NHL ALL-STAR WEEKEND

February 2, 2001

Karyn Bye

Cami Granito

Angela Ruggiero

Ben Smith

COACH SMITH: Glad you had a chance to see what these two teams do. And I am sure that for the crowd here tonight it might have been maybe the first time they have ever seen a woman's game live. And I think both teams like to think that the two teams are the best two teams playing the sport right now, although I am sure the people in Finland are always hanging around too. So they are always trying to stick their nose in. But tonight is what is kind of what you get when these two teams play. My friend Kevin Allen (ph.) I think today mentioned something in the paper when we talked the other day about 3-2 games. There it was, I think. What was the score tonight? 3-2. Yeah, it was kind of funny because of the tie, weren't quite sure. Tie was ahead; tie was behind. Stinking first period, about as badly as we have played in maybe two months maybe against one of the college teams where we went to sleep one night. But the first period I thought we at least showed some resilience. And we, I mean, Canada came out all guns blazing. And the game the other night, this is kind of a continuum, the game the other night we won by a thread, 20 seconds to go. So they weren't probably sleeping too well on that, and they showed great poise and determination. And our kids kind of hung in there and snuck out of there just trailing 2 -1. Then I thought after that, I thought we started to maybe exert more pressure in their half of the ice. And I liked the way we finished off with some pretty diligent forechecking, and you know, great goal by Karyn to seal the thing. Great crowd, and I hope that we had this -- hope that this is a great kickoff for this wonderful weekend out here. In this NHL All-Star celebration we are obviously pleased to be part of it. We are going to get going, get on the plane tomorrow. We have got a game on Sunday back in Lake Placid.

CHUCK MENKE: In the interest of time, what we will do is just right into Q. and A.

COACH SMITH: I think it is really splitting hairs out there. It is so close, and really they are just like 3-2 pick 'em. The other night I thought was a little bit out of character for our two teams. We usually don't score that many goals against each other. It got kind of reckless there, but I was pleased that we were a little more thorough with our activity. But I just think everybody is just inching -- half-inch gain by one team, then the other team gains a full inch. Kind of goes back and forth.

KAMI GRANITO: For the crowd?

KAMI GRANITO: It is exciting. A lot of times when we play in front of big crowds it is. In Canada we get booed, or when we score a goal we are looking around to see if it went in because it is so quiet. To play in front of a home crowd, it is fun to see and it is great to see the progress women's hockey is making tonight. It showed people are excited about the game. I am happy to be a part of it.

ANGELA RUGGIERO: Well, it is always a thrill to play Canada. Like Coach Smith said, it is the two best teams in the world going head-to-head and it -- just because I guess it is a little bit of a preview of what is going to happen next year the pre-Olympic tour we are going to play them a few more times, kind of the same format we did before the last Olympics, but it is always fun to play them. We are really excited.

KARYN BYE: I think we were just at a time when we were putting a lot of pressure on them. I think it was something that we did really well in the second, third period started moving the puck better. I think that is basically what happened Julie had the puck in the corner, gave me an opportunity to slide in the slot. She made a great pass. I got the shot off. It was kind of a makeup for hitting the cross bar about three or four minutes earlier. It felt good.

COACH SMITH: She got her bell rung. She might have a slight concussion.

KARYN BYE: Yeah, I mean, you always have to get a feel for I guess what the refs are going to call and are not going to call. Sometimes they call everything; sometimes they won't call anything. I thought it was a very physical game out there. That is the way we like it. I think once we kind of got our feet wet in that first period we were able to stand our ground the second and third and play the game that we like to play.

KARYN BYE: It has changed unbelievably. Back in 1990, the first World Championship in 1992 when I was on the team, just the skill, the size, the speed, the strength, the knowledge of the game, if you were to watch a game then and now, it is just a huge difference. We have a lot more supporters. We have a lot more women and girls playing hockey in the sport. Overall I think after the Olympics I think the sport just made a huge jump and we are hoping that it will continue to grow.

KAMI GRANITO: I think it is progressing. It is fun to be a part of this whole thing I have been playing since 1990. I think the crowd in 1990 actually surprised me because there was 10,000 screaming Canadian fans. But as far as the United States not many people knew that there was even women hockey players and still today sometimes people today, people kind of smirk or give you a weird look when you tell them you play hockey. Right now the level of awareness, it is finally out there, and with the Olympics in Nagano, it has sort of set the stage right now with the Salt Lake games, you can just feel the hype around the game. And the more we are out there, the more people are aware that the game is out there, they are going to show up because like you said tonight it is good hockey, so it is fun to watch the progression. Definitely gotten a lot better.

KARYN BYE: Gives us a lot of confidence. We only get to play them a few times a year. Those are our top games to play Canada, to play Finland, and those are the games we look forward to. We know that January 31 we had Canada on the map, we know that February 2 we were playing Canada, and to have two wins like we did these last two games it is a confidence builder. We look forward to playing them again at the World Championships. We have got some work to do and I think by playing games like this, we see our strength and weaknesses and it is going to allow us to go to Lake Placid and work on some of those weaknesses so we can come back even stronger at World Championships.

KAREN BYE: Kind of makes up for last year. We lost to them last year five or six to nothing just didn't have a great performance. We obviously didn't have a great performance, and I think we are giving some of the younger players the experience they need to what it feels like to come into a facility like this to be in one of the nicest locker rooms, to come out on the ice having a crowd of people chanting the U.S.A., butterflies and nerves are going a little bit. It is not like Lake Placid stepping in front of 100 or 200 fans. I think the players need to get used to that. The more times we can do it the more experience we get and the better we become at it.

KARYN BYE: I am sure it is still lingering. They say things you know, -- you know, I know it hurt them. And the bottom line is we won the game. We are the Olympic Gold Medal champions. They consider themselves the World Championships, that is something that we are hungry for and we have time to prepare for that coming up in April.

KAMI GRANITO: Well, I don't think you can put that into words what it would mean to win a Gold Medal. It is hard to even talk about how special the Nagano Olympics are. But this time around Team USA is not the underdog and that is the position we were in, in Nagano. Pressure is on us if we like to look at it that way, but everybody wants to knock you off when you are on top and we have seen it since we have played Canada. We have had some trouble with them the last -- few years right after the Olympics, had some trouble with them. Right now we are getting our team back together and seems like we are ready to defend the medal. But we are in a position right now where we are training from September to April as a team. We never had that before. You can really see the results in that with all the players, with the growth, so we are putting ourselves in a position. Coach is working us pretty hard in Lake Placid and getting us ready.

ANGELA RUGGIERO: Practice.

KAMI GRANITO: Yeah, practice.

ANGELA RUGGIERO: We are on the ice everyday. Up in Lake Placid I think almost every day we work on it and you know, like Kimmy said that is the one really beneficial thing and I think one of the advantages we have over Canada is we are training full-time .We can work on our powerplay throughout the week whereas they fly in and have to put one together. We are going to continue to do that. It is good to hear.

ANGELA RUGGIERO: Well, it is definitely a much higher spectrum. Just the energy you feel in this kind of building and with all the fans and you know wearing the U.S.A. jersey, having that pride behind you, it is a really unbelievable feeling that I don't think you could match. It is very exciting to play for your college team and represent your college team and win championships with them, but there is something really special about playing for Team USA.

COACH SMITH: Well, I guess there is obvious personnel change in the war of attrition and things change, metamorphosis of the players and we have got some new players, we have got some experienced players; some of our experienced players are playing in different positions. So I think we are probably at a stage now a year out probably a little more cohesive than we were going in year out in the 1997 situation.

COACH SMITH: No.

(LAUGHTER).

COACH SMITH: Let me finish up by saying that those are 40 great athletes out there and it is -- I think it is just so exciting to get into this type of a venue and there is a lot of pressure just for the two teams playing each other but there is something that -- there was something better than that tonight too. The game has really well served-- the sport was well served. We came into a Major League city to this type of a setting around the NHL All-Star, the greatest players in the world and we showcased 40 of the-- probably 40 of the 60 best women players in the world here, and I don't think they let anybody down. I don't think anybody left anything on the ice for either team. I am really proud to be -- from my standpoint in the game I am really proud to be around those 40 athletes. It is fun to watch what they do. I thought what those Canadian kids give to their effort and I know what our team does too.