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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOCKEY MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 16, 2015Mark JohnsonTHE MODERATOR: The Women's Head Hockey Coach, Mark Johnson is here. We will have opening comments then take questions. COACH JOHNSON: Thanks, Brian. Generally after a weekend I will come down and breakdown video of our Saturday game and show the team some things we did well, some things we need to work on today. I just sort of changed things because the rink we played on this past weekend is very small and as we move forward, we won't have to play on a rink that size, so what I did today was talk about what's ahead of us, what we have this upcoming weekend, with our game against St. Cloud, Friday afternoon at 3, and we come back Sunday at noon. It's the time of year where we have to manage a lot of things as coaches, coming into our first bought with exams this week so a lot of students have exams. Looking at the big picture I wanted to give the players a visual of what the next little bit of time that we're together is going to be and it's a good opportunity for our team, the ability to focus in and take care of business, because, you know, what happens this weekend, what happened next weekend has bearing on a lot of different things within our world of women's hockey, so the opportunity especially for our seniors is right out in front of them, everybody walks away with an understanding of what's at hand and had a good practice today and get ready for our preparation for St. Cloud Friday afternoon. Hockey weekend across America, right? People that aren't in the hockey world, it's a big hockey weekend coming up. Telling Brian my phone rings more this time of year than other times of the year so it's good, a lot of good things going on. Q. Mark, along the lines of giving them the vision of what's coming up, where do you see that the team is right now heading into this closing stretch? COACH JOHNSON: The one thing I just briefly talked about, our Saturday game, was the way we played the last 8 or 9 minutes when we got down 4‑2, we started to play with urgency, we started to play desperate, we started to play real well. We pulled our goalie, scored to make it 4‑3, still had our goalie out, we had two or three good looks to tie it up. We needed to package what we did in the last 8 or 9 minutes and start with that Friday afternoon. These games in weekend and certainly in the playoffs, everything gets magnified. So our ability to come out and stay focused and play with that urgency is important and that's what I was trying to get across with our team today. Q. Mark, you're on the committee for the tournament. Is Wisconsin in good shape to host a quarter final or is it dependent on what happens here the next few weeks? COACH JOHNSON: If you look at it today, there are things that I wanted to mention to my group that are important and if you're able to‑‑ if you hold serve in tennis it's generally a good thing. My vision to them today was to get an understanding of our games this weekend. The most important one right now is Game 33, Friday afternoon, against St. Cloud. When that's over with, Saturday off, we get ready for Sunday, those games are crucial and obviously we're going to play St. Cloud the first game of the playoffs. We had a similar situation last year with Mankato, where you have to play these teams multiple times, and the more you play 'em, the more challenging it becomes. So everybody understands what's out there, and now it's breaking it down into small pieces one game at a time and coming out and playing at our level. I'm more concerned with the way we're playing than our opponent right now. If we play at a high level, like we did that last 7 or 8 minutes for 60 minutes, we're a pretty good hockey team and irrelevant of who we are playing we're going to be successful. Q. Probably been asked this: It came out about a week ago, but did you get a chance to watch the "30 for 30" about the Russian hockey team, and what do you think? COACH JOHNSON: Yes, I did I was on a conference call with Mike Eruzione this morning and Dave Ogrean, Executive Director of USA Hockey. I saw it. There were some great clips. There were some great pieces. Couple of my former teammates, Fetisov, Kasatonov, when the Russian first came over to play in the NHL, they became my teammates in New Jersey. I watched it with my son Patrick, and we had a couple great laughs, they asked Mikhailov, who was the captain, multiple gold medals in the Olympics and World Championships, and one of the questions they asked him in the series was did you watch the movie "Miracle," and his response was, "No, why would I watch that? Why would I watch it? No, I didn't watch it! Why would I do that?" I thought that was humorous because Mike mentioned today on our conference call whenever you seem to travel, somebody will come up to you and tell you exactly what they were doing, and actually 35 years ago at this time, I should say Friday, when we play St. Cloud, I was getting ready to play the Russians. 35 years ago when we play St. Cloud Sunday morning, we were getting ready to play Finland. A little different opponent than I was up against a lot of years ago but the "30 for 30" was special. I learned some things I didn't know. It was interesting to see the philosophies and the approach. Tarasov, who was the father of Russian hockey, who really first started it, and then when he retired Tikhonov came in, and what his philosophy was like and how he put the players in the barracks for 11 months out of the season, he wouldn't let them go home and see family and friends, and they trained and trained hard. Then some of the great clips of them playing in the '72 series against Canada, when neither country knew much about each other, and the highlights of those. It was very interesting, if you're a hockey fan, a fun clip to watch. Q. How will it be going up against one of your former players this weekend in Janelle Zod? COACH JOHNSON: She is going to try to figure out what they're going to do to beat us, and as I mentioned earlier my preparation is more about what we do in this weekend's games and being concerned about St. Cloud. I'm sure she will be excited no different than when Meghan Duggan came back about a month ago with her team from Clarkson. I'm sure it will be an emotional time for her when she comes into the building, but I'm sure she'll be excited and doing exercises and drills to try to figure out how to beat us this weekend. Q. You mentioned about Fetisov being one of your teammates, and one of the things he said in the documentary was none of those guys knew any of your names before that game. Did you have any conversations with them when you were teammates at all about that, and about your father's respect level for the Russian hockey and on Sundays you used to have something special and playing Russian games and the connection maybe he and Tarasov had in some ways? COACH JOHNSON: It was certainly interesting because as we've seen and witnessed, and I've seen firsthand, the celebration of the USA Hockey players, but those players had to go back to Moscow and take the wrath of losing to a bunch of college players. I'm sure it was difficult and challenging and obviously they've got a lot of pride in what they do. It was interesting because, you know, they came back in '81 and played again and beat our NHL players, and then they played in the Canada Cups and were very successful. In 1979 they came over and played against an NHL All‑Star team, which 20 of the players on that NHL team became Hall of Fame players, so it was a good squad, and the Russians beat 'em 6‑0. So sandwiched between those two games was this game in Lake Placid, so for Fetisov, who was one of the younger players on that team, certainly the medals he has, he has won Stanley Cups a couple times in Detroit. He was instrumental in getting Russian players over to the NHL in the late 80s, very well respected not only in the hockey community but around the world and certainly in his country of Russia. Yet him, Tretiak, Mikhailov, the first question they're going to get with this wonderful decorated career and Hall of Fames that those players have is what happened in Lake Placid. They talk about a game that they lost with all the awards and accolades and things they accomplished individually. That's generally the first question they're going to get, so Tretiak gets a question in that "30 for 30" series, why did Tikhonov pull you? He didn't know. At that time authority, the coach, you listen to the coach, you do what the coach says and you shut up and get on the bench. It was interesting, because in the documentary he says, "Usually when I let in a soft goal," and a I'm thinking soft goal, I put a pretty good deke on the guy! (Laughter) and he said, "After I let in a soft goal, I become a monster and I let no more in and everybody knows that." Again, the documentary was great, but the one nice thing about the hockey community, as time goes on, friendships are made. I became friends with Fetisov, and so, you know, that's a great thing about our sport, you can compete one day, and then several years later friendships start and friendships exist, and when the dust is it cleared you still have these friendships which are very special. Q. You talked on the teleconference today about Mike Eruzione did the same, where people come up and ask you or tell you this is where I was when that game was going on. Do you have a favorite moment when someone has come up and said, "I was in labor," whatever the case might be? Was there a moment that stands out in your mind in that regard? COACH JOHNSON: If I thought, my memory gets clouded, but, you know, one comes by is a gentleman was driving down the highway, and listening to the game on the radio. Gets near the end, and he pulls over an underpass. Then the same thing happens, the next person comes so there was a group of people, six, seven, eight car loads sitting underneath an underpass in the middle of a highway hugging and screaming after we had won! You hear those type of stories, and it makes you think. It's interesting, and I'm sure Mike has several. Generally people that are of age that actually saw it or witnessed it ‑‑ I know one thing, it seats maybe 9 or 10,000 with all the aisleways that are filled, but the number of people that came up to me and said they were at the game were in the 18, 20, 25,000 range. But there were great stories, and it, I guess, hits home as far as the magnitude of the game and how much people were watch it go and listening to it. Q. Good luck this weekend. You're going to go to Lake Placid on Saturday and be part of that 35th Reunion? COACH JOHNSON: That's the plan. I just have to look at the weather. I've got flights that will get me back early Sunday morning. Unless I have a flight issue I will be back for our game. As I mentioned on the conference call this morning, it will be an emotional day because they're going to raise Bobby's Jersey up in Lake Placid. For the group and it looks like all 19 players are going to be there, it will be the first time the entire group has been back together since the All‑Star game in LA, which was probably in 2000. Now without Bobby it will never happen again where we get everybody back together. So there will be mixed emotions as the evening starts to unfold. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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