Hall of Fame inducts ’98 women’s hockey

BOSTON - Never in her wildest dreams did Karyn Bye Dietz think about the impact the 1998 U.S. Women's Olympic Hockey Team would have after it won the gold medal in Nagano.

"I can recall back in '98 when the highlight, obviously, was winning the gold medal," Dietz said Tuesday night before she was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame along with her teammates. "Then, all of a sudden afterwards, having all these different events take place. We had our picture on a Wheaties box. We went to the White House and people went back to their hometowns for parades and parties ... all these different things. The phone never stopped ringing."

At the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games, Team USA breezed through the five qualifying games and then defeated archrival and defending world champion Canada for a second time in the gold-medal game.

"I don't think it was until a good year or two afterward when our team said 'Wow! Look at what happened to women's and girls' ice hockey.' It skyrocketed. The numbers absolutely took off. I think then people were like 'You guys had an impact on that.'

"As a group we looked at it and thought we did."

All but three members of the 1998 team were in attendance at the induction ceremony in Boston. Team captain Cammi Granato, who was inducted into the U.S. Hall of Fame as an individual last year, was absent as she is expecting the birth of a child in a few weeks.

Two other '98 team members, Jenny (Schmidgall) Potter and Angela Ruggiero, were away training with Team USA in preparation for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. And just as it was back in 1998, Team USA's main rival at the upcoming Olympic Winter Games will be Canada. For Potter and Ruggiero, things could come full circle for them as they captured gold medals in Nagano and hope to cap their careers four Olympic Winter Games later with another gold medal draped around their necks.

Other inductees were Tony Amonte, a member of the 1998 and 2002 Olympic teams, goaltender Tom Barrasso, who won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992, John LeClair, who played on the 2002 Olympic team that won a silver medal, and the late Frank Zamboni, who invented the first self-propelled ice resurfacing machine which has carried his name.

But it was the 1998 women's Olympic team that took center stage.

"We were the pioneers of women's and girls' ice hockey," Dietz said. "We were the first ones to go through there. That didn't sink in, I don't think, until quite a while after the Olympics. But it was extremely special to be on that first-ever team and come away with the gold medal."

Before the 1998 Winter Games, the women had a completely different mindset-one reason being the sport was making its Olympic debut.

"Honestly, this was our first time being there and I think we were a little nervous," Dietz said. "But I think we were very well-prepared. We had a great support staff working with us. I think the fact that we were all kind of new to it helped us stay together. We stuck together that much more.

"As for the pressure, we knew we could win it. It was just a matter of going in and dealing with all the outside media and everything else that takes place. We knew what we had to do. We knew we could win. It was going to be a matter of getting by Canada who was our toughest competitor."

The game that still sticks out in Dietz's mind was played in the round-robin part of the tournament when Canada built a 4-1 lead against the U.S., which countered with six unanswered goals and won 7-4.

"I think that was such a huge turn-around," Dietz said. "It gave us confidence. Going into the gold-medal game, nothing was going to stop us."

And nothing did, as the U.S. prevailed, 3-1.

"Most of the players on the team we had in '98 didn't have the opportunities (to play hockey) that exist today," coach Ben Smith said when discussing the impact of his team. "I don't think we had the idea of the impact that it would half where, all of a sudden, Hockey East would form and the WCHA would form.

"Now the opportunities are so plentiful that it's a great by-product of what that team did."

Even though the players on the '98 team could be considered pioneers, Smith was adamant about not taking anything away from their predecessors.

"I think in a lot of ways they were (pioneers)," Smith said. "But I think the '98 team has to be careful and be respectful of the female players who played before they did. One of the things that we found with this is it was a snapshot of a certain time.

"It wasn't like women's hockey just started in the spring of 1997. There were some great players that never got an opportunity just from a timing standpoint. I think it's always been our charge to try and make sure we're respectful of the shoulders that they stood on. But I think the shoulders that the '98 team provided comprised a very, very wide platform."

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Mike Scandura is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.

Tags: Angela Ruggiero, Ben Smith , Cammi Granato, Jenny (Schmidgall) Potter , John LeClair, Karyn Bye Dietz , Mike Scandura, Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games, Pittsburgh Penguins, Stanley Cup, Tom Barrasso, Tony Amonte, U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, USA Hockey, USA Women's Hockey, Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games