Fueled by youth, U.S. women seek return to gold

After winning historic gold against bitter rival Canada in the Olympic debut for women's hockey in 1998, U.S. Olympic fortunes have gone in the opposite direction.

The Americans haven't won gold since. They took silver against Canada on home turf in 2002, and bronze in 2006, where they were shocked by Sweden in the semifinals.

To turn things around, USA Hockey is banking on youth. In August, just six players with Olympic experience were named to a national team whose average age is 23.5 years. (Canada's is 26.)The 21-person Olympic team was named Thursday.

"When we lost in Torino, we needed to shake things up," said 2006 Olympian Caitlin Cahow, a defenseman.

How young is this team? More than half (11 members) played NCAA Division I hockey last season, and six will still have college eligibility when the 2010 Games in Vancouver are over. Twins Monique Lamoureux and Jocelyne Lamoureux were in second grade when the U.S. won Olympic gold. Hilary Knight, at 20 years and one month, is the youngest on the team but leads it in scoring with nine goals.

With a 3-5 record against Canada (1-5 since September) going into the Dec. 30 matchup on the pre-Olympic tour, the U.S. team has less than two months to figure a way to solve Canada's recent dominance.

"The games we've lost against them, I've been pretty disappointed how we've played as a team," said forward Monique Lamoureux, who leads the team in power-play goals (4), but also in penalty minutes (36). "A positive -- the games we've lost we haven't been at our best."

Another positive, say team veterans, is something that's been missing in two Olympic teams since 1998. Chemistry.

"You see that camaraderie on this team, and I have not said that since 1998," said star defenseman Angela Ruggiero, 29, who along with Jenny Potter have played all three Olympic tournaments. "We've had good teams. But again, there's a big difference between on the ice and being a good team on and off the ice. And it translates."

This year's national team may be short on Olympic experience, but it's long on championship experience -- 19 players have won at least one world title. In the past two years, the Americans went on an unprecedented run of back-to-back world championships, along with titles at the 2008 Four Nations Cup and the 2009 Hockey Canada Cup, beating Canada in four straight tournament finals.

The streak ended with a loss in the 2009 Four Nations Cup title game in November.

"Most people look at our roster and they don't know who half the players are, but yet we're winning, so there's something to be said about that chemistry and that support," Ruggiero said.

USA Hockey made substantial changes since 2006, hiring its first women's national team program director in Michele Amidon, establishing a residency program for post-college players in Blaine, Minn. and ramping up strength, fitness and nutrition programs.

Most visible are the fresh faces.

"With young players comes youthful energy," said coach Mark Johnson, leading scorer for the 1980 Miracle on Ice team. "Players get excited. I think they can lean on the veterans' experience. Some people say they're a little bit young, but I like the mixture."

So do the veterans. Ruggiero gets a kick out of watching the twins, who make a game of surreptitiously knocking pucks off teammates' sticks when they're not looking, and needling one another almost constantly.

"We're stretching and they're poking each other's legs and knocking each other over," she said. "They remind me of when I was younger pushing my brother or my sister around, they push you back and then the next second they're cutting their cookie in half, pouring each other water."

Karen Thatcher, 25, said she's never heard of some of the TV shows Knight and her generation talks about.

But, "we have a great mix of the youthful energy and the exuberance and experience. It's just fun to be around everybody," she said.

Between periods of a grind-it-out win over pesky Finland in September's Hockey Canada Cup semifinals, Cahow found a refreshing fountain of youth.

"I get into the locker room and see Erika Lawler dancing orMeghan Duggan cracking jokes," said Cahow, 24. "You can't help but snap yourself out of it and get right back in the game. It helps us tremendously. It's really one of the key ingredients to our success, I think, in the last couple years."

That's a change from the past. Cahow was one of the national team's three youngest players in 2005 before Torino.

"I felt like it was a very mature, focused team that was really established," she said.

Ruggiero said this team shares the load of leadership.

"In years' past, in all the teams I've been a part of, when you constantly have to turn to one or two or three players, (and) if they don't show up, the whole team is like 'Uh-oh, what do we do now?' Whereas here, 'It's OK. Don't worry about it, I'll take it today. You're having a bad shift?' It's diffused."

Time is getting short. The younger players are aware how everything must click to beat Canada, especially playing on Canada's home ice in these Games.

"Chemistry can make or break a team," Knight said.

In 1998, the U.S. came into Nagano as underdogs to Canada, which had beaten them repeatedly in tune-up games, and emerged as Olympic champions.

Will history repeat itself? Only time will tell.