Emma Maltais, Sophia Jaques, Madison Bizal, Paetyn Levis and Gabby Rosenthal aim to help Ohio State to one final championship run in 2023.
To coach Nadine Muzerall, this is what separates Ohio State. It’s why the Buckeyes go into each game with a chip on their shoulder to live up to the expectation a No. 1 ranking holds, but with a swagger that there’s no other team worthy of that ranking. She has a roster of players with championship experience.
Rosenthal remembers a Buckeye coaching staff surrounding its message around the size and scope of the athletic department and school, using it to create a vision of what could be for a team that consistently finished around .500 and in the middle of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association without any experience in the NCAA Tournament.
Jaques bought into the development process, finding an example to follow from the moment she arrived on campus in defenseman Jincy Dunne, an All-American who blossomed across five seasons into a team captain and two-time WCHA Defensive Player of the Year. This national championship was not why Rosenthal chose Ohio State in the first place. But after winning one, Rosenthal said the title is proof that what the Buckeyes did over the course of her five years works.
Throughout her season away, Maltais continued to feel the love from her Ohio State teammates, remembering the entire team bussing to Pittsburgh to watch her first game with the national team, one she did not get much playing time in. “Obviously they did something extremely right last year. Balancing not wanting to take away from that, but also wanting to be a part of it as well.”
Coming into the 2022 season with 18 upperclassmen and seven freshmen, the atmosphere on Ohio State's roster is not a traditional one. But it's a group of players, Rosenthal said, that has turned into one big family.“It’s more just ‘OK, you’re not going to complain, you’re not going to talk about it,’ ” Rosenthal said. “‘You’re going to do the work and we’re all doing it together.’Maltais, a self-described extrovert, tried to set the tone, getting to know the freshmen on the team early.
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