UMD women’s hockey: Sweden chooses Söderberg for the Olympic team and creates an opening in the Bulldogs network – Duluth News Tribune
DULUTH – Minnesota Duluth senior goalkeeper Emma Söderberg takes nothing for granted.
For example, she helped stop Sweden through qualifying and the 2022 Olympics in November, but has not allowed anyone to call her an Olympian in the past two months because her country had not yet entered its official Olympic list.
That changed on Wednesday morning when Sweden officially presented its Olympic women’s hockey team ahead of the 2022 Winter Games, which begin in a few weeks in Beijing. That included Söderberg, as well as former Bulldogs Linnea Hedin and forward Michelle Lowenhielm.
“It feels great. I am very honored that I get the chance to represent my country in the Olympic Games,” says Söderberg, who earlier this month found out that she joined the Swedish Olympic team. “I am just very excited right now to see what’s coming because I’m not sure what I can expect yet. “
Like Söderberg, this will be the first Olympics for Hedin, a defender who played four seasons at UMD 2014-18. Lowenhielm, a forward who was also at UMD with Hedin 2014-18, makes his second Olympic appearance. She is a nine player in Team Sweden with Olympic experience, after making her first Olympic team in 2014 in Sochi, Russia, when Sweden lost the bronze medal match against Switzerland.
Damkronorna’s Olympic squad! 🇸🇪
These 23 players represent Sweden at the Winter Olympics in Beijing.“This group is very strong together and we like to beat inferiority,” says national team captain Ulf Lundberg.
Read more here: https://t.co/zczjdYcXPk pic.twitter.com/Fz8egwx4rV
– Tre Kronor (@Trekronorse) January 19, 2022
“Many of the people on this team I have played with in the U18 team,” said Söderberg about the team. “We have a good, skilled, younger group and that is why we have 14 first-time Olympics. We have a hard working group. “We can go far from the hard work and skill we have.”
Sweden has won medals twice in the Olympics – bronze in 2002 and silver in 2006 – and finished among the top four in four straight winter games between 2002 and 2014. Sweden finished seventh in 2018 in Pyeongchang and was relegated from the IIHF’s highest division. of women’s hockey 2019 – a first for Sweden – after a loss against Japan and a ninth place at the 2019 World Championships for women.
Since then, Sweden has struggled to get back to the top. That push culminated in the Olympic qualifiers in November when the country went 3-0 at home to win their group and take a place in Beijing.
BULLDOG INSIDER PODCAST:
After success in the Olympic qualifiers, Söderberg came back in goal for UMD
Lowenhielm, the qualified captain, had one goal and four assists while Hedin scored one goal and two assists in the three matches.
Söderberg got the start of the second match in qualifying, and made five saves on five shots for a 15-0 shutout of South Korea. She backed up the starting shot Sara Grahn – who is back for her fourth Olympics with Sweden – in the victories over Slovakia (3-0) and France (3-2).
Sweden opens the Olympic game on February 3 with a preliminary matchup against Japan before taking on the Czech Republic (February 5), China (February 7) and Denmark (February 8). The knockout round begins on February 11 with the gold medal game scheduled for February 17.
Shoot me up !!! Spent 2 years behind an OLY gold medalist. Took full advantage of its opportunity when it came, named All-American. Now on Team Sweden in the Olympics! Impossible not to root for this child. Somewhere, with Bulldog, Olympian and friend @sidneymorin smiles! #GoDogs https://t.co/YNMGaZQIIq
– Laura Bellamy (@ laurabellamy91) January 19, 2022
Soderberg flies out to join Team Sweden on Friday – yes, this Friday – which means the Bulldogs will be without their starting goalkeeper during their last 12 games in the regular season, starting this weekend in Ohio State No. 2 .
Sophomore Jojo Chobak, a 20-year-old Chicago native, is about to take over the starting role, even though she has not yet started her two seasons at UMD. She has only come in relief from Söderberg the last two seasons, and only on four occasions.
Freshman Holly Gruber from Plover, Wisconsin, has yet to enter a game this season.
“I believe in every single one of these girls, no matter who will be online. I know they will kill it,” said UMD, fifth-year senior Anna Klein. “I know it can be difficult for the two to have Sods. in front of her, and of course she is a fantastic goalkeeper, but I think they have been able to learn a lot from her and they have appeared in training, which in that position is all you can do. We’re happy to see them play. “
Chobak has appeared in two games this year and stopped all three shots she encountered in the last 28 minutes, 24 seconds at St. Thomas in a 7-0 win on October 24th. Her most recent appearance was on Friday when she stopped the two shots she faced in the final 5:26 win 8-2 over Bemidji State.
Chobak saw 52 minutes of action a year ago, playing the third period of a 5-1 win over St. Louis. Cloud State on December 5, 2020, and then the final 32:03 of a 7-2 loss to Ohio State in the WCHA Final Faceoff semifinal at the Knights Arena in Minneapolis. She saw a total of 29 shots in these two appearances and stopped 26.
Soderberg, an All-American and WCHA Goaltender of the Year last season, appeared in just nine games her first two seasons, starting five, while playing behind Rooney as a rookie and second.
Söderberg has started every match every one of the last two seasons at UMD. She has a save percentage of 0.920 and 2.17 goals against the average with four finishes in 20 starts this year.
Bulldogs coach Maura Crowell said that Chobak and Soderberg are equal, but not necessarily in terms of playing style, but in their situation at UMD.
“Sometimes you just have a great goalkeeper in front of you and you have to wait for your chances,” said Crowell. “This is a similar situation where she has a great opportunity ahead of her. As a player, she tears off her ass every day in training.
Jojo is very capable, has a large size (5-foot-8), smart goalkeeper. Holly is different from Jojo. She is more of an active goalkeeper, she is a bit on the smaller edge (5-7) compared to Jojo, “super active, athletic, working on staying on my feet. I like the 1-2 shots there if we need to use both, it gives you a very different look and I would say it’s challenging for the opponents to find out.”
The Bulldogs are not the only WCHA team to lose their starting goalkeeper to the Olympics. Buckeyes senior Andrea Braendli is also on his way to Beijing with Switzerland, although OSU will have three other options, including two that have started a match this season.
Braendli has started 12 of the Buckeyes’ 20 games, with a save percentage of .924 and 1.84 GAA. She played just 10:21 in the series in Duluth against the Bulldogs, and was drawn after giving up three goals on nine shots in the 5-2 loss on December 3 at Amsoil Arena.
Sophomore Amanda Thiele came in relieved on December 3 and made 17 saves on 18 shots. She then got one of her five starts the next day, stopping 25 of 27 in a Buckeyes win 6-2. She has recorded a save percentage of .938 and 1.08 GAA in her seven games this year.
In the first meeting between the Bulldogs and Buckeyes in Duluth, both teams jumped out to early leads and then gathered to secure wins. UMD led 3-0 after the first period on December 3 before going up 4-0 after the second. OSU led 2-0 after one on December 4 before coming to 5-0 with under 13:00 left in the third.
Following the announcement of Team Sweden on Wednesday morning, the Bulldogs women’s hockey program is up to three current players – Soderberg, senior defender Ashton Bell (Canada) and junior forward Kassy Betinol (China) – and seven alumni now in the Olympic team for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
Eight of the 10 Olympians have played at UMD under Crowell and associate head coach Laura Bellamy over the past seven seasons. They have trained a total of 10 Olympians, six of whom have made their first Olympics after playing for Crowell and Bellamy.
“It’s super cool. It’s really crazy. You’ll continue on Twitter and there will be more messages about girls who have made teams,” Klein said of all the bulldogs named to Olympic teams. She and redshirt senior Naomi Rogge have played with seven of the 10 in his UMD careers. “There are so many people coming and I’m really excited because basically every match I’ll see I will get to know someone.”
- Klein can break the UMD record for consecutive games played if she plays both games against the Buckeyes in Columbus, Ohio, this weekend. She has currently played 145 games in a row and is a draw for the eighth time through all time in games played by a Bulldog.
- UMD and St. Cloud State has changed its series, which was postponed on January 7-8 due to covid-19 protocols at UMD. The Games in St. Cloud will now take place at 3pm on Tuesday, February 1 – between the 28-29 January series against Minnesota State and February 4-5 in Wisconsin – and at 3pm on Tuesday, February 15 – between the home series on February 11-12 against St Thomas and 18- February 19 against SCSU.
The Huskies also make up a game against Ohio State on Tuesday, February 8 in St. Louis. Cloud, after the series between the Buckeyes and Huskies was postponed last week due to the covid-19 protocols at SCSU. The second match in that series has been canceled, which means that WCHA will use the percentage of points instead of the total number of points to calculate the position due to the fact that not everyone in the league plays the same number of league matches this season.
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