It’s All U.S. in Crowd Pleaser

If the United States women’s hockey team wondered what it would be like to play the Olympics in its home country, it found out long before game time.

And if there were any doubts that the team’s performance could match the lofty expectations, they were resolved well before the final buzzer sounded Tuesday in a 10-0 victory over Germany.

Perhaps the outcome wasn’t decided as soon as the team buses pulled up to the E Center, but the tone for the day sure was.

“We were driving up here before the game and there was a huge line outside the gates,” U.S. forward Shelley Looney said. “We were like, ‘That can’t be for our game. It’s two hours ahead of the game.’ They were like, ‘Yeah. They open the gates at 10.’”

The flag-waving crowd filled the 8,400-seat arena with noise as soon as the American women hit the ice.

“We were definitely excited,” forward Karyn Bye said. “We were tapping each other on the shin pads, saying ‘Hey, come on, let’s show this crowd how we can play.’”

They didn’t show their top form right away. If this were a sport that depended on fast starts, like speedskating or the bobsled, they would have been in trouble.

They tried a little too hard to be perfect, to adhere to the system, and made a few too many passes. It took four German penalties before the Americans ran a good power play.

Bye scored the United States’ first goal 6:46 into the first period, when Jenny Potter fed her a pass from behind the net.

With just under four minutes left, Laurie Baker skated around the net, caught German goalie Stephanie Wartosch out of position and shot the puck off her leg to make it 2-0.

The high-powered U.S., which averaged 7.5 goals per game in its pre-Olympic tour, finally got rolling in the second period. The Americans cranked up the fastbreak, creating odd-man rushes and scoring three goals in less than two minutes. They poured it on from there, with one section of the crowd gleefully counting the goal total after each score.

“They are extremely skillful players, their technique is great and they’re very, very good skaters,” German forward Julia Wierscher said. “Very fast, very physical. And this is what we need to learn.”

What makes the Americans so formidable is their combination of skill and hustle. They’re all willing to do the dirty work as well. On the third goal, Natalie Darwitz dug the puck off the boards in the German zone, accelerated and fired a shot that went off Wartosch’s side and into the net.

Eight players scored, with Bye and Darwitz each getting two goals.

The biggest threat to U.S. goalie Sara DeCosta was her blades, which would freeze to the ice because of inactivity.

Germany managed only eight shots for the game and had no legitimate scoring chances in the second period.

They were credited with two shots on goal during the period, but those were merely dump-ins that went straight toward DeCosta’s stick.

“It’s 100 times easier to play in a game where you get 50-60 shots than a game where you get five, eight, whatever,” said DeCosta, who recorded eight shutouts in 17 pre-Olympic games.

Would it be a disadvantage if an untested United States suddenly finds itself locked in a tight game with Canada with the gold medal at stake? At this point, that’s about the only element of mystery to this tournament, in which the two North American teams clearly surpass the rest of the globe.

“There’s been a lot of pomp and circumstance,” U.S. Coach Ben Smith said. “We finally got a chance to play today.”

In another women’s game, Riikka Nieminen had three assists for Finland in a 4-0 victory over China, which plays the U.S. on Thursday.

In men’s games, Austria edged Slovakia, 3-2, and Germany defeated Latvia, 4-1.