Re: Minnesota Golden Gopher Women's Hockey 2012-2013
Fun article to read:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8684840/a-visit-eden-minnesota-where-college-hockey-endures
Here's the excerpt within that deals with our women's team:
"The Minnesota band was really everywhere. When I went inside the women's hockey rink, Ridder Arena, there the band was, or part of it anyway, milling in the stands behind one of the goals. It was Saturday afternoon, and the Minnesota women's team was playing Minnesota State with something on the line besides intrastate rivalry. The Gophers' 3-0 win one night earlier had been the team's 21st in a row, a streak that dated back to last season, spanned a run to the national championship, and tied them with the 2008 Harvard team for the longest consecutive win streak in NCAA women's hockey history. Today they were going for no. 22, a new record.
Sometimes watching one team methodically dismantle another can be boring. Not so in this case. Watching the Gophers was a little bit like seeing footage of an old Red Army game: all precision passing and relentless puck possession. When the score was somehow tied at 1-1 after 20 minutes (with Minnesota outshooting Minnesota State 13-3), it felt like a grave injustice. When the Gophers scored four times in the second, and four more in the third to win 9-1 and clinch the new NCAA record, it made much more sense — although it was admittedly a little strange to hear the band doing the "sieve! sieve sieve!" taunt to the poor visiting goaltender. (Hey, Title IX, I guess.)
The band wasn't the only group of fans in matching uniforms: Around the rink sat numerous pods of what must have been Twin Cities–area girls' teams, some in smart kelly green and blue warm-ups that said EAGAN, others in the less-specific tween girl athlete casual uniform of grey sweatpants, zip-up jackets, and makeshift headbands fashioned from pre-wrap. They giggled and cheered and marveled; they toyed with their phones; they got told by a security guy to please take their feet off the glass; they rolled their eyes behind his back to save face. They reminded me of myself and my friends, 14 years ago, the only other time I'd visited Minnesota.
I was a sophomore in high school trying out for varsity hockey, and the team was taking a onetime preseason training trip to Minnesota for reasons that remain unclear. (I suspect that the parents of one girl on our team who had major NCAA aspirations were heavily involved in organizing and funding the trip.) We stayed four to a room in the dorms of the National Sports Center in Bjugstad's hometown of Blaine (the Center's website describes it as "the world's largest amateur sports and meeting facility"; I remember it best for the icy soccer fields upon which we miserably ran shuttle runs and did grapevines to "warm up" in the morning), took an outing to the Mall of America, got stuck in bonkers Minnesota Vikings postgame traffic, and played in a bunch of exhibitions against local teams.
The girls we played were bigger than us, but also faster. They all had working slap shots. They rocked significant eyeliner. I'll always remember that some of them, probably sensing just what they were(n't) up against, didn't even bother to tie back their long hair. I'm ballparking here, but I think in the course of three or four games we lost by a cumulative 25-3. Still, we were proud just to be there, as if getting our asses beat in such a puck-loving state were a badge of honor, as if we had earned some sort of hockey gravitas through osmosis by simply showing up.
We went into a sporting goods store and bought whatever we could fit in our suitcases worth of Minnesota high school hockey apparel, and boy oh boy was there plenty to buy. Red T-shirts that said COON RAPIDS, tuques with hockey sticks and CENTENNIAL knitted into them, sweatshirts with MAPLE GROVE in block letters down the arm — then fanned out into the world, a misleading diaspora of faux–Twin Cities suburban natives. When a few years ago I finally lost the BLAINE sweatpants I had purchased and worn for a decade, I felt almost a sense of relief: No longer would I find myself in awkward conversations with actual Minnesotans. ("Oh my god, I'm from Blaine's rival town!" "Oh, um … I just … have these pants.")
I mentioned our weird Minnesota terror/obsession to one Edina hockey mom I met over the weekend.
"You sound just like my daughter," she said, "when she travels to play Canadian teams."
Back at Ridder Arena, a large bearded fellow lurked in the lobby, waiting for the players to emerge from the locker room. It was the Toronto Maple Leafs' Phil Kessel, whose sister Amanda is one of Minnesota's biggest stars and has an excellent chance of suiting up for the United States in the 2014 Olympics. (She scored twice in the game, added three assists, and was probably the most fun player to watch.) Captain Megan Bozek — who may be alongside her in Sochi and who contributed two goals and an assist — said the team hadn't even known until Friday that they were nearing any sort of record. Another player, Kelly Terry, added that they'd only found out when someone read about it on Twitter. They seemed happy about the 22 straight wins (they've since extended the streak to 24 with a pair of victories over New Hampshire last weekend) but not too happy: Their goal is to win another title, and the rest is just noise."
