Former Gopher Nadine Muzerall has resurrected a “sleeping giant” – the Twin Cities

WCHA has dominated women’s college hockey for years, and in that elite group, it has been a three-team top match between Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth and Wisconsin.

Not anymore.

In the PairWise rankings, the top two teams will meet this weekend, with Ohio State number one. The Buckeyes will host 2nd Minnesota when the puck is dropped at 5pm on Friday and 2pm on Saturday.

Minnesota, UMD and Wisconsin won a total of 17 national championships in 21 years. Only Clarkson has broken the grip of the WCHA, but Ohio State has infiltrated this company. Buckeyes (18-4-0) leads WCHA with 0.796 percent and 112 goals. In the first series of the Gophers this season, Ohio State swept Minnesota (19-6-1) at the Ridder Arena.

I’ve always said the Ohio United States is a sleeping giant, Gophers coach Brad Frost said.

Nadine Muzerall has raised the giant.

Since becoming Buckeyes ’head coach in 2016-17, the former Minnesota player and assistant coach has taken Buckeyes to the Frozen Four twice in four seasons. The 2020 tournament was canceled due to a coronavirus pandemic and his team won the WCHA Final Faceoff in 2019. -20.

Muzerall has done it with players from all over North America and a few Europeans. Currently, there is only one Ohio player on the list, junior blue liner Lauren Bernard, and she has moved from Clarkson.

We’re talking as staff about how we need to present everywhere, showing a logo on the jacket everywhere, Muzerall said. We don’t have the natural loyalty they have in Boston (Boston College) and Northeastern. And in Minnesota, I always said that we were more about choosing children instead of recruiting them.

We need to recruit harder and expand our search to the West Coast and Canada, he said. The nearest natural talent nest in Buckeyes is Toronto, a 5-hour drive away. From there, Muzerall found Sophie Jaques, the blue liner leading Buckeyes by 34 points.

Muzerall said he wants hockey in Ohio, but there aren’t many ice boards. Minnesota has recovered from a bad year with a large grant from a large, strong freshman class almost exclusively from the Twin Cities (Ella Huber is from the suburbs of Chicago). Buckeyes was reloaded with eight transfers from programs such as Bemidji State, Clarkson, Wisconsin and Robert Morris.

That’s one reason Gophers are eager to play this series; they feel like a much different team than the one who lost to the Buckeyes 4-2 and 4-1 in October.

I know I and the other freshmen were pretty nervous, striker Peyton Hemp, who leads the Minnesota freshmen with nine goals and 25 points, said from the first set. I remember when we were on the ice we talked to Ella Huber about nervousness. It was obviously very nerve-wracking.

Hemp scored their first goal in the opening game and took Minnesota to a 1-0 lead, and has since become a key part of the teams ’recovery from the COVID season 11-8-1.

Now there are good butterflies, he said. You are not very nervous. We’ve been around. Even though we were first class, we played a lot of games. We kind of feel the exercise and its more (feeling) excitement.

Frost and his players claim this weekend is more about their play than the state of Ohio. If the Gophers play well, they believe they will win just as they did rare at the time. 1 Wisconsin last weekend. Muzerall does not accept this mindset, although he may have the most aggressive team on the WCHA, as the leading plus-78 goal margin in the Buckeyes League shows.

Look at what happened to Mankato, he said, referring to the Mavericks ’5-4 overtime victory in Minnesota on Jan. 15. I think as soon as you do that, you get a slap in the mouth. We’re focusing on Fridays, but I would never look at it that way.

We have our philosophy and game plan. Were tough, were fast, were okay. But we plan our opponents and prepare for their possible habits.