American women could get youth to this
Cayla Barnes wasn’t even born. Maddie Rooney was “straight out of the crib” the previous time the United States had won Olympic gold in women’s hockey.
Since that team defeated Canada at the 1998 Olympics, the U.S. had lost three straight gold medal games to its archrivals. While the players who’d experienced the past disappointment burned with a vengeance heading into the finals in Pyeongchang, Barnes, Rooney and their college-aged teammates had none of the visceral memories to weigh them down.
That blissful ignorance, emanating mostly from six players under the age of 22, might even have been the team’s secret weapon.
“Like, we’re in the shootout and I had a smile on my face sitting at center ice — and I’m the oldest,” Gigi Marvin, 30, said during the team’s visit to The Post’s newsroom Monday morning as part of its victory tour. “Then you look at Maddie and she had a smile on her face — and she’s in the net. In the most high-pressure game, you see that dynamic — that it doesn’t matter [how old you are].”
Rooney, who stopped 29 shots and four of six shootout attempts in the 3-2 victory, shrugged when told she looked surprisingly calm in net. After all, she grew up playing goalie against boys until her final two years of high school.
“They’re just a great group to play behind and in my position, it’s important to stay calm and have that calm presence and show your team that you have confidence,” said the 20-year-old Rooney, whose save on Canada’s Meghan Agosta in the shootout sealed the victory.
“After the save, everything just kind of went into a blur. To look over and see my teammates sprinting at me, it’s an indescribable feeling. And then everything just [went] black under the dogpile.”
Rooney had two seasons at the University of Minnesota-Duluth under her belt. Barnes, a 19-yearold defender, had no collegiate experience, having bypassed her freshman season at Boston College to realize her Olympic dream.
“I started the semester there, my fall semester, and [the U.S. team] called and took me down to Tampa [for training camp],” Barnes said. “So that was crazy, it was a whirlwind. Like you think you’re gonna start college and then there’s a little switch-up.”
Team USA’s usual suspects shined in crunch time, with twin sisters Monique LamoureauxMorando and Jocelyne Lamoureaux-Davidson providing the game-tying and game- winning goals against Canada, respectively.
What helped get them there was Rooney’s stable presence in net, giving up just five goals in total, and an offensive surge from 22-year-old Dani Cameranesi, who scored three goals and added two assists in her Olympics debut.
Though it would be no surprise if the U.S. roster stayed relatively intact for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing — with Marvin, captain Meghan Duggan and defender Kacey Bellamy the only players who have turned 30 — the newcomers showed Canada this team isn’t going anywhere.