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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOCKEY MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 19, 2015

Mark Johnson

Madison, Wisconsin

THE MODERATOR: Women's Head Hockey Coach, Mark Johnson is here. We will have some opening comments and take questions.

COACH JOHNSON: Thanks, Brian. Certainly pleased with our effort in both our games, Friday afternoon and then coming back Saturday. Got a chance to play Megan Miller in our second game, and I think from a confidence standpoint, you know, she was smiling quite big after the game and certainly played well in shutting out St. Cloud.

The challenges were a couple things, one, the ice sheet up there is an Olympic-size sheet; it's 100-feed wide. It's a different game than when you see us play here at home or maybe some of the other rinks we play, so that was a challenge, but, again, trying to score is always the difficult part of our game and certainly Saturday we had chances and opportunities and you know give St. Cloud a lot of credit for blocking and keeping the puck out of the net for a lot of the game, but I thought the two games were different in the sense that Saturday's game was an opportunity where you're up 1-0, and it's late, and they're pulling their goalie, and from a coaching and a teaching standpoint, I think we took a lot of good things away from that game that certainly will help us as we go down the rest of the season.

And then obviously with Bemidji coming in, as we saw last year with them, especially the second half of the season, very strong team, well coached, play with a lot of confidence, and certainly are off to a great start and ranked, I believe, 6th or 7th in the country at this time, so it will be a good series, you know, Friday and Saturday, and certainly it will be the biggest test we have had up to this point in our season.

Q. I know that you said goal scoring would be a question, but defensively did you have a feeling that your team could be as strong as it's shown so far this season?
COACH JOHNSON: I think we're pleased with it up to this point. Obviously the summer and as we started the school year you look at the pieces that we had coming back and, you know, it starts in the net, and obviously we're very strong with the experience, and the way Ann has played for two years, and then you look at the core part of our defense, and you've got some pieces coming back that, you know, one is a senior captain, couple junior defensemen that have played very well here, so defensively and keeping the puck out of our net, you know, is certainly something that we are going to be confident in, especially the early part of the season.

Then you look at your schedule, who are you playing early on and who are you playing in the middle of the season, so all those things put together, you know, puts ourselves in a pretty good position as far as the start of the season, but in the next month we will get to know more about our team.

Q. Having outscored your opponents 35-2 so far, are you pleased with keeping your foot on the accelerator and keeping focus, even in some games that got out of hand?
COACH JOHNSON: I think that's the struggle as a player, if the game gets out of hand, or if you beat somebody on a Friday or in the first game of the series, you come back, are you ready and focused for the second game of that series, so that was a challenge for Saturday after playing pretty well Friday afternoon and coming back and keeping your foot on that gas pedal. And my big theme with this team and the groups I've had in the past is no matter who you are playing, where you're playing them at, you have to play well to win.

If we're going to become a good team, it's a process of every day you've got to come to practice, and give it your best and you have to practice hard, and on the weekend it's like a test. You go in and get tested Friday and Saturday, think about what happened Sunday, show some video Monday and then start the process all over, so from weekend to weekend my theme is to try to get better.

We've gotten better in a lot of different areas, so the process starts today, getting better at practice and then Friday night getting tested against Bemidji and hopefully playing better Friday night than we did this past Saturday, and I think if you do that over a period of a winter, by the end you end up becoming a pretty good hockey team.

Q. Do you view Bemidji State as one of those up and coming programs right now?
COACH CHRYST: I think their senior class, this is their fourth year, they are certainly not intimidated by anybody, they have had confidence, and they've won a bunch of games, and certainly last year beating Minnesota in our playoff bodes well for, you know, their program, and certainly Jim has done a great job. He's only been there a year, but he's injected some energy; they've got a beautiful rink, as you well know.

So this class that will be seniors, they probably want to leave with something more special than they had last year, so they're off to a good start. They're difficult to play against, they've got a very good goaltender, and they've got kids that chip away and score goals, especially in a timely fashion.

That's the challenge is to try to defend well and at the same time take advantage of your opportunities.

THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Thanks, Mark.

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