Beware: The Europeans are Coming!

MINNEAPOLIS--Don King would have been hard-pressed to script a better ending. The inaugural women's NCAA Frozen Four was a great showcase for the sport in this country and an impressive sign of growth in women's hockey.

The sport is expanding, and the midwest is emerging as its new powerhouse, breaking New England's 20 year hold on the women's hockey elite. The NCAA held its first tournament this season, and Minnesota-Duluth emerged from near obscurity to win a national championship in only its second season.

The weekend had fairytale written all over it.

There was just one problem for USA Hockey.

It wasn't made in America.

It all arrived through customs.

That was the dirty little secret whispered through hallways all weekend. Everyone talked about it privately, but few people brought it up openly. It was as if bringing it out publicly would suddenly make it true.

Women's hockey was growing in America, but it was foreigners playing the game.

Canadians, and for the first time, Europeans were the stars.

There was just one american name among the three finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award which recognizes the most oustanding player in women's college hockey.

Prior to this season, there had never been a non-american finalists in the awards brief three year history.

Now there were two in the same year, junior co-captain Jennifer Botterill and senior winger Tammy Shewchuk, both from Harvard and both Canadian.

Duluth sophomore winger Maria Rooth could have easily been the third finalist. She finished third in the country in points-per-game with 41 goals and 31 assists for 72 points, just behind Botterill and Shewchuk with 78 and 75 respectively.

Rooth is Swedish, however, which may have hurt her chances.

Playing for the Swedish National Team, she was the team's MVP of the 1997 World Championships and finished as Sweden's leading scoring in the 1998 Olympics in Nagano.

She was still passed over as a Kazmaier finalist in favor of Minnesota's Courtney Kennedy, a native of Woburn, Massachusetts.

A similar fate awaited fellow Duluth sophomore Hanna Sikio. Despite finishing the season fifth in the nation in points and fourth in scoring, she was not among six forwards named All-American. Sikio isn't American. She happens to be Finnish, but that shouldn't have taken away from her accomplishments in All-American consideration.

None of these are gross miscarriages of justice. These were all decisions that could have gone either way. It just happens that they all went against foreigners and an in favor of red, white and blue Americans.

Europeans are suddenly a major player in women's college hockey. Their numbers are few, and there are just a handful of them but their impact is broad.

Duluth could not have won a national championship without its European contingent. With six of its players missing at the Four Nations Cup, the Bulldogs were given 4-0 and 8-0 beatings by Minnesota on back-to-back nights in November.

The foreign representation at Duluth goes further than the players on the ice, however: it starts with the coaching.

With three bigs names behind the bench, the Duluth coaching staff looks more like a who's-who of the Canadian National Team than a second year college hockey program in Minnesota.

Duluth Head Coach Shannon Miller was the boss behind the Canadian bench at the Olympics in 1998 when her team won a silver medal. Stacy Wilson, now an assistant coach at Duluth, was the captain of Team Canada. Manon Rheaume, who was Canada's starting goaltender in Nagano and was the first women to ever play in the NHL, is also an assistant.

When asked why she chose to attend Duluth, Finnish National Team goaltender and Bulldog sophomore Tuula Puputti was brief.

"She's sitting right here," Puputti said in reference to Miller.

Rooth was similarily direct.

"I think for me it was because of the coaching staff," Rooth said. "I knew that they were very talented and they knew the game. I wanted to become the best I could be."

Miller's unique recruiting techniques have broad consequences for women's hockey at the collegiate level.

"It looks like we were going to get all the kids that were leftovers from Minnesota and Wisconsin," Miller said. "I am not a leftovers kind of coach...I went over to Finland a couple of times beating the bushes and started to assemble a very good team."

After Duluth's championship, more American coaches will be forced to look overseas. That will put Ivy league teams at a disadvantage: language obstacles and academic requirements will be real barriers to admission.

If the Canadian and American National Teams continue to draw players out of college hockey, however, European recruiting will continue to be the easiest way to a national title.

U.S. Nationa Team players, including Harvard sophomore Angela Ruggerio, were absent from college hockey this year and will be gone again next year for the Olympics. Team Canada allowed its college players, most notably Botterill and Shewchuk, to play this year but they will also be away for the Olympics all next season.

It's not the same for Swedish or Finnish players. Niether of those countries have a standing national team, and players from those countries will be allowed to compete in the Olympics and play college hockey next year.

"We've been negotiating with the Swedish and Finnish National Teams and those players will only be gone five weeks all next year," Miller said. "The WCHA's been accomodating in its scheduling and we only play on three of those five weekends."

In preparing to win Olympic gold again, the U.S. National Team may have inadvertently opened the gateway for Europeans to dominate U.S. college hockey.

With elite American college players missing two out of every four years and Canadians missing one out of four, both to national team commitments, the value of European-born players has sky-rocketed .

A similar change happened in the NHL a decade ago, although for different reasons. The speed with which the change has happened at the college level is the most amazing feat.

Duluth was already the best team in college hockey this season. On paper, they will be even better next year. It's a scary thought for everyone else--and a sign of things to come.