UMD Last Hope to Prevent Golden Gopher Runaway
UMD's Saara Tuominen in Action vs Minnesota |
 |
Feb. 4, 2010
by John Gilbert, for WCHA.com
The hockey rivalry between the University of Minnesota and Minnesota Duluth has raged for almost 50 years for the men, but it has lost nothing when the women started playing for both institutions a decade ago. Both teams play the game at a high level, both are always in contention for WCHA and national championships, and both tend to play with their best intensity when facing each other.
There is no question this year that the University of Minnesota has the best women’s hockey team in the league, and by moving to the top spot in one of the national polls, the claim could be made that they are the best in the country. UMD ranks No. 5. But those ratings, and even the standings in the WCHA, will be secondary to their rivalry when they collide at the DECC this weekend.
Realistically, the series in Duluth will determine if the Golden Gophers will continue to breeze to the finish as WCHA champions, or whether UMD – the only team with any shot of catching the Gophers – might still make a valid challenge.
Minnesota is 21-3-4 and on a hot streak, with only one loss in the last 13 games (8-1-3). Two of the ties came at Bemidji State, where the Gophers earned an extra WCHA-only point both nights by winning shootouts. UMD is 19-7-2 overall, and has lost only once in its last 13 games (10-1-2) to further set the stage.
The two teams have been among the best in the league and the country since women’s hockey began playing a WCHA schedule, and when Wisconsin moved up under the coaching of Mark Johnson to join them as a “big three,” those three went on to win all nine of the NCAA women’s hockey tournaments held so far. UMD has won four, Wisconsin three, and Minnesota two, and the chances of one of them winning this year in the 10th NCAA women’s tournament, rest mostly on the Gophers. But UMD is lurking there, not far behind.
|
|
 |
When the playoffs begin, of course, other much-improved teams, such as Bemidji State, or Ohio State, could join Wisconsin in springing an upset of the two front-runners. But at this point, they stand tall.
UMD, for example, beat Mercyhurst during an early-season series split. Mercyhurst then went on to stroll undefeated through the rest of their schedule, until last weekend, when Niagara stung them with their second loss of the season. The national pollsters stuck with Mercyhurst as No. 1 in one poll, with Minnesota second, while Minnesota supplanted Mercyhurst in the other. Whichever one you look at, Minnesota clearly is one of the nation's elite teams.
The Gophers, Bulldogs and Wisconsin all went into this season knowing they were going to be helping populate the U.S., Canada and Sweden Olympic teams, all of whom decided to centralize their Olympic teams for the whole season. Wisconsin lost the most, if you include coach Mark Johnson, and that's a good reason the Badgers are engaged in a tough battle for third place rather than fighting for first or second. Minnesota's most significant losses are departed players, if not graduates, because Gigi Marvin was a senior, and the Lamoureux twins, who will be sophomores, are transferring after one season to North Dakota.
The only loss of an existing Gopher player wlll be significant, because freshman goaltender Noora Raty goes off to play for Finland.
UMD, on the other hand, is depleted by four returning players on Sweden's team, and a fifth, Haley Irwin, with the favored Team Canada. Those five will be extremely important as returnees to UMD next season, particularly because one returnee is Kim Martin, the Team Sweden hero of the 2006 semifinal upset against the U.S., and a silver-medal finish. Martin is arguably the best female goaltender in the world, and she's proved it since those teenage years.
While the goaltending drama this season was that the Gophers, who had Alyssa Grogan and Jenny Lura returning in goal and didn't really need a goaltender, brought in Raty from Finland, while UMD coach Shannon Miller made sure that Germany wouldn't qualify for the Winter Olympics before she recruited star German goaltender Jennifer Harss.
The season started with the two teams meeting at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis. In the first game. It was Raty against Harss in a battle of international goaltending stars, and Minnesota swept both games.
In the first game, Anne Schleper scored for Minnesota in the first period, Terra Rasmussen scored in the second, and Erickson scored again in the third for a 3-0 lead, and Raty was only dented for a goal by Emmanuelle Blais midway through the final period in a 3-1 Gopher victory. Next night, the teams were scoreless at the halfway point, then Emily West scored shorthanded for the Gophers, who added a goal by Kelli Blankenship in the third, and another shorthanded tally, by Chelsey Jones, after that. Minnesota won 3-0 for the sweep. The Gophers outshot UMD 35-23 in the first game, and 37-29 in the second. Harss played well both nights, giving up six goals and stopping 69 other missiles. Raty established her credentials by facing 52 UMD shots and yielding just one goal.
The season has run along at a rapid rate, with Minnesota staying on top all the way, and UMD fighting its way clear of the pack to claim second. Now they meet again. The roster changes are interesting. Raty has left the Gophers for the Olympics, and Harss has hit an amazing peak of competence and will stay in the nets for UMD. The Bulldogs, however, lost captain Saara Tuominen and defenseman Mariia Posa to Finland's Olympic team, just before last weekend, but they gained a key attribute when Canada cut Jocelyne Larocque.
Choosing to go with more veterans from previous Olympics, Larocque was cut even though she had been playing exceptional defense. Canada's loss is UMD's gain. Jaime Rasmussen had been leading the defense, and Larocque, at the top of her game, comes in as another blue-chip defenseman. In addition, Tara Gray rose up and scored four points to help the Bulldogs get past North Dakota for a sweep last weekend.
Regardless of all the moves to and from Olympic teams, the series is defined enough by the fact that it's Minnesota-Minnesota Duluth, and two more chapters in their storied rivalry are certain.
