Good, yet obvious choice

by Eric The Cardinal on Jan 28, 2009 9:58 PM CST

USA Hockey announced this week that it has named Wisconsin women's hockey coach Mark Johnson as the head coach of the 2010 US Women's Olympic Hockey Team.

Johnson was one of three finalists for the position, along with Jackie Barto of Ohio State and Katey Stone of Harvard.

The word, heading into Johnson's run at the helm of the US Under-18 Team's gold medal in Germany earlier this month, was that USA Hockey would be going with either Stone or Barto, because it wanted a woman coaching the women.

How was this even a debate?

Johnson has brought his Wisconsin women's team to three straight national championship games.

Johnson's teams have won two of those games.

Johnson is a gold medal-winning US coach.

Oh yeah, Johnson lead the Miracle on Ice team in scoring in the 1980 Olympic Games.

But let's stick to coaching resumes and forget that if USA Hockey had gone with Barto or Stone, it would have completely betrayed one of its heroes.

He led his Badger team to an NCAA record 32 game unbeaten streak over two seasons, and his 2006-07 national championship team lost one game. One game.

Since taking the helm, Johnson has never lost 10 games in a season.

Katey Stone has, and has never won an NCAA championship.

Barto's Ohio State team has never threatened for a national title, and is 6-17-3 this year.

Hats off to USA Hockey, but this really never should have been a discussion.

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