Overdue Women's Update

I think it’s high time that we had a little update about the Badger Women’s Hockey team.

Jessie Vetter has had a busy schedule since her dominate career ended w/ a 3rd National Championship and the Patty Kaz Award in March. The University of Wisconsin has nominated Jessie for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. The requirements:

The NCAA Woman of the Year Award honors senior student-athletes for their collegiate achievements in service, leadership, athletics and academics. Nominees should have completed their primary sport eligibility and graduated before the 2009-10 academic year.

If you read the article, her list of accomplishments on and off the ice is a mile long and I won’t rehash those here. Women’s Hockey doesn’t get the attention that volleyball and basketball receive, along w/ softball, but Jessie has to be one of the top candidates in the nation and good luck to her. Sara Bauer was nominated in 2007.

On May 13th, she also flew to Los Angeles for a photo shoot in preparation for the Winter Olympics. Check out the photo gallery, pretty cool. Jessie joined four other Team USA players at the shoot and the pictures will be used in promotions by USOC and NBC leading up to the Olympics, which I’m really looking forward to. Reminder, Team USA will play an exhibition against the Badgers at the Kohl Center in January prior to the beginning of the Olympics.

Also, USA Hockey awarded Jessie w/ the Bob Allen Women’s Player of the Year Award. She’s going to need a second house just to accommodate all of her hardware. The award is given by USA Hockey to the top player in NCAA Division I Women’s ice hockey. The awards banquet is in Colorado Springs, CO this Wednesday June 3rd. Jessie if the first Badger to win this award.

The Daily Cardinal also named Jessie UW’s top Women’s athlete, and the Women’s Hockey team the top Women’s team of the season, but I’m unable to find the links at the current time.

The team also had the honor of visiting the Governor’s mansion this Spring. The Governor showed them his model train collection which brings high speed transportation from one side of the mansion to the other at extraordinary cost to taxpayers. Per tradition, the team will also be visiting the White House at some point in the future.

Lastly, not Badger news directly, but will affect the team in the future. The Lamoureux twins (Jocelyne and Monique) have decided to transfer from minnesota to North Dakota. Assuming they both make the Olympic team, they will redshirt the upcoming season (similar to Hilary Knight and Meghan Duggan when they make Team USA), and will suit up for the …. well whatever they are going to named since Sioux is being retired this Fall, in 2010/11. Really either way they’ll sit out next season, if they make the Olympics or not. This is significant because both young women took the WCHA by storm last season, finishing first (Monique) and 3rd (Jocelyne) in overall scoring. Second, was da Bomb, Hilary Knight.

There has been a lot of chatter on USCHO about this. They are two of the dirtiest female players in the WCHA, so it only makes sense they head back to North Dakota. One of the required classes they could take online next season is English 201, WCHA Apology Letter Writing. Joe Finley had to take the class several times and his graduation status is still uncertain.