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An emotional roller coaster
In her first season as coach of the Minnesota ice hockey team, Laura Halldorson led the Golden Gophers to a fourth-place finish at the 1998 national championship. And in 2000, Halldorson led Minnesota to a 30-6-1 record and the national championship title. Check out Halldorson's diary every other week on CNNSI.com.
February 20, 2001
The past two weeks of games has been quite a roller coaster for the Gopher Women's Hockey Team. On Friday, February 9 we hosted St. Cloud State and played the best we've played all season. It was a decisive 7-1 victory, and it left me completely satisfied with our effort and execution. We dominated the first period and got two goals from Nadine Muzerall, last season's top goal scorer in the country. Muzzy has struggled somewhat this season, but she finished that game with a hat trick. It was great to see her get back on track. The roller coaster was at the top of the track that night. Unfortunately, within twenty-four hours that same roller coaster car came plummeting down the steep hill-without warning or explanation. We drove up to St. Cloud the next day and were not prepared to play when we hit the ice. No one played well. Usually in a game there are a few people who stand out, even when the team is struggling. Not in this game. I give St. Cloud a lot of credit, too, because they played with a great deal of intensity and emotion. They deserved to beat us. After two periods the score was 7-3 in favor of them. I couldn't believe it! While standing on the bench, I just wanted to be anywhere but there. I even pulled our starting goalie, which I have rarely done in the past. Finally, in the third period we decided to compete. We out shot St. Cloud 21-3 and scored three goals. It was too little, too late, though, and we lost 7-6. I really do not like losing the second game of the weekend because the wait is so long before you can redeem yourself. On Monday we watched some video from Saturday's game. That was depressing. Then we had a short, but hard skate, and there were no pucks involved. After practice the team met and talked about their goals for the remainder of the season. It was a good time to refocus. We left for Ohio State on Thursday evening, February 15. It was our last plane flight of the season and the last in the careers of our nine seniors. We had a great pre-game skate on Friday morning, so I thought we were ready. I was wrong. Ohio State is a team below us in the WCHA standings, but a team that had already beat us once earlier in the season. We needed to play well to beat them. Unfortunately, the roller coaster car was still moving downward. The players worked hard, but nothing seemed to click. Ohio State put a lot of pressure on us, and seemed to beat us to the loose pucks. The only goal of the game came on an OSU power play and we lost the game 1-0. The staff and the players took this loss very hard. Actually, that was probably the only positive I could find -- the players were very down after the game. To me, that was a good sign. It showed that they really cared. On Saturday we took a little field trip to the home of my friend's family. She hosted our gang last year when we were in town, and she let us come back again this year. It was fun -- we spent time playing air hockey, pool, video games, eating snacks, and playing with her four kids. It was good to get away from the hotel. At our team meeting later in the day, we did something different. Instead of watching game video, we did a team building activity. Earlier in the day I had asked the team to individually write down a positive comment about how each player is a good teammate. When we got together, they went around the circle with their comments about each person. It was good. The goal was to get them thinking as a team -- feeling good about each other. They were fired up to play that night. They got even more motivated when the announcer in the rink announced our starting line-up very quickly and very quietly before announcing the OSU starters in a very loud voice. We came out smoking! We had more shots on goal in that first period (19) than we did throughout the whole game the night before (16)! We scored on a power play goal and led 1-0 after one period. The roller coaster was on its way up again. The players were supporting each other -- on the ice and on the bench. Even when Ohio State got a goal in the second period to tie the score, we answered with two quick ones to take a 3-1 lead at the second intermission. We got two more in the third and ended up winning 5-2. Muzzy got another hat trick and everyone played much better. All was well with the world again! Coaching at this level really is an emotional roller coaster. I sometimes wonder if I should let the wins and losses affect me so much. I'm very competitive and I hate to lose. I also hate to see our team not play to their potential -- especially with so many seniors. We know that we need to finish the season strong in order to be selected to the inaugural NCAA championship, which will be held in our rink in late March. We are already starting to think about this being the end for the players who started the program four years ago. They are the heart and soul of our team, and they will be sorely missed next year. We all want them to get another shot at the championship. Coming up we have our final two weekends of league play. Wisconsin is coming to Minneapolis and then we are traveling to Duluth. I hope we get off the roller coaster and stay at the top of our game. It should be an exciting finish to the regular season!
-- Coach Halldorson
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