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If UMD’s hockey teams, both men and women, watched Team USA in the Winter Olympics for inspiration last weekend, it would make their shortcomings more understandable.
First, the U.S. women got to the Gold Medal game against Canada, as expected, and battled throughout last Thursday’s game to gain leads of 1-0 and 2-0. But Canada caught up, with former UMD star Haley Irwin setting up the tying goal in the final minute, and Canada won 3-2 in overtime. It was the continuation of an amazing string, because in 1998, the first year women’s hockey became an Olympic sport, the U.S. upset Canada. Since then, Canada has won Gold in 2002, 2006, 2010, and this year, and hasn’t lost so much as one game in any of those Winter Olympics.
The UMD women had at least as tough a task, playing at Minnesota, and the Golden Gophers thumped the Bulldogs 6-0 Friday and again 6-0 Saturday to end the regular season. Coach Shannon Miller’s task now is to get her Bulldogs up off the mat to face a tough Ohio State outfit this Friday and Saturday -- and possibly Sunday -- nights at AMSOIL Arena in the WCHA quarterfinals. UMD will get defensemen Tea Villila back from Finland and Lara Stalder back after a sensational Olympics for Switzerland. After Switzerland fell behind Sweden 2-0 in the Bronze Medal game, Stalder should have had three consecutive assists for setting up three teammates in a stirring third-period rally to gain the lead, and an open-net goal gave Switzerland a 4-2 victory and its first Olympic hockey medal.
On the men’s side, if you watched Team USA fall 1-0 to Canada in the semifinals on Friday morning, you had the feeling that if they played for six hours, the U.S. might not have scored. Then down to AMSOIL Arena, and the same feeling persisted as the UMD men gave up a goal in each period and lost 3-0 to North Dakota.
Walking through the corridor at AMSOIL I spotted a familiar face. It was Steve Johnson, the former Fighting Sioux winger from Grand Forks, who went on to play some pro hockey before becoming an outstanding coach in the USHL and as a Division 1 college assistant. I asked what he was doing now, and he said he was in Duluth to watch his son play.
Sure enough, Luke Johnson is a freshman playing for The Team Formerly Known as Fighting Sioux. He came into the weekend having scored a modest 4 goals for the season, not bad for a rookie. On a first period power play, Luke Johnson moved in from the left point and fired a bullet past goaltender Aaron Crandall for a 1-0 North Dakota lead. In the second period, Luke Johnson’s shot was blocked by Crandall, but pesky Rocco Grimaldi put away the rebound and it was 2-0. In the third period, the teams were skating 4-on-4 when Luke Johnson moved to the top of the right circle and pulled the trigger on a 30-footer to make it 3-0. His two goals and one assist boosted his numbers to 6 goals and 10 assists.
UMD outshot North Dakota 33-21 for the game, but after Zane Gothberg made an early tough save, his teammates prevented any serious scoring threats.
The second game was also curious. There was that bit of non-inspiration from Team USA early in the morning, when Finland, led by Wild center Mikail Granlund and ageless Teemu Selanne, crushed the U.S. 5-0. That means that after leading all the men’s team in scoring with 20 goals through four games, Team USA went scoreless through the final two games.
Similarly, the Bulldogs were outshot 22-10 in an overwhelming first period, which was less overwhelming because goals by Kyle Osterberg and Caleb Herbert gave UMD a surprising 2-1 lead. Instead of taking heart from that, the Bulldogs faded to nothing in the second period, and in front of an AMSOIL Arena record crowd of 7,009, they allowed goals by Paul LaDue, Michael Parks, Dillon Simpson, and LaDue again in a 7-minute collapse in the first 11 minutes, and lost 6-2.
LaDue, like Luke Johnson in the first game, may have surprised himself with the two goals, which give him five for the season. “I don’t know where those came from,” LaDue laughed.
UMD Coach Scott Sandelin said: “We were ahead 2-1, but they were pretty damn good from the drop of the puck. They’re playing for first place, and we’re just trying to win a hockey game.”
The sweep at home meant the Bulldogs, who were one point out of first place two weeks ago, have now lost four straight and plummeted to sixth in the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference.
Now it’s off to Miami of Ohio, where the Bulldogs can ill-afford to assume anything just because Miami is in last place in the NCHC. The coaches, you recall, picked Miami to win the conference before it started this first season.
The Olympic Gold Medal hockey game went to Canada, with an impressive 3-0 victory over Sweden. It was a bad break when Henrik Sedin was injured and lost for the tournament, because he was one of the top three centers on Sweden’s well-prepared team. Then Henrik Zetterberg, unquestionably Sweden’s top center, was injured requiring surgery and missed the entire Olympics as well. Still, Sweden had Nicklas Backstrom, the third of its three star centermen, and summoned up its best game to slip past an outstanding Finland team in the semifinals to reach the Gold Medal game against Canada.
And then, two hours before the game, the Swedish coaches were informed that Nicklas Backstrom would not be able to play in the final. He had flunked a drug test two days earlier, and somehow the word didn’t get from the test lab to the hockey team from Friday until Sunday.
It turns out, Backstrom’s system disclosed traces of pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in numerous over-the-counter allergy medications. Backstrom had taken the medication every day for seven years -- including the Vancouver Olympic tournament.
Sweden gave it a spirited try, without its top three centers, but couldn’t score against Canada. Canada had all its top guns, including its top two centers --  Jonathan Toews and Sidney Crosby, both of whom scored their first and only goals of the Olympic Games in the Gold Medal game.
Oh, sure, we’ve heard all the conspiracy theories, about how the NHL is run by Canadians and the NHL has considerable influence on the Olympic tournament, and how the NHL would much prefer Canada to have every advantage to win the Gold. But please, let’s be reasonable and write it off to a bad case of Sweden’s misfortune.