|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOCKEY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 14, 2013Mark JohnsonTHE MODERATOR: On the women's hockey side, tickets for Fill the Bowl, which will be February 15th against Minnesota at the Kohl Center, will go on sale this Wednesday. And the women's hockey team returns home to host WCHA foe St. Cloud State this weekend at LaBahn Arena. Friday's game starts at 7:00 p.m. while Saturday's contest is a 3:00 p.m. start. Coach Mark Johnson is here. We'll have opening comments and take questions. COACH JOHNSON: Thanks, Brian. Looking forward to a couple more league games as we enter the early part of the season. A quick reflection on our games up in Minnesota. I think we're all a little disappointed we didn't come away with a victory in either game. I think, as a team, a lot of positive things came out of the weekend, a very tight game. You almost look at early October, especially Friday night's game was like a playoff game. They were hoisting the banner in celebration of their championship last year. So the house was full. A lot of excitement, a lot of energy, and I thought our team responded very well, especially in the first half of the game. Had a couple of opportunities, came up short. Had a great response in Saturday's game. Again, three good solid periods. A little difficulty trying to get the puck in the net, but I certainly love the way we competed. The big thing is, as I told the team as we entered last weekend, the objective is to try to get better than we were the first weekend against Mankato State. I thought we played six good periods that came up a little bit short. But in the process in a long journey as the season goes along, a lot of things on the positive side came out this past weekend. So we'll continue to build on it, come back this afternoon and try to make some adjustments and try to get better and get ready for Friday night's game against St. Cloud. Q. Can you comment on how Alex played this weekend? COACH JOHNSON: Alex played very consistent. As you look at the goaltender, she gave us an opportunity to win both nights. Friday night's game, especially in the second period, where the ice was tilted in our favor, we created a lot of scoring opportunities. I think we ended up with 18 shots in the second period. Unfortunately, when the period ended, it was still 1‑1. If we could have got it even to 2‑1 or 3‑1, it would have set up a different period. Alex, again, had a strong game Friday night, gave us a chance to win, and then same thing Saturday. 0‑0 going into the third period and looking for some way to get a goal to create that energy and maybe finish the game off. Unfortunately, they weren't able to do that. We came up a little bit short. It wasn't due to Alex's effort. She played very well. Q. Mark, were you getting chances? You hear coaches say all the time goals will come. If you're concerned you weren't getting chances, were you? COACH JOHNSON: As you go back over the video and look at scoring opportunities and quality ones, especially, as I mentioned, Friday in the second period, at that time, Minnesota only had 11 shots on net over 40 minutes. I was certainly impressed with our defense at that point. Offensively, we were able to create some chances. We hit a couple posts. As you get chances, eventually, as we call it in the hockey world, the puck is going to start bouncing for you. They got a couple of bounces in Saturday's game, which the puck ended up going in the net. Over the course of a 34‑game schedule, we'll get our fair share. We just came up a little bit short. We got quality chances, and their young goaltender was able to respond to them. Q. The United States has begun its Olympic quest, going against Canada. Is it just those two that could win the gold, or is there a sleeper out there? COACH JOHNSON: At this particular time, I don't think there is. Both the United States and Canada are centralized, meaning they're going to spend the next 4 1/2 months together training, conditioning, playing exhibition games against themselves and probably six or seven scenarios against AAA midget team boys and playing a four‑nation tournament in November. Obviously, their talent pool and the United States talent pool continues to get deeper and better, and the resources that both countries have may not be the same as the other countries. I still think you have that separation. For the fans who get to watch those games, I'm sure, in Burlington they were a little excited. Got a little rough at times. Very entertaining games. Certainly, as we get closer to Sochi, those teams will continue to improve, and we'll probably see them in the gold medal game. Q. Mark, what's your approach, do you think, as the season moves along here with regards to your goaltending? Alex is obviously one of your best players, your captain, but you also brought in a pretty good goaltender. How do you plan to kind of work that process? COACH JOHNSON: We'll start getting Ann involved this weekend. I was thinking about it very seriously playing her Saturday night, depending on how Friday night's game goes. At this juncture, I'm very comfortable with both. Obviously, it's easy to go to the bullpen every time and pull out Alex because you know what you're going to get. Ann is certainly capable of playing at a high level. Over the next three weekends, we have six home games. She'll be getting some playing time. Q. How do you think the freshmen played last weekend, kind of in a hostile environment at Minnesota? COACH JOHNSON: That was one of the positive things I thought we came away from over the course of the six periods. I thought the McKibbon line with Sarah Nurse, another freshman, and Molly Doner was probably our most consistent line. It created some great offensive chances. Looked like Saturday night, we tied the game on a beautiful two‑on‑one execution with Sarah shooting the puck into the top corner of the net. Unfortunately, they went to review and disallowed the goal. I thought, going into a real hostile atmosphere, probably one of the toughest on the women's side in college hockey, especially Friday night when they're raising the banner, I thought our players, especially our young players, handled themselves very well. Q. Coach, you've got a month now until you hit the road again. Does that give you a chance to really focus on yourself here and kind of get everybody into a routine? COACH JOHNSON: It gives the younger players an opportunity as they continue to settle into college life. Certainly having six home games, if you're successful, it bodes well because then you have a bye weekend after that and have an opportunity to do some things on the practice sheet you may not do on the week where you're preparing for a game. Then we have the trip out to Colorado.  You need to take care of business, and you need to keep ingraining habits into these young players. The one thing I really enjoy about this group is we have great chemistry. Kids get along. They compete very hard as they did this past weekend. We'll see it again in practice today. If they stay that course, we'll continue to get better. That's the exciting part about coming away this weekend. Although you're disappointed you lost a couple of games, obviously, they're ranked No.1. But we skated with them. We played with them. I know as a group, we're going to continue to get better. So as the season goes on, it's going to be exciting to watch. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|