Surprised to see Lawler and Steadman not make it. Steadman had a lot of turnovers at the weekend but made a lot of chances too. Lawler was fast and aggressive.
Cuts from Worlds team: Erickson, Rigsby, Schoullis, Steadman.
New: Buesser, Dunne, Pankowski, Pucci, Schaus, Stack.
How are Schaus and Stack new?
So that means that Brandt is the only 10-finalist for last year's Kazmaier who's going to be eligible this year. Brandt / Skarupa / Erickson as finalists?
THIS ROSTER IS A JOKE. WATCH THE CANADIANS GET THE GOLD AGAIN WITH THIS U.S. ROSTER!
Who would you have kept/cut?
How does it work now for Pankowski? Does she actually start her freshman year the following season with the 2014-2015 incoming freshmen class at Wisconsin that includes Rolfes, Wellhausen, Cianfirano -- all members of this past years U-18 team? If that's the case, this could be a VERY strong incoming class at UW!
Erickson graduated already. Impossible to know right now but maybe Brandt/Skarupa/Rattray (Canadian from Clarkson).
For future cuts, it's going to be 3D and 1F. That will give them the full team of 3Gs, 6Ds and 12Fs for 21 total players.
Hmm. Two observations: 1) Wonder if they might be thinking about the future by picking some of the younger/ first time players and 2) Maybe some bias?......
P.S. As a BU fan, really happy to see Coyne and Carpenter will be away for NU and BC. Evens out with us losing Poulin.
Not sure what the roster limit is, but Canucks usually go with a 23 player roster. IIRC break down is 7D,13F and 3G, giving you one spare at each position on a 20 person squad.
P.S. As a BU fan, really happy to see Coyne and Carpenter will be away for NU and BC. Evens out with us losing Poulin.
Tough decisions no doubt! Surprises may be Pankowski instead of Brandt or Lawler ; and Dunne over Burke IMO. All 41 of the players that attended this camp are terrific hockey players and no matter who was picked, team USA would have a strong team. Just interesting to see who was picked over who and why! Either way this roster is certainly no joke -- Canada will have their hands full!
Joehockey - Kohanchuk graduated from BU this past year so she won't be back. She has used up her college eligibility. She red-shirted the 2011-2012 season after playing in only 7 games...I'm guessing you are thinking she has one more year left due to the red-shirt season but she already used it. Heck of a player, great hands and a dynamic duo when paired with Poulin.
Not sure if this is what you were implying, but in terms of your second concern of bias, my first reaction to the final roster/camp roster was in fact a bit of surprise to see so many from Harvard on this final roster and at the camp to begin with, given my general impressions of the pool of talent. Checked some of the players college stats, and seems that some of the Harvard players' points (in college) appeared to be lower than the stats of others on the roster. Points of course don't always tell the whole story, particularly for defensemen. I didn't see the selection camp, so can only rely on past observations of players/stats.
With that said, it seems to me that bias is a problem only if Stone picked players for the roster *because* they played for Harvard. However, also possible that Stone liked something about these players to begin with, which is why she recruited them to Harvard in the first place, and consequently, we should not be surprised to see a lot of Harvard names on the roster. In short, she may be legitimately biased towards (ie value) whatever unique talents and roles these women can bring to a hockey team (any team), and not necessarily biased toward their status as former/current Harvard players. It's not in Stone's or the selection com.'s interest to select anything less than the best team possible. If there is any college-bias, it will come back to hurt the team in the end. That's unfortunate, unjust, and unfair if it does occur, but it does mean that there is a self-enforcing punishment mechanism for not basing selection on merit in the long-term, and that makes me less worried about the first kind of bias.
You raise some really good points about Stone being more likely to pick players for the national team that she recruited to Harvard because they fit the set of skills she values most (which is why she recruited them in the first place).
I can't speak to the personal likelihood of bias by Coach Stone and how much impact she personally has on the final roster selections. But I would dispute the fact that it is not in Stone's favor to be biased if indeed she had the opportunity to do so (and again - I don't know that she did) and that there is some sort of self-enforcing punishment. Stone is at Harvard as the coach likely for life if she chooses to be, barring some egregious mis-steps or errors in personal judgement, and this is pretty much the pinnacle of success as a coach in women's hockey. Her success or failure as a US Olympic coach will have little impact on her status at Harvard and is a positive for the school regardless of the Olympic performance ("Coach Stone was the 2014 Olympic team coach..." will never be a bad thing). I have heard from numerous recruits how their visit to Harvard revolved almost exclusively around the cult of Katey Stone (some liked it, some did not) and the Olympic experience will only reinforce that. Similarly, the ability of Harvard to claim that "under Coach Stone, X players have gone on to play for the US Olympic team" will also only be a positive. So if Coach Stone could load up the Olympic team on current Harvard and ex-Harvard players (and a potential Harvard recruit in the case of Dunne), this would only be a good thing for Stone and Harvard - there is no self-correcting mechanism or punishment for this behavior that I can think of. The only control is the oversight of USA Hockey in monitoring the selections and many have observed that that is historically spotty.