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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOCKEY MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 10, 2014Mark JohnsonTHE MODERATOR: Following a bye weekend the women's hockey team returns to the ice to host Minnesota State at LaBahn Arena. Thursday's game will start at 7 p.m. while Friday is a 3 p.m. start. Head Coach Mark Johnson is here. We'll have some opening comments and take questions. COACH JOHNSON: Thanks, Brian. I guess it was nice to have the weekend off, you know, from a players' standpoint. You go six straight weekends and get a chance to reflect on our games up to this point and opportunity to try to figure out what we need to do to move in a positive direction and prepare for our next four weekends before we break for final exams. So it's a good time, energized the group. We actually practiced yesterday for a little bit, Sunday afternoon because as Brian mentioned, I think it's the first time we played on a Thursday night. And so it would be 7:00. I'm interested to see how that goes and then we'll come back Friday at 3:00. Obviously with the football game this weekend, you got a little bit of conflict with scheduling things. So normally we'd play a Friday afternoon, Sunday afternoon, but we're going to give it a shot at Thursday night, and hopefully be able to draw a pretty decent crowd. Q. Coach, what are some of the challenges of having a Thursday game and then a Friday in the afternoon? COACH JOHNSON: Well, for us, you know, it becomes a school issue. The kids will be going to school all day Thursday, and as I told them after practice, it's your ability when you come to the rink to really focus in on what you have to do to be successful. So as we progress into the week, we'll show them film. We'll come up with three or four bullet points of what we need to do to give ourselves a chance to be successful, and then it's going to be their ability to come in and take their school hat off and put on their hockey helmet and go out and perform Thursday night. Friday becomes a little bit more challenging because you play in the afternoon, so some of the kids are coming right from class into the locker room, warming up, putting their gear on and practicing. But those are the challenges that you face, and you know, you talk about them. Obviously the start in both games will be key for us. Q. You've already endured one challenge with regards to your lineup, missing three key players while they were playing in a tournament. Now that they're back, what's the challenge, and is there a challenge in having them back on the team knowing that they were actually competing against one another a couple of days ago? COACH JOHNSON: Well, a couple of them are smiling today. You know, they walked off the plane last night with gold medals and a championship, and Annie was on the losing end, but again, they become teammates this afternoon. None of those three players will skate today. We'll give them the day off and then reconvene tomorrow. And as you mentioned, the challenge becomes now they come back into the mix after missing a couple of weekends, and I think the chemistry as I mentioned in our first press conference in September has been always good, and so I think you know, Karley Sylvester I think will skate this afternoon, too, so having her back will be helpful. And I think the chemistry will help ease anything that would be an outside distraction. The nice thing about the depth that we have is when we missed the players, other kids were given an opportunity with more ice time and did very well, so that's encouraging. Q.  Do you have any worries at all about the players who were competing against one another that they're just going to pick up where they left off before they left? COACH JOHNSON: I don't have any. I mean you know, history tells me, and I've been on the coaching end of those situations and come back with players. I think a lot of those players have either played against each other at different times, some of them have been on the same teams and know each other. And so it's a healthy rivalry. It's great competition. It's great hockey to watch. But at the end of the day, you know, they get on the plane and they take their USA or Canada hat off and now they put their Badgers stuff on and they become teammates. So I don't foresee any problems, other than we as coaches have to manage their energy level. You know, like for Emily, that was the second week of school she's missed this semester and for any young freshman that's a challenge in itself. So today they get an opportunity to get back into school, get that organized and move forward. Q. Brittany Ammerman has got, I think, eight goals so far in 12 games. Did confidence gain from a year ago and maybe even years prior and just being healthy, I suppose, has her feeling pretty good about things? COACH JOHNSON: Combination of probably both. I think being health and I coming to the rink every day and practicing at a high level, you know, helped a lot. And then you know, when she began last season, you know, her start and then throughout the entire year, very consistent, put up a lot of points, scored a bunch of goals. All those things just helped her, you know, with that confidence, and you know, it came into this year knowing it's her senior year, and you only have 34 games left in that, and you know, you've used up a bunch already. And so she practices hard. You know, she's in a good position right now, and hopefully she'll continue to play the way she has the last year and a half. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for coach? All right. Thanks, Mark. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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