U.S., China Finally Get to Break the Ice

They’ve had all their lives to dream of this moment and five months to count the days until it would become reality. So Sunday, the first U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team took to the ice against China for a game that made history--and is likely to make the players role models, not only for countless young girls, but for anyone with an adventurous spirit.

“We’re here for ourselves, but we’re also here for the people who didn’t make it and the people who played before it became an Olympic sport,” forward Tricia Dunn said. “We have a responsibility to them and to all the people who are supporting us. We want to make everybody proud.”

An odyssey that began in early September and took the U.S. players and coaches across North America and around the world will end in this six-team tournament. They have played before gatherings that barely reached triple figures and enthusiastic crowds that exceeded 14,000; they have shared the anxiety of injuries and roster cuts, and exulted together through routs and nail-biting victories over archrival Canada, the top-seeded team here.

This is their moment--and not a moment too soon. They have had enough hype and appeared enough times on magazine covers and on TV talk shows.

“We’re prepared and ready to go,” said defenseman Tara Mounsey. “It’s time to forget about everything that happened the last five months.

“Soon, maybe we’ll be the dolls of sports. Maybe we’ll come out like the [gold-medal] women’s basketball team in the ’96 Olympics. It’s just really exciting.”

The magnitude of the occasion is just beginning to sink in for Sarah Tueting, who is expected to share the goaltending duties with Sara DeCosta.

“I was sitting with Sara the other night and reading some of the newspaper articles that have been written about her and I was thinking, ‘This is so cool. I’m sitting across from an Olympic goaltender,’ ” she said. “Then I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, I’m an Olympic goaltender, too!’ ”