Postgame Quotes: Wisconsin vs. Bemidji State
November 06, 2016 | Women's Hockey
Thoughts from Coach Johnson, Desbiens and Nurse
Head Coach Mark Johnson
On Ann-Renée Desbiens:
"We've been fortunate to have a couple good goaltenders. Jessie Vetter had a wonderful career, won three national championships, was outstanding, has played in a couple Olympics now. Then Alex Rigsby came along and duplicated and played very well for us for four years. For Ann-Renée, the bar was set high when she came in and took over. She's reached up and has now gone over it so hats off to her, she has a lot to be proud of. She's certainly happy, she gives credit to her teammates. You know, it's a big when you start off your career you don't look at certain things in regard to, if I'm a forward I want to spread this many goals over my four years. You just sort of let things evolve and she certainly had a special year last year as a junior and continues to gain confidence and continues to play well. Very proud of her and she has a lot to smile about."
On heading into the bye:
"The big thing for us as a team, we get the weekend off. We've had a bunch of road games, we've been challenged, we've had some injuries, we've had players missing games. A lot of things have been going on in our world and inside our locker room. The team has stayed together. They've played consistent, they've gotten better over the period of time that we've been together, so it's nice to have a weekend off and get ourselves prepared not only physically, but then mentally from the standpoint of everything before the break for finals. It's a nice opportunity and it comes at a good time, so we can take this moment, not to relax but just take a breath."
On Desbiens' career as a whole:
"Especially for her, as an individual coming from an area where they only speak French and coming into a new country, and the people she surrounds herself with, whether it's her teammates or her classmates or people she walks around and bumps in to don't speak the same language that she's used to. As I've always said, she's a very intelligent young woman. She does extremely well in school. Hats off and kudos to her for coming down and having to adapt to a new situation, a new environment, and a new country. What she did last year really set her up and put her in a position to maybe either tie this record and now break it. As I've mentioned before what she did last year I've not seen in hockey and I've been around the game a long time so I've seen a lot of things and have been involved with a lot of good goaltenders. She put herself in position to do this. The nice thing is she continues to work and try to improve herself. All the great athletes do that. They don't, live on their morals. They get up the next day and try to figure out what they can do to become a better goaltender. She's been able to do that so if she continues to do that more opportunities will be presented to her, not only here at Wisconsin but also on the national team."
On the team's performance this weekend:
"It was a great six periods. I challenged them after the second period today to pressure the puck and put puck pressure on them. To do that you end up having it and it's a lot easier game when you have the puck than when you try and chase the puck. I think the people that watched the third period saw, even after five periods and maybe kids a little bit tired they kept pushing and kept their shifts short and played a real solid third period. Our young players, Alexis (Mauermann) and Abby (Roque), stepped up today. They made a big contribution, scored some big goals. Our power play was effective today. Our penalty kill, especially in the second period when we started off with three penalties, one of them giving them a 50 second five-on-three, they didn't really get a lot of opportunities and the ones that they did Ann made saves. Those are momentum swings and overall, as I've said, as I look back on all of our games we've gotten better as a team, certainly continue to make strides and that's probably the most important part from a coaching perspective is that we continue to get better."
Ann-Renée Desbiens
On finally breaking the NCAA career shutout record:
"I'm definitely happy about it. I'll stop getting questions about it now that I have it, maybe not. But it's fun to have especially after this week, which was a little harder. It's a victory mentally, I would say. It's nice to be able to do that as a team to show how consistent we've been."
On securing the record at home with the Badger fans:
"It makes it way better. I know they've got my back, they're always here to support us, so I feel it's just a way to be able to give back to them and to be able to share that special moment with them."
On breaking a career record versus a single-season record:
"It's definitely different than a single-season one, it shows how I've improved throughout my years here. I still have a lot of work to do, I'm not done. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season."
On how the weekend went overall:
"Definitely went well, I had a lot of things to do this week. It was nice to be able to be on the ice for a full amount of time. It was definitely challenging this week, its not something I was used to throughout the week , going through all the process. But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I'm also looking forward to a week off."
On whether her week away from practice made her accomplishments sweeter:
"Definitely a mental victory for me right now. I didn't know if I was going to play and it was a question all week, I just learned yesterday. Definitely proud of what happened, it was different than the previous games I've played."
On which record she'll go for now:
"I don't know, do I have the assist one already? We'll look at that and maybe I'll go for that one. I think I should just go for more wins and a national championship, I don't have the one yet."
Sarah Nurse
On how the weekend went:
"I think it was a really good weekend for us. I think last weekend we were having a bit of trouble finding our scoring touch and so coming out this weekend and getting 11 goals, I think that was good for us."
On getting her 100th point in front of a home crowd:
"It was really cool. It's a pretty cool accomplishment, it was actually really cool that Syd made that pass out to me, I think that brought it all back to where it kind of all started, so I think that was really cool."
On playing with Sydney McKibbon:
"She definitely helps me out a lot, she's a great player to have on the ice. I think the addition of Presley, she adds a ton of speed, Syd has a ton of smarts and I think it's been really good for us."
On having Ann-Renée in net:
"It's awesome. It's very comfortable having her back there. If we make a mistake we know that we have her back there, she's kind of our backbone and so having her back in that net is a very comforting feeling."
On how her mindset has changed from seasons past:
"This is my last year, so I kind of wanted to come in and have a big impact on this team. I want to ultimately win the big title at the end of the year. I came into this season with a lot of confidence."
On how having a week off will help the team going forward:
"It'll be nice, it's nice to get a weekend off. I think we actually get the whole weekend off so that's really exciting for us and it hasn't happened in a while. I think it's going to be nice to regroup and come back and get ready for Minnesota Duluth."
On what she personally plans to work on during the off week:
"I think I just want to work on more off-ice things. I'm going to be in the gym a lot this week, that's kind of what I need to work on."
On whether she pays attention to scoring leaders:
"I think that's something AJ (Harrison) really focuses on, he let's me know all those stats. It's not really that big of a deal to me, I think I'm more worried about us winning games."
On scoring shorthanded goals:
"I think a lot of times growing up, I was a very good skater but not so good with the puck. I think as I've come into my own these past few years I've been much better on things like that. On that particular play today, Soph made an amazing pass, it was tape to tape, so I didn't want to mess it up."
On Ann-Renée Desbiens:
"We've been fortunate to have a couple good goaltenders. Jessie Vetter had a wonderful career, won three national championships, was outstanding, has played in a couple Olympics now. Then Alex Rigsby came along and duplicated and played very well for us for four years. For Ann-Renée, the bar was set high when she came in and took over. She's reached up and has now gone over it so hats off to her, she has a lot to be proud of. She's certainly happy, she gives credit to her teammates. You know, it's a big when you start off your career you don't look at certain things in regard to, if I'm a forward I want to spread this many goals over my four years. You just sort of let things evolve and she certainly had a special year last year as a junior and continues to gain confidence and continues to play well. Very proud of her and she has a lot to smile about."
On heading into the bye:
"The big thing for us as a team, we get the weekend off. We've had a bunch of road games, we've been challenged, we've had some injuries, we've had players missing games. A lot of things have been going on in our world and inside our locker room. The team has stayed together. They've played consistent, they've gotten better over the period of time that we've been together, so it's nice to have a weekend off and get ourselves prepared not only physically, but then mentally from the standpoint of everything before the break for finals. It's a nice opportunity and it comes at a good time, so we can take this moment, not to relax but just take a breath."
On Desbiens' career as a whole:
"Especially for her, as an individual coming from an area where they only speak French and coming into a new country, and the people she surrounds herself with, whether it's her teammates or her classmates or people she walks around and bumps in to don't speak the same language that she's used to. As I've always said, she's a very intelligent young woman. She does extremely well in school. Hats off and kudos to her for coming down and having to adapt to a new situation, a new environment, and a new country. What she did last year really set her up and put her in a position to maybe either tie this record and now break it. As I've mentioned before what she did last year I've not seen in hockey and I've been around the game a long time so I've seen a lot of things and have been involved with a lot of good goaltenders. She put herself in position to do this. The nice thing is she continues to work and try to improve herself. All the great athletes do that. They don't, live on their morals. They get up the next day and try to figure out what they can do to become a better goaltender. She's been able to do that so if she continues to do that more opportunities will be presented to her, not only here at Wisconsin but also on the national team."
On the team's performance this weekend:
"It was a great six periods. I challenged them after the second period today to pressure the puck and put puck pressure on them. To do that you end up having it and it's a lot easier game when you have the puck than when you try and chase the puck. I think the people that watched the third period saw, even after five periods and maybe kids a little bit tired they kept pushing and kept their shifts short and played a real solid third period. Our young players, Alexis (Mauermann) and Abby (Roque), stepped up today. They made a big contribution, scored some big goals. Our power play was effective today. Our penalty kill, especially in the second period when we started off with three penalties, one of them giving them a 50 second five-on-three, they didn't really get a lot of opportunities and the ones that they did Ann made saves. Those are momentum swings and overall, as I've said, as I look back on all of our games we've gotten better as a team, certainly continue to make strides and that's probably the most important part from a coaching perspective is that we continue to get better."
Ann-Renée Desbiens
On finally breaking the NCAA career shutout record:
"I'm definitely happy about it. I'll stop getting questions about it now that I have it, maybe not. But it's fun to have especially after this week, which was a little harder. It's a victory mentally, I would say. It's nice to be able to do that as a team to show how consistent we've been."
On securing the record at home with the Badger fans:
"It makes it way better. I know they've got my back, they're always here to support us, so I feel it's just a way to be able to give back to them and to be able to share that special moment with them."
On breaking a career record versus a single-season record:
"It's definitely different than a single-season one, it shows how I've improved throughout my years here. I still have a lot of work to do, I'm not done. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season."
On how the weekend went overall:
"Definitely went well, I had a lot of things to do this week. It was nice to be able to be on the ice for a full amount of time. It was definitely challenging this week, its not something I was used to throughout the week , going through all the process. But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I'm also looking forward to a week off."
On whether her week away from practice made her accomplishments sweeter:
"Definitely a mental victory for me right now. I didn't know if I was going to play and it was a question all week, I just learned yesterday. Definitely proud of what happened, it was different than the previous games I've played."
On which record she'll go for now:
"I don't know, do I have the assist one already? We'll look at that and maybe I'll go for that one. I think I should just go for more wins and a national championship, I don't have the one yet."
Sarah Nurse
On how the weekend went:
"I think it was a really good weekend for us. I think last weekend we were having a bit of trouble finding our scoring touch and so coming out this weekend and getting 11 goals, I think that was good for us."
On getting her 100th point in front of a home crowd:
"It was really cool. It's a pretty cool accomplishment, it was actually really cool that Syd made that pass out to me, I think that brought it all back to where it kind of all started, so I think that was really cool."
On playing with Sydney McKibbon:
"She definitely helps me out a lot, she's a great player to have on the ice. I think the addition of Presley, she adds a ton of speed, Syd has a ton of smarts and I think it's been really good for us."
On having Ann-Renée in net:
"It's awesome. It's very comfortable having her back there. If we make a mistake we know that we have her back there, she's kind of our backbone and so having her back in that net is a very comforting feeling."
On how her mindset has changed from seasons past:
"This is my last year, so I kind of wanted to come in and have a big impact on this team. I want to ultimately win the big title at the end of the year. I came into this season with a lot of confidence."
On how having a week off will help the team going forward:
"It'll be nice, it's nice to get a weekend off. I think we actually get the whole weekend off so that's really exciting for us and it hasn't happened in a while. I think it's going to be nice to regroup and come back and get ready for Minnesota Duluth."
On what she personally plans to work on during the off week:
"I think I just want to work on more off-ice things. I'm going to be in the gym a lot this week, that's kind of what I need to work on."
On whether she pays attention to scoring leaders:
"I think that's something AJ (Harrison) really focuses on, he let's me know all those stats. It's not really that big of a deal to me, I think I'm more worried about us winning games."
On scoring shorthanded goals:
"I think a lot of times growing up, I was a very good skater but not so good with the puck. I think as I've come into my own these past few years I've been much better on things like that. On that particular play today, Soph made an amazing pass, it was tape to tape, so I didn't want to mess it up."
Players Mentioned
Goaltender
/ Women's Hockey
Forward
/ Women's Hockey
Forward
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