Crashing the Net: The U.S. Women's Olympic Ice Hockey Team and the Road to Gold - Softcover

Turco, Mary

4.11

35 ratings by Goodreads

9780060929817: Crashing the Net: The U.S. Women's Olympic Ice Hockey Team and the Road to Gold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060929812 ISBN 13: 9780060929817

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 1999

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Meet the women of Team USA: twenty high-achieving, defiant female athletes, both seasoned players and enthusiastic rookies. Follow this dream team for the many months of training in practice arenas and tournaments across the United States and Canada in anticipation of Nagano. Join them in the locker room and feel the tension of pregame strategies and the Olympic team selection process. Experience the drama of the battles on the ice and the friendships that were made along the way. Meet their coach, a mythical figure in men's ice hockey who treated his players as world-class athletes, and the families and friends of the team, who encouraged these girls to follow their dreams and challenge all prejudices against contact sports for women. Watch and be inspired by this unforgettable team--the women who risked everything in crashing the net.

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About the Author:

Mary Turco, Ed.D., teaches in the Women's Studies Program at Dartmouth College. She lives in Norwich, Vermont, with her husband, Jack, and their three children.

From Kirkus Reviews:

An unapologetically feel-good human-interest look at the 1998 American winners of the first Olympic gold medal ever awarded in women's ice hockey. Turco, a teacher in the Women's Studies Program at Dartmouth College, accompanied the team as they trained for and competed in the Olympic games at Nagano, Japan. Her account of events is intermingled with the coach's and players' thoughts; particularly affecting are the days leading to the final cuts of the player roster and the account of the gold-medal final against the teams arch rival, Canada. Team camaraderie and the ideal of sportsmanship are discussed more than actual hockey play. Even though there are entries from one player's journal and personal details are given about each woman, no individual voice stands out. Nearly all the players are portrayed as attractive, intelligent girls-next-door, who played nobly for the love of the sport, team, country, and with a sense of history. These women were beneficiaries of Title IX legislation, enacted in 1972, which called for sex equity in educational programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. They had unqualified support from family, boyfriends, and coaches. They were born believing that ``girls can do anything, ``and were far enough beyond the pioneering years of women's sports that, while training, they learned more from the experiences of Muhammad Ali than Wilma Rudolph or Billie Jean King. But in her preface, Turco stresses that although the number of girls playing high school sports has grown (from 294,000 in 1971 to 2,472,043 in 199697), the cultural and financial battles for opportunities for females on the playing fields remain, particularly in the collegiate and professional realms. The epilogue's recap of the team's recognition and honors after the Olympics gives hope that their memorable gold-winning achievement will help advance womens sports at all levels. Crashing the Net is best not for hockey diehards, but for the female reader or general sports fan looking for modern models of inspiration. (illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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