I think Greg has a good point that it would have been nice to have a
woman as coach of the Team USA Women's national team.  In many ways I
think an ECAC League women's coach would have been the best solution
because they know the game and the players.  The down side of that
concept is that it hurts the league.  If one coach is the national coach
they tend to have too much pull.  Afterall if you don't please them, you
won't get picked for the national side.
 
Having said that, I still think Laura Halldorson (Colby) or Heather
Linstad (Northeastern), or Julie Andeberhan (Cornell) would have been
excellent choices.  They have the experience and are extremely
intelligent coaches who know their game.  I do not believe they are
deficient in any way.  I believe the other people under consideration were
Karen Kay (UNH), Lisa Brown-Miller (Princeton) and Val Belmonte (USA Hockey).
 
I have heard from a few sources that the players who were on TUSAW for
the Finland tour last summer, when Ben Smith was the head coach, liked him a
lot.  The results he got with the team were impressive.  I also think it
is a good sign that USA Hockey signed him on for three years.  It says to
me they may be finally taking this seriously.  I hope Smith can tryout
and choose players as he sees fit.  I think we will see what kind of
effort USA Hockey is putting out this fall.  I hear there will be some
international event coming up as a warm up for WWC '97.  We should be
seeing TUSAW playing ECAC League sides and probably some form of Team
Canada Women if they are to be ready for Kitchener next April.
 
 
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 hungerf
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