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U.S. women smash China in hockey
Granato and her team qualify for the medal round
By Zack Van Eyck
Deseret News Olympic specialist
PROVO — Late in the second period of a lopsided game Thursday, U.S. team captain Cammi Granato had a word with one of the officials.
The all-time leading scorer in the history of the U.S. women's program wanted to make sure a goal initially credited to her was correctly attributed to linemate Natalie Darwitz.
If Granato had kept quiet, she would have had a hat trick.
"But she doesn't care about that type of stuff," Darwitz said after Team USA's 12-1 win over China. "She wants other people to get their notoriety, but for her, she doesn't care. She just wants everybody to be happy and wants us to keep playing well.
"I think that describes Cammi Granato right there, the kind of person she is."
Granato would pick up the hat trick less than five minutes later, early in the third on a pass from Julie Chu, as the defending Olympic champions secured a spot in the medal round with their second impressive victory of these Games.
Granato, sister of former NHL player Tony Granato, has been the face of women's ice hockey in America since becoming a member of the country's first national team in 1990. She is the only American to have played on both Olympic teams and all seven Women's World Championship tournament teams.
She will be 31 next month and is the oldest player on the squad — nearly twice the age of 16-year-old defenseman Lyndsay Wall. But is Granato tired? Is she on the decline?
There has been no evidence of that so far in the 2002 Winter Games.
"Every time I think she's about as good as she can get, she gets that much better," said 20-year-old Krissy Wendell, who centers Granato's line and is the heir apparent to become the next great American player.
"And that's just a credit to her work ethic. She works very hard every day to get better and take that extra step, and that's why she's one of the greatest in the game right now."
Granato opened the scoring just 1:19 into the game. As she so often does, the elusive left winger managed to find a spot all alone in front of the crease. When the puck left Wendell's stick from behind the net, there was little doubt what Granato would do with it.
"I felt good today. The puck seemed to be going my way a little bit," she said. "And once you get a little confidence like that, you just kind of go with it."
Granato gave the U.S. a 3-0 lead late in the first period when she picked up a loose puck outside the blue line, charged to the top of the right face-off circle and put a long wrister behind Chinese goalie Hong Guo.
Guo played extremely well, considering she was bombarded with 71 U.S. shots on goal. Granato scored on three of her nine shots. Katie King had a pair of goals on nine shots and Laurie Baker scored two goals on eight shots.
"I was playing with two outstanding players today," Granato said of Darwitz and Wendell. "They seemed to find me on the ice pretty well. We've been working together all year, so we kind of know where each other are on the ice."
The game, the second of five Olympic contests the Americans will play, took place before a sellout crowd of 6,006 at the Peaks Ice Arena. The U.S. is projected to meet seven-time defending World Champion Canada in the gold-medal game Feb. 21.
FINLAND 3, GERMANY 1: Also at Provo, Katja Riipi scored a goal and assisted on the other two as third-seeded Finland clinched a berth in the medal round.
The Finns (2-0) outshot the Germans (0-2) by a 39-16 margin but did not dominate the way Coach Jouko Lukkarila would have preferred heading into Saturday's game against the 2-0 Americans. Finland capitalized on one of eight power plays against the seventh-seeded Germans, who were beaten 10-0 by the U.S. on Tuesday.
"Sometimes you have those days, when you can't hit the barn from two meters," said Finnish forward Petra Vaarakallio. "I guess we had that kind of a day today."
German goalie Stephanie Wartosch-Kurten had 36 saves.
E-MAIL: zman@desnews.com
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February 15, 2002
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