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Sunday, April 9, 2000
Americans preparing for 2002
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. (CP) -- With an eye on the 2002 Olympics and defending their gold medal, the United States women's hockey program created a hockey hothouse environment this season to develop players for that team.Of the 20 players on the U.S. women's team that won a sixth silver medal at the women's world hockey championship on Sunday, 14 of them were part of the U.S. women's select team that trained and lived together from April to November in Lake Placid, N.Y. and Boston. There were players in the program that didn't make this year's squad for the worlds.
The Americans lived in dorms and were given a living allowance. They skated every morning and lifted weights every afternoon while living in relative isolation in Lake Placid, the upstate New York site of the 1980 Winter Olmpics, for most of the winter.
"It was all hockey. It was a big commitment," said U.S. captain Cammi Granto. "This far out (of the Olympics) when you're up in Lake Placid where there's not much else around but a movie theatre that has two movies, your social life if pretty limited.
"At this age, for a lot of the girls, it got tiring at times to be there and not know what to do with yourself. We went to the coffee shop a lot and to a lot of movies. We tried to make it fun that way. You definitely bond when you're up in the mountains like that."
Granato, who gave up an exciting job as colour commentator for the Los Angeles Kings to join the program, feels training together in that environment will pay off if it means repeating their gold medal performance in Nagano in 1998.
"I think it will be all worth it when we do get there because I know that's what it felt like in Japan," said Granato. "This time we're commiting ourselves way out (from the Olympics).
"People are giving up jobs, money, husbands, family, boyfriends, but that's what it's about, the commitment to the game."
If Canadian women hockey players struggle to find enough competition to develop their game, the American women suffer that two-fold. Granato found herself training hard for few games.
"We could push ourselves harder because we didn't really have a season," said Granto. "The downfall was we didn't play enough games. Sometimes it got hard mentally."
U.S.A. Hockey is spending $1.3 million on the program with well over half of that coming from the U.S. Olympic Committee.
With the advent of the National Women's Hockey League in Canada, which provided elite level women's hockey, the Americans needed to do something to keep up, said veteran forward Karyn Bye.
"Canada has a great league for their players to play in," said Bye. "The Toronto leagues are really competitive. They get many games. We don't have that in the States.
"We got together and trained together this year which was a good thing. We didn't have a lot of competition, but it was better than us trying to play on a men's team because we just don't have the competition in the States when it comes to women's hockey that the Canadians do."
Granato believes the players on the U.S. team are individually better players for having spent the season in the selects program.
"When you look at the team that's been together training, it's the overall skating because we've been on the ice everyday pushing each other," said Granto. "I think we're better skaters, well-conditioned, a lot stronger because we've been lifting weights all year. We're stronger as individuals and when you put that together, it's really helped the team."
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