23.3.26

IT'S A GREAT DAY FOR HOCKEY.

Current and past players for Wisconsin and Ohio State competed on Team Canada and Team U.S.A. for a gold medal in women's hockey.  Team U.S.A. secured that gold.  Then the current players returned to college, where Wisconsin secured the regular-season championship in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (the conference alignments in Olympic, or "non-revenue," if you will, sports are bizarre) after which Ohio State won the conference tournament.  Thus when the national championship bids were issued, Ohio State were the top seed and Wisconsin the second seed.  They met again for the national championship.


University of Wisconsin official photograph retrieved from WTMJ.

Wisconsin's women won their ninth national championship, and if you thought Connecticut versus Tennessee was too frequent a final in women's basketball, it has been either Ohio State or Wisconsin skating with that trophy you can't drink from each of the last four years.

And those sports pundits who had reservations about Kirsten Simms being on Team U.S.A?  All she did this tournament is get Wisconsin back to the finals with an overtime goal against a scrappy Penn State team.  And 1980 Team U.S.A. most valuable player and current Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson is conference coach of the year.

Well done, kids.

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