MADISON, Wis. — Three hours earlier than the Wisconsin Badgers have been set to observe on a Tuesday afternoon in late January, the perfect coach within the historical past of girls’s faculty hockey was telling a narrative a couple of deer.
“I’d prefer to get within the mindset of a deer,” Mark Johnson mentioned throughout a coaches assembly contained in the workforce places of work at LaBahn Area.
He talked for a number of minutes, attempting to empathize with the deer that had jumped in entrance of his automobile — after which ran off — whereas Johnson was driving residence from the rink just a few days prior. He couldn’t fairly work out 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 street or the individuals round him.
“We’ve acquired these hockey gamers and we’re attempting to determine them out,” he mentioned.
That aim — 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 in opposition to St. Cloud State — one in every of 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 figuring out it had been an extended season with an important 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 needs to make (observe) the perfect a part of their day,” mentioned Dan Koch, an affiliate coach on the College of Wisconsin. “If coming to the rink looks like work, or they’re losing interest, we’re not going to get something out of it. … He has an important really feel for (what the gamers want).”
It’s simply one of many emblems of a coach who has constructed one of many biggest ladies’s hockey packages the game has ever seen.
In 22 years as head coach of the Badgers, Johnson has turn into 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 12 months’s roster is likely 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 perfect ladies’s hockey participant within the nation. The Badgers misplaced just one recreation in regulation this season — in opposition to 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 likely one of the all-time biggest gamers to ever go well with up for the Badgers.
He’s well-known for successful a gold medal on the 1980 Olympics and scoring two objectives within the “Miracle on Ice” semifinal recreation in opposition to the Soviet Union. He went on to play 11 seasons within the NHL earlier than retiring in 1992. By 1996, after just a few 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 in every of his former teammates, Mike Eaves, as a substitute. Johnson had a choice to make: He might proceed as an assistant for one in every of his associates, or he might return to the NHL to work as an assistant within the high skilled league.
“I had children on the time, and had been traded just a few instances within the NHL,” he mentioned. “I didn’t need to return to that way of life 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 danger. If Johnson left the boys’s recreation, would he be capable 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 by means of two coaches in its first three seasons. Skeptics didn’t consider {that a} legendary males’s participant would stick within the ladies’s recreation; 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 supplied 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 robust, comparatively easy on-ice id.
“He’s a instructor of the sport,” mentioned Koch. “He’s anyone that feels in case you can skate, go, shoot, stick deal with higher than the opposite workforce, your percentages of successful are going to go up.”
Laila Edwards, who turned the primary Black lady to play for the U.S. ladies’s nationwide workforce at a world championship in April 2024, mentioned head coach Mark Johnson is “fingers off, however not too fingers off to some extent the place we’re a multitude.” (Ashley Landis / AP Picture)
Johnson continued recruiting and creating the expertise he had inherited, resembling 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 college’s administration to maneuver the workforce from a group rink within the suburbs to the Kohl Heart — residence 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 fashion 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 believe that may 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 turned 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 by means of the halls. Younger gamers who look as much as Knight or Duggan would possibly need to chart the identical path that leads by means of Madison.
However in case you 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.”
If you happen to get to a Badgers ladies’s hockey recreation an hour earlier than puck drop, you’re already late. At the very least if you would like the most effective seats in the home.
At LaBahn — with basic admission seating — the die-hard followers arrive hours upfront to safe their favourite spot.
“Typically they get right here earlier than I do,” mentioned Edwards.
After video games, when gamers go to see their associates or household, they’ll mingle with the followers who’re ready within the concourse.
“It’s probably the most particular factor,” mentioned captain Casey O’Brien. “It provides you one thing extra to play for. You need to do properly for them as a result of they make investments a lot in us and we type of need to pay it again.”
The Badgers have averaged the highest attendance in NCAA ladies’s hockey this season with round 3,500 followers per recreation — together with a massively attended double-header with the boys’s workforce at Wrigley Discipline 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 document 15,359 at a “Fill the Bowl” recreation hosted on the Kohl Heart 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 in-built 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 recreation exhibits are all the time on,” mentioned O’Brien. “And we get approach too into it.”
At Wisconsin, the assets match what may be anticipated for a Massive Ten sports activities college that has a self-sufficient athletic division, which suggests it funds its operation by means of its personal income slightly than counting on college cash. This season, the athletics finances was set at over $170 million, a document excessive for the division.
LaBahn is adjoining to the Kohl Heart, which just lately underwent round $48 million in renovations. The 2 buildings are related by means of a sequence of hallways, which give gamers direct entry to extra shared services with the boys’s hockey, basketball and volleyball groups, resembling classrooms, cafeterias and a brand-new 10,000 square-foot gymnasium.
“The services are second to none right here,” mentioned defender Caroline Harvey.
After which there’s the enchantment of taking part in for a extremely adorned coach whose fashion extends past his even-tempered demeanor. Wisconsin does properly to recruit elite gamers, and Johnson permits them to shine on the ice.
“He’s fingers off, however not too fingers off to some extent the place we’re a multitude,” mentioned Edwards. “His job, as he’s taken it on, is giving us the methods, 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 Girls’s Match! pic.twitter.com/b2MbLgWL3Q
— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerWHockey) March 9, 2025
That teaching fashion has labored properly for the 2024-25 Badgers roster that is stuffed with expertise up and down the lineup.
“It performs lots into our taking part in fashion,” mentioned Harvey. “If he was extra inflexible, we’d in all probability be holding our sticks too tight. … You’re capable of 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 large objectives on the worldwide stage. Nevertheless it helps that his gamers know Johnson has “been there and accomplished that” at each stage. That Crum was of their footwear, taking part in for Johnson’s Badgers, helps gamers too, giving them an older sister determine who is aware of precisely what they’re going by means of. To not point out, the trio of Crum, Koch and Johnson are of their fifteenth 12 months teaching this system collectively.
“All the pieces that occurs with the workforce, we’ve been there, we’ve accomplished it,” mentioned Crum. “We’ve been across the block. I do know the place they go on a Friday evening as a result of I used to be there as soon as too.”
Edwards and Harvey have been freshmen the primary time they skilled successful at Wisconsin in 2023. Final season, the Badgers misplaced 1-0 to Ohio State within the championship recreation.
“We need to win all of it,” mentioned Harvey, now a junior. “We don’t need to be in the identical place we have been final 12 months.”
The 2024-25 Badgers are the match favorites. They’re 4 traces deep, with nice defenders and strong 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 position within the “Miracle on Ice,” might win his eighth nationwide championship with the Badgers this month. Final 12 months, Wisconsin misplaced to the Ohio State Buckeyes 1-0 within the championship recreation. (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 in all probability the deepest we’ve ever been,” mentioned Crum.
O’Brien particularly is placing collectively a masterful season in her ultimate 12 months 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 turned the all-time main scorer in Badgers hockey historical past (males’s or ladies’s) together 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 perfect participant in faculty hockey this 12 months 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 below 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 12 months’s Badgers, resembling Edwards and Harvey, have skilled the highs and lows of successful and dropping within the ultimate recreation. Others, resembling O’Brien, are attempting to win a 3rd championship. And sophomores, resembling 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, it will likely 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 successful rosters, particularly this 12 months.
“The workforce is proficient, it’s deep, however how do you retain them hungry? How do you retain them motivated?” he questioned. “These kinds 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 successful 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 ultimate.
With a win — in opposition to 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 accomplished.”
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Gil Talbot / NCAA Pictures / Getty, Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA Right this moment Community by way of Imagn Photos)