Johnson heads overseas to coach the U.S. U18 Team
December 25, 2008 | Women's Hockey
Wisconsin women's hockey head coach Mark Johnson will coach at the national level when he leads the U.S. Women's Under-18 team at the 2009 World Women's Championship in Fussen, Germany. Before Johnson heads overseas he will head to Blaine, Minn. to attend USA Hockey's Women's Holiday Camp from Friday, Dec. 26 through Dec. 31. The training camp will serve as a tryout and training session for the U.S. Women's National Team and U.S. Women's National Under-18 Team, which will begin their run at the Gold Medal January 5-11.
Johnson is no stranger to the national stage as a player and a coach. Upon finishing his collegiate career at UW, Johnson played in 11 training games for the 1976 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team and again represented the U.S. in 13 international tournaments. Johnson ended his amateur career with a gold medal as the star player on the 1980 U.S. 'Miracle on Ice' Olympic Team.
Most recently, Johnson coached the U18 team at the 2008 Women's Under-18 Series at the Olympic Center. The U.S. fell to Canada by a 3-2 count in overtime finishing with a 2-0-1-0 (W-OTW-OTL-L) record in the three-game series. Johnson also headed the U.S. Women's National Team at the 2007 IIHF World Women's Championship, then the U.S. Women's Under-22 Select Team last season.
While Johnson is coaching overseas he will miss the Badgers two-game series at Minnesota Duluth, Jan. 10-11 (note: the series dates changed from Jan 9-10) and the exhibition game against the U.S. Select Team on Jan. 2.
Joining Johnson on the U18 squad will be 2009 recruit Brianna Decker who signed a National Letter of Intent last month to play for Wisconsin. Five Badgers (Meghan Duggan, Erika Lawler, Hilary Knight, Jessie Vetter and Brooke Ammerman) will be part of 58 of the nation's top women's ice hockey players at USA Hockey's Women 's Holiday Camp.
Joining Johnson behind the bench as assistant coaches are Katie King, head women 's hockey coach at Boston College, and Jeff Giesen, head women's hockey coach at St. Cloud State University.
