MILAN — The ladies’s hockey competitors on the Olympics has an affect you may not have anticipated.
Ohio State.
Maybe you already know the Buckeyes finest as a soccer powerhouse. But with 12 present or former Buckeyes taking part in for 5 completely different international locations on the Milan Cortina Olympics, “it’s a ladies’s ice hockey faculty, for certain,” mentioned Pleasure Dunne, an Ohio State junior who scored for the U.S. on Thursday in its 5-1 win towards Czechia.
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Since Nadine Muzerall grew to become the college’s coach in 2016, the college has developed from a hockey also-ran into the NCAA champion in each 2022 and 2024. The workforce additionally appeared within the 2023 and 2025 title video games. This season, it’s ranked second nationally.
5 gamers from this season’s workforce at the moment are foes. Three present Buckeyes play for Sweden alone. Trash discuss has been stored to a minimal, mentioned Hilda Svensson, a Swedish ahead who has grow to be one of many NCAA’s prime scorers in her freshman yr at Ohio State.
“We’ve got been fairly good to one another to date,” she mentioned, “however I believe if we play towards them, we’re going to be just a little bit extra imply, possibly. And particularly possibly towards Pleasure.”
The U.S. and Sweden aren’t scheduled to face one another within the preliminary spherical, that means any assembly between the squads would come within the knockout spherical. That risk was mentioned instantly after the event’s draw was introduced, Dunne mentioned.
“Me and the Swedish women actually wish to play one another as a result of one’s a giant chirper and I believe it’d be enjoyable,” Dunne informed NBC Information. “We battle so much in practices, so it could simply be good to truly do it towards one another in a sport.”
Dunne and the U.S. confronted off towards a present Buckeye teammate Saturday, when the U.S. performed its second preliminary sport towards Finland. Its roster contains Sanni Vanhanen, a freshman ahead at Ohio State who was a part of Finland’s 2022 bronze medal-winning workforce on the Beijing Olympics.
Muzerall’s allegiances may lean towards her native Canada, the place she has coached inside the nationwide workforce’s developmental system. However holding ties to 5 groups makes rooting pursuits tougher.
“You are feeling like a mother or father, an immense quantity of delight,” Muzerall informed reporters in Ohio this week. “So, it’s going to be powerful to decide on who I’m cheering for.”
Ohio State’s outsize presence at these Olympics must be seen as a credit score to Muzerall’s teaching, Dunne mentioned. However the faculty is only one instance of collegiate hockey’s position as a de facto feeder system for nationwide groups. Of the 230 complete ladies’s hockey gamers participating in these Video games, 122 have NCAA expertise, in line with the governing physique, together with 40 lively faculty gamers.
The Western Collegiate Hockey Affiliation, a hockey-only convention that features Ohio State, has probably the most illustration amongst conferences, with 54 athletes.
Dunne isn’t even the primary member of her household to symbolize each Ohio State and the U.S. Her older sister, Jincy, was a part of the U.S. hockey workforce that gained a silver medal on the 2022 Olympics.
That is the primary Winter Olympics because the creation of the Skilled Girls’s Hockey League, and with 61 PWHL gamers heading to Italy to symbolize their international locations, the league opted to take a three-week break from competitors.
The NCAA season, nonetheless, didn’t pause.
“Part of me really needs to fly over there and simply go,” Muzerall mentioned.
As an alternative, the Buckeyes will play 4 video games between Thursday’s opening of the preliminary spherical and the Feb. 19 gold-medal sport. Svensson mentioned she was watching from afar because the Buckeyes attempt to compensate for his or her Olympic-sized roster gap.
“I’m so impressed how they did their final sport towards Duluth,” Svensson mentioned. “I hope they’ll simply preserve going and win towards Wisconsin this weekend.”
