Battle of the sexes in Hockeytown USA

[Lost Highway]

http://www.startribune.com/120/story/164082.html

WARROAD, MINN. - Both the U.S. women's Olympic hockey team and the Warroad High School boys' team said their unusual match Wednesday night was about honor.

The boys said they wanted to rise to the honor of facing some of the world's best women players and doing them justice.

The women said they wanted to honor the town and the people who have done perhaps more for hockey than any town in the United States.

Many thought the older, more experienced women who beat Team Canada last weekend in a warmup to the 2006 Winter Olympics would win against the high schoolers. Especially after coaches agreed to a no-checking rule.

But the young Warroad Warriors lived up to the town's long history of hockey honor, winning 2-1 by beating the women at their own game of finesse and speed.

A crowd of more than 2,000 fans packed the 1,700-seat Gardens Arena in this town of about 1,800 on the Canadian border.

In a scene reminiscent of coach Herb Brooks' speech to the U.S. men's "Miracle on Ice" team in 1980, Warroad co-head coach Albert Hasbargen said he told the boys in the locker room that this was a unique opportunity for a high school team to show what it could do against what is probably the best women's team in the world.

He said the boys responded by "playing in the first period probably the best hockey of their lives. We were all over them. They couldn't make their passes."

The boys' winning strategy was to drive the puck as often as they could to the corners of the rink.

"Everyone thought the boys would lose," said spectator Earl Vlcek of Warroad, "but they had the long reach and were much stronger in the corners."

Team captain Bobby Anacabe, a senior left wing, said, "It was awkward to go into a corner and not look for the big hit." But he added that the boys found they were less handicapped than they thought they would be by not being able to check.

Natalie Darwitz, a Team USA member who played at Eagan High School and the University of Minnesota, said the outcome didn't surprise her. "I knew that with the level of talent in high school in Minnesota, this wasn't going to be a cakewalk," she said.

Darwitz, a two-time Olympian and one of seven Team USA members with Minnesota ties, said that while she would have preferred to win, the game was a positive experience. "We panicked a little at first because we were not used to this speed and pace," she said. "But it was a good, clean game of hockey. I wish all our games were this high in intensity."

Coach Ben Smith of the women's team called the game "a tremendous exhibition" on and off the ice. He said that the women started "a day late and a dollar short" but that they then adjusted to the intensity of the boys and "played their game."

When the women's team first proposed the matchup, some of the adults were more worried than the boys were.

Dennis Fermoyle, the Warriors' other co-head coach, worried that losing to women might mess with the boys' heads. "I remember when Bobby Riggs got thrashed by Billie Jean King" [in tennis in 1973] and got totally depressed," he said before the game.

Said Debina Potts, mother of Warroad goalie Tyler Potts: "At first I saw it as a lose-lose proposition. The boys can't play their game because there's no checking. I didn't want my kid lit up all over the place and getting humiliated."

But then the adults had a novel idea. Listen to the boys. And the boys said they didn't want to pass up the opportunity to share the ice with the best women.

Happy to be in Hockeytown

Smith proposed the matchup last year when he asked Warroad to add the game to its schedule.

"We wanted to bring our players to Hockeytown USA," he said. "This community has a long association with U.S. national teams. This arena has portraits of six [Olympic] medalists on the wall. I don't know of any place with a higher per capita number.

"The waters run deep here."

Kim Insalaco, 25, a left wing on the women's team, said that for many of the women, coming to this community was like a pilgrimage.

"This is the home of the Christian brothers, the grass roots of the Olympics," said Insalaco, of Rochester, N.Y., referring to Olympic medalists Gordon, Roger and Bill and Bill's son Dave.

She said the town of Warroad couldn't have been more hospitable since the team arrived Monday. Hockey parents served a potluck dinner, and the team reciprocated by visiting the middle school, where some players were mindful of how they might be inspiring girls to follow their dreams.

As the women's team prepares for the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, in February, it's "full-bore time," Insalaco said.

And full-bore for the women means speed and stick handling, something the boys said they had to work hard to match.

"I thought not being able to check might throw them off more, and it didn't," said Therese McBride, mother of Allen McBride, who scored the second goal for Warroad. "The game has gotten so rough, it's refreshing to see the boys have to rely on finesse and skill."

Coach Smith noted that the boys were "gentlemen and good sportsmen."

Said Smith: "It was a night when hockey won."

[Bon Voyage]

Hockeytown USA is in Michigan, not Minnesota.

[Weeble]

Why didn't they let them check?!?!?!?  The boys weren't afraid of a couple of girls were they?

And have you seen the girls on the US Women's Hockey team? :O

[Mere Nick]

Checks?  I want to know about fist fights!