MADISON, Wis. — Three hours earlier than the Wisconsin Badgers have been set to observe on a Tuesday afternoon in late January, the very best coach within the historical past of ladies’s faculty hockey was telling a narrative a few deer.
“I’d prefer to get within the mindset of a deer,” Mark Johnson mentioned throughout a coaches assembly contained in the workforce workplaces at LaBahn Area.
He talked for a number of minutes, attempting to empathize with the deer that had jumped in entrance of his automotive — after which ran off — whereas Johnson was driving dwelling from the rink a number of days prior. He couldn’t fairly determine why the deer did what it did.
Johnson, 67, is all the time attempting to see issues from one other perspective, whether or not it’s a deer on the highway or the folks round him.
“We’ve obtained these hockey gamers and we’re attempting to determine them out,” he mentioned.
That purpose — attempting to grasp his gamers’ mindset — by no means leaves the foreground for Johnson and his teaching employees.
On that Tuesday, coming off a 2-2 tie towards St. Cloud State — one among solely three video games the Badgers did not win in regulation all season — Johnson determined to not break down video with the workforce. “Look forward,” he urged them. The teaching employees deliberate drills with their subsequent opponent, the College of Minnesota Duluth, in thoughts. And understanding it had been an extended season with crucial hockey nonetheless to return, Johnson mentioned the workforce would play a number of mini-games to finish observe on a enjoyable — but aggressive — word.
“He desires to make (observe) the very best a part of their day,” mentioned Dan Koch, an affiliate coach on the College of Wisconsin. “If coming to the rink seems like work, or they’re losing interest, we’re not going to get something out of it. … He has an excellent really feel for (what the gamers want).”
It’s simply one of many emblems of a coach who has constructed one of many best ladies’s hockey packages the game has ever seen.
In 22 years as head coach of the Badgers, Johnson has turn out to be the winningest coach in NCAA Division I ladies’s hockey historical past and the one coach to eclipse 600 wins. No program has received greater than Wisconsin’s seven nationwide championships, all celebrated with Johnson behind the bench.
And this yr’s roster is without doubt one of the deepest and most expert in this system’s historical past, with 4 gamers nominated for the 2025 Patty Kazmaier Award, given to the very best ladies’s hockey participant within the nation. The Badgers misplaced just one sport in regulation this season — towards the reigning champion Ohio State Buckeyes — and are coming off one other WCHA convention title with a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Now, the Badgers enter the NCAA Match, which begins on Thursday afternoon, because the No. 1 workforce within the nation — and the favourite to win one other nationwide title. Can they ship on expectations?
This system’s rise to dominance begins with Johnson.
The son of legendary coach “Badger Bob” Johnson — who constructed the Wisconsin males’s hockey program and led the Pittsburgh Penguins to their first Stanley Cup — Mark grew up in Madison and is without doubt one of the all-time best gamers to ever go well with up for the Badgers.
He’s well-known for profitable a gold medal on the 1980 Olympics and scoring two objectives within the “Miracle on Ice” semifinal sport towards the Soviet Union. He went on to play 11 seasons within the NHL earlier than retiring in 1992. By 1996, after a number of highschool teaching stints, Johnson was again in Madison as an assistant coach for the Badgers.
After six years, the pinnacle teaching job opened up. Johnson utilized, however the job went to one among his former teammates, Mike Eaves, as a substitute. Johnson had a call to make: He might proceed as an assistant for one among his buddies, or he might return to the NHL to work as an assistant within the prime skilled league.
“I had children on the time, and had been traded a number of occasions within the NHL,” he mentioned. “I didn’t wish to return to that life-style if I had a selection.”
Because it turned out, there was a gap for the upstart Wisconsin ladies’s hockey program that had simply performed its first season in 1999. On the time, the job was thought-about one thing of a threat. If Johnson left the boys’s sport, would he have the ability to cross again over?
Johnson’s want to maintain his household in Madison and run his personal program received out; he was named head coach of the ladies’s hockey workforce forward of the 2002-03 season.
“It was this leap of religion,” he mentioned. “Like, I’m going to take this bounce and I don’t know the place I’m going to land.”
At an introductory information convention, Johnson laid out his imaginative and prescient for this system and promised to supply stability for a workforce that had gone via two coaches in its first three seasons. Skeptics didn’t imagine {that a} legendary males’s participant would stick within the ladies’s sport; they assumed Johnson would bounce on the first job at a males’s program or an NHL workforce.
Just a few months into the job, Colorado Avalanche coach Tony Granato provided Johnson a place as an assistant, which he declined. There have been different alternatives through the years, too, however since 2002, Johnson has been all in.
Over the primary few years, Johnson largely laid the inspiration of this system. He established a team-first tradition and a powerful, comparatively easy on-ice identification.
“He’s a trainer of the sport,” mentioned Koch. “He’s any person that feels for those who can skate, go, shoot, stick deal with higher than the opposite workforce, your percentages of profitable are going to go up.”
Laila Edwards, who grew to become the primary Black girl to play for the U.S. ladies’s nationwide workforce at a world championship in April 2024, mentioned head coach Mark Johnson is “arms off, however not too arms off to a degree the place we’re a large number.” (Ashley Landis / AP Photograph)
Johnson continued recruiting and growing the expertise he had inherited, akin to future Canadian Olympic defender Carla MacLeod, U.S. Olympian Molly Engstrom and Meghan Hunter, who’s now an assistant GM of the Chicago Blackhawks. He additionally challenged the varsity’s administration to maneuver the workforce from a neighborhood rink within the suburbs to the Kohl Middle — dwelling of the boys’s hockey workforce — till LaBahn Area opened in 2012.
“He simply got here in and supplied stability,” mentioned assistant coach Jackie Crum. “You had this startup program and this legendary Badger got here in, everybody revered him, he is aware of hockey, and his model of teaching simply suits for a feminine hockey participant.
“He’s not a yeller, he’s not a screamer. He’s not a swearer. He’s not berating. You watch these contained in the NHL documentaries they usually’re all ‘bleeps’ and ‘bleeps’ and that’s not him. Nor do I feel that might work for 18- to 22-year-old females.”
The Badgers made their first NCAA match look in Johnson’s third season (2004-05), and received back-to-back nationwide titles in 2006 and 2007 — the primary DI program not within the state of Minnesota to win an NCAA ladies’s hockey championship.
Wisconsin rapidly grew to become a vacation spot for elite hockey gamers, together with future Hockey Corridor of Fame inductees Meghan Duggan, Hilary Knight and Brianna Decker, who all received championships with the Badgers. It helps the Badgers that so many influential alumni have handed via the halls. Younger gamers who look as much as Knight or Duggan would possibly wish to chart the identical path that leads via Madison.
However for those who ask the gamers, all of it goes again to the pinnacle coach.
“(Mark has) constructed that program to the place it’s,” mentioned Knight. “It’s a dynasty.”
For those who get to a Badgers ladies’s hockey sport an hour earlier than puck drop, you’re already late. Not less than if you need the most effective seats in the home.
At LaBahn — with basic admission seating — the die-hard followers arrive hours prematurely to safe their favourite spot.
“Generally they get right here earlier than I do,” mentioned Edwards.
After video games, when gamers go to see their buddies or household, they’ll mingle with the followers who’re ready within the concourse.
“It’s essentially the most particular factor,” mentioned captain Casey O’Brien. “It provides you one thing extra to play for. You wish to do nicely for them as a result of they make investments a lot in us and we form of wish to pay it again.”
The Badgers have averaged the highest attendance in NCAA ladies’s hockey this season with round 3,500 followers per sport — together with a massively attended double-header with the boys’s workforce at Wrigley Area in January. Exterior of the College of Minnesota, no different program’s fan base is shut.
Wisconsin has hosted the six most-attended ladies’s faculty hockey video games ever, together with a file 15,359 at a “Fill the Bowl” sport hosted on the Kohl Middle in 2017.
The fan base is only one a part of the Wisconsin expertise. The $34 million LaBahn Area was constructed to supply professional-level services for its sports activities groups. And when it was inbuilt 2012, it was solely the second ladies’s hockey particular rink constructed within the nation after Ridder Area in Minnesota.
The Wisconsin ladies’s hockey facility has an enormous locker room, coaching services, remedy swimming pools — sizzling tub, chilly tub and sauna — and a workforce lounge, which serves as a central spot for gamers to hang around between class and practices. Recently, the workforce has gotten into watching “Deal or No Deal.”
“I don’t know why, however sport reveals are all the time on,” mentioned O’Brien. “And we get manner too into it.”
At Wisconsin, the sources match what could be anticipated for a Massive Ten sports activities college that has a self-sufficient athletic division, which implies it funds its operation via its personal income fairly than counting on college cash. This season, the athletics budget was set at over $170 million, a file excessive for the division.
LaBahn is adjoining to the Kohl Middle, which just lately underwent round $48 million in renovations. The 2 buildings are linked via a sequence of hallways, which give gamers direct entry to extra shared services with the boys’s hockey, basketball and volleyball groups, akin to classrooms, cafeterias and a brand-new 10,000 square-foot fitness center.
“The services are second to none right here,” mentioned defender Caroline Harvey.
After which there’s the enchantment of enjoying for a extremely embellished coach whose model extends past his even-tempered demeanor. Wisconsin does nicely to recruit elite gamers, and Johnson permits them to shine on the ice.
“He’s arms off, however not too arms off to a degree the place we’re a large number,” mentioned Edwards. “His job, as he’s taken it on, is giving us the techniques, belief and confidence and simply letting us exit and play.”
The highest workforce within the land.
The #Badgers are the No. 1 seed within the @NCAAIceHockey Ladies’s Match! pic.twitter.com/b2MbLgWL3Q
— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerWHockey) March 9, 2025
That teaching model has labored nicely for the 2024-25 Badgers roster that is filled with expertise up and down the lineup.
“It performs rather a lot into our enjoying model,” mentioned Harvey. “If he was extra inflexible, we’d most likely be holding our sticks too tight. … You’re in a position to broaden and develop and take a look at new issues right here, and also you’re not punished for that or any (errors).”
Naturally, not one of the 2024-25 Badgers have been alive when Johnson was scoring massive objectives on the worldwide stage. Nevertheless it helps that his gamers know Johnson has “been there and executed that” at each stage. That Crum was of their sneakers, enjoying for Johnson’s Badgers, helps gamers too, giving them an older sister determine who is aware of precisely what they’re going via. To not point out, the trio of Crum, Koch and Johnson are of their fifteenth yr teaching this system collectively.
“Every little thing that occurs with the workforce, we’ve been there, we’ve executed it,” mentioned Crum. “We’ve been across the block. I do know the place they go on a Friday night time as a result of I used to be there as soon as too.”
Edwards and Harvey have been freshmen the primary time they skilled profitable at Wisconsin in 2023. Final season, the Badgers misplaced 1-0 to Ohio State within the championship sport.
“We wish to win all of it,” mentioned Harvey, now a junior. “We don’t wish to be in the identical place we have been final yr.”
The 2024-25 Badgers are the match favorites. They’re 4 traces deep, with nice defenders and stable goaltending. 5 gamers have been named to the U.S. nationwide workforce for the upcoming ladies’s world championships. And on Wednesday, three gamers (O’Brien, Harvey and Edwards) have been introduced because the finalists for the Patty Kazmaier.
Mark Johnson, well-known for his function within the “Miracle on Ice,” might win his eighth nationwide championship with the Badgers this month. Final yr, Wisconsin misplaced to the Ohio State Buckeyes 1-0 within the championship sport. (Mark Stewart / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA Right this moment Community)
O’Brien, Edwards, Kirsten Simms and Harvey are 4 of the highest 5 scorers within the NCAA. The final time the Badgers dominated the rankings like this was the 2010-11 nationwide championship workforce with Duggan, Decker and Knight going 1-2-3 in scoring.
Nonetheless, Knight calls this present roster a “tremendous workforce.” And coaches will agree.
“Going off of the ability, it’s most likely the deepest we’ve ever been,” mentioned Crum.
O’Brien particularly is placing collectively a masterful season in her remaining yr on campus. She has scored a nation-leading 83 factors in solely 38 video games and is the favourite to win the Patty Kazmaier Award. Final week, she had three factors within the convention championship and was named participant of the match. She additionally grew to become the all-time main scorer in Badgers hockey historical past (males’s or ladies’s) along with her 269 profession factors.
“She’s been good for us for a very long time,” mentioned Johnson after the WCHA Last, calling her “the very best participant in faculty hockey this yr by far.”
With a lot expertise, the expectation for the Badgers, like most years, is to win. However Ohio State is ranked No. 2 and is constructing its personal dynasty beneath head coach Nadine Muzerall, who has received two nationwide titles within the final three years. No. 4-ranked Minnesota may have home-ice benefit as match host.
Some veterans on this yr’s Badgers, akin to Edwards and Harvey, have skilled the highs and lows of profitable and dropping within the remaining sport. Others, akin to O’Brien, try to win a 3rd championship. And sophomores, akin to Cassie Corridor or Kelly Gorbatenko, will attempt to erase the sting of a loss.
“They’re on a mission,” mentioned Johnson.
If the workforce wins, will probably be Johnson’s eighth nationwide championship and his fourth in six seasons. He mentioned he’s nonetheless motivated by the problem of constructing and training profitable rosters, particularly this yr.
“The workforce is gifted, it’s deep, however how do you retain them hungry? How do you retain them motivated?” he puzzled. “These sorts of challenges are why I rise up and luxuriate in coming to the rink.”
There’ll come a time when Johnson received’t be on the rink to run a observe or stand behind the bench. He doesn’t know precisely when he’ll retire, however he has been contemplating what the subsequent chapter of his life would possibly seem like.
Johnson and his spouse, Leslie, are planning to open a therapeutic horse ranch in Verona, a suburb of Madison. The couple, who’ve been married for over 40 years, hope it may be a spot of therapeutic for kids and households.
For now although, Johnson’s focus is on the trail to profitable one other nationwide championship. Because the No. 1 seed, the Badgers received’t play on the opening day of the match on Thursday, however will await their Saturday afternoon opponent for the regional remaining.
With a win — towards the winner of Clarkson vs. Boston College — the Badgers will head to their third straight Frozen 4, which begins March 21 in Minneapolis.
“We positively have the group to win,” mentioned Edwards. “Nevertheless it doesn’t imply we’re going to. There’s nonetheless work to be executed.”
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Gil Talbot / NCAA Pictures / Getty, Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA Right this moment Community by way of Imagn Pictures)
