Lawrence upset Dartmouth, the Green Wave was the only ECAC team the Saints hadn’t beaten.
“That was important for us to beat a team we hadn’t beaten during the season,” said Sargeant. “Now there’s only one team left that we haven’t beaten this season.”
And that team will be lining up on the opposite bench at Mariucci Arena today at 5 p.m.
Osseo overcomes Rickert’s 26 with balanced offense, defense
SAINT PAUL, MINN.—Osseo started fast and turned back whatever Duluth East rallies the Greyhounds could muster with a stifling defensive press Saturday night, allowing the Orioles to pull away to a 73-48 victory in the state Class AAAA high school basketball tournament championship game.
Osseo finished 3-1, and East went down 25-6, but not without a battle. The incomparable Rick Rickert scored 26 points, but Osseo forced him outside, and no other Hounds could chip in enough to make a difference. Osseo, on the other hand, got 25 points from keenan Jones, 19 from Josh Cadwallader inside, and 10 from Zach Kiekow.
East’s only legitimate chance, coming in, was to get the ball to Rickert, have him score a bunch, while the rest of the Greyhounds chipped in when their chances came around. But it also meant not giving up easy chances to the Orioles.
The start, therefore, was a disaster for the Greyhounds. While they — Rickert and all the rest — threw up an assortment of bricks for the first three and a half minutes of the first quarter, Osseo sped away to an 11-0 lead, gleefully acceptin the missed East shots and several turnovers.
Josh Cadwallader hit an opening basket to set the tempo, and Kennan Jones followed with three straight, one from three-point range, before Cadwallader scored inside again.
Rickert finally forced a shot over Cadwallader, and Greg Anderson added a three-point play. Rickert made three free throws and another bucket to make it a respectable 18-11 after one quarter. But five different Orioles scored in the second quarter, with both Zach Keikow and Jones hitting 3s, and the Greyhounds could only match Osseo’s 14 points to trail 32-25 at the half.
A problem East had was with Rickert running every which way to try to get open, several of his teammates forced shots that wouldn’t go, and Rickert wasn’t necessarily inside to get rebounds. Fortunately for the Hounds, Osseo cooled off after that sizzling start. Rickert had 15 in the first half despite double teams every time he crossed midcourt, but Jones had 12 and Cadwallader 10 at the half for Osseo.
When Crain opened the second half with a long 3 from the corner, the East partisans erupted, but Osseo countered with four straight baskets and it was 40-28. Again, when things looked bleak, the Hounds came back with successive 3s by Rickert and Anderson, closing the gap to 40-34. It was 41-36 when Jones came back in after a breather and immediatelyh hit a 3. Rickert countered by banking a shot in off the glass, but it was negated when he was called for charging, and Kiekow drove through the whole East team down the lane to make it 46-36.
In the fourth quarter, Osseo still tried to pursue its favored run-and-shoot style, but Rickert blocked a couple of inside tries, and the Hounds crept back into the game at 49-42 with 5:30 left. The Oriole press regained the advantage, and Jones and Craig Walls scored off forced turnovers to make it 53-42, and four straight free throws by Jones made it 57-42 before Rickert scored, and Osseo led 60-44.
Desperation showed on the Greyhounds, and with each forced shot it appeared Osseo gained more poise, satisfied to slow the game down and capitalize on East fouls to the finish. The last eight Osseo points were on scattered free throws, and it was 70-47 when the last Osseo starters went to the bench with 1:05 to go. Rickert, who had played every minute through the state tournament, also went to the East bench for the final minute.
UMD one away from national championship
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—Maria Rooth had been the best player on the Mariucci Arena ice for two periods Friday night, but there was nothing on the statistical report to show for it. That changed in the third period, as Rooth scored three goals amid a five-goal flurry that carried the Bulldogs to a 6-3 victory over Harvard in the women’s NCAA hockey tournament semifinals.
The Bulldogs (27-5-4) move into Sunday’s 4 p.m. first women’s NCAA championship game against St. Lawrence, a 3-1 upset winner over top-ranked Dartmouth in the first semifinal. Harvard (23-10) will face ECAC arch-rival Dartmouth in the 1 p.m. third-place game.
The impact may not have hit the Twin Ports yet, but by winning one more hockey game, on Sunday, the second-year UMD women could bring the first Division I national championship trophy home to Duluth.
UMD’s No. 2 ranked Bulldogs and the No. 3 Crimson put on a classic display of what might be the two most individually skilled teams in the nation. Harvard had Jennifer Botterill and Tammy Shewchuk, stars of the Canadian national team, while UMD countered with Finnish national stars Tuula Puputti in goal, Hanne Sikio and Sanna Peura and defenseman Satu Kiipeli, and Swedish national stars Rooth and Erika Holst.
Both teams also have so much more, starting with team chemistry, heart and character that shows up whenever things get tough. But after it was done, and Rooth notched her three goals and one assist, UMD coach Shannon Miller had a simple declaration.
“I happen to believe Maria Rooth is the best player in women’s college hockey,” said Miller. “Bar none.”
Miller called Rooth and her linemates, Joanne Eustace and Laurie Alexander, aside before the third period and told them she was matching them up against Botterill’s line, power for power, and it was time for them to step up and prove they were better. The startling goal explosion at the start of the third period might be what Miller had in mind, but it caught the 2,099 fans by surprise.
Rooth broke in, veered to the right to elude a defender, and flung a hard backhander at the goal. Jessica Ruddock, Harvard’s outstanding freshman, blocked it, but Holst rammed in the rebound for a 2-1 UMD lead at 1:18. At 2:51, Eustace passed behind the net to Alexander, who relayed a pass out front. Eustace got a piece of it, but Rooth got the rest, wedging her 38th goal through Ruddock and it was suddenly 3-1. At 3:46, the goal-a-minute Bulldogs struck again, as Peura broke in from the left and lofted a perfect, saucer pass that landed where Sikio could one-time her 33rd goal into the net and it was 4-1, as the Bulldogs outshot the Crimson 6-0 in those opening four minutes.
At 7:52, Rooth looped into the Harvard zone and intercepted an outlet pass attempt, sweeping in alone and beating Ruddock at the right post after a shift to her backhand. But at 5-1, it wasn’t over.
Harvard’s grit went on display as Botterill followed her own blocked shot to the net and was in perfect position to score when Shewchuk picked off the blocked puck and fed it to the crease at 10:55. At 12:16, Shewchuk blocked the puck free herself and shot, then followed to the net, chopping and smacking at the puck until she knocked it in, and the seeming runaway was 5-3.
The Bulldogs regained their composure and Puputti got things back in control after that, but it stayed 5-3 until 1:02 remained, and then Rooth got her stick on another puck and finished her hat trick with a decisive clinching goal.
“Our goalie is downstairs and feels bad,” said Harvard coach Katey Stone. “But I’m so proud of her. She battled to the end.”
Based on the Bulldogs tingling last-minute 4-3 victory and a 5-2 sweep over Harvard in December, there was no reason to expect either a goaltending duel or a shootout. What should have been more unpredictable, of course, was that the teams would display both extremes, in the same game.
“We lost to a real good team,” said Harvard coach Katey Stone. “We were better than we were in December, and I think it showed in our effort and our relentless belief that we were going to come back.”
The teams dueled through a close-checking, chess-like first period, 0-0, with Puputti making 13 saves and Ruddock kicking out 11. It was more of the same in the second period, although UMD gained a 1-0 lead on the game’s first power play, when freshman Peura broke up the left side and simply blew a 35-foot slapshot past Ruddock and into the upper right corner at 2:38.
The lead lasted 15 minutes, but before the second period ended, Harvard got the game’s second power play and capitalized immediately for a 1-1 tie when Shewchuk deflected Tara Dunn’s low shot from the right point into the upper right corner past Puputti. Again the goalies were in charge, as Puputti made 12 more saves and Ruddock 9.
Ruddock finished with 31 and Puputti 28 as the Bulldogs went on a 15-5 shooting rampage to blow the tight 1-1 game to bits in the third period, but it was still a classic.
“I love to play these kinds of games,” said Botterill. “To play in this type of situation, a big game, with a lot of talented players on both teams. I would have liked a different outcome, but that doesn’t mean I love the game any less.”
As she said the words, Botterill’s voice cracked, and the tears came, but she never hesitated to complete her sentence.
ST. LAWRENCE 3
DARTMOUTH 1
The first upset in the history of the NCAA women’s hockey tournament didn’t occur until the first game of the first-ever tournament, as St. Lawrence stunned No. 1 rated Dartmouth with three first-period goals, then rode Rachel Barrie’s goaltending and a smart, poised attack to a 3-1 victory in the first semifinal, at Mariucci Arena.
St. Lawrence, which was crushed 7-1 by Harvard in last weekend’s ECAC tournament semifinals, takes a 24-7-3 into Sunday’s 4 p.m. championship game, while Dartmouth (26-4-4) will play for third place.
Suzanne Fiacco skated up the right side and sent a medium-speed flip toward the goal from the top of the right faceoff circle after 4:34 elapsed in the first period, and goaltender Amy Ferguson — the star of last weekend’s 3-1 Dartmouth playoff final victory over Harvard — missed the deceptive but unscreened shot, which caromed in off the far pipe.
A minute later, on the power play, Chera Marshall scored for a 2-0 lead. Trisha Powers chased a rebound past the net on the left, and deftly backhanded the puck to the crease for Marshall’s goal at 5:45. Correne Bredin, who had been penalized for the first power play goal, was in the box again late in the period, and Jessica Wilson circled out from behind the net to stuff a wraparound goal in at the left pipe at 18:47.
Barrie, who made 31 saves, gave up only a shorthanded goal by Carly Haggard, who skated in on a breakaway and wound up tripped and following the puck into the goal with 4:19 remaining in the third period.
“We wanted a chance to redeem ourselves after we were beaten 7-1 last weekend,” said St. Lawrence coach Paul Flanagan, whose team had tied 1-1 and lost 5-3 in regular-season games against the Big Green.
Dartmouth coach Judy Oberting said: “We never knew if we were flat, or if we were forced flat, because we ran into a team on fire. St. Lawrence did a phenomenal job.”
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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