MADISON, Wis. — Three hours earlier than the Wisconsin Badgers had been set to follow on a Tuesday afternoon in late January, one of the best coach within the historical past of girls’s school hockey was telling a narrative a couple of deer.
“I’d prefer to get within the mindset of a deer,” Mark Johnson stated throughout a coaches assembly contained in the staff workplaces at LaBahn Enviornment.
He talked for a number of minutes, attempting to empathize with the deer that had jumped in entrance of his automotive — after which ran off — whereas Johnson was driving dwelling from the rink a number of days prior. He couldn’t fairly determine why the deer did what it did.
Johnson, 67, is at all times attempting to see issues from one other perspective, whether or not it’s a deer on the street or the folks round him.
“We’ve received these hockey gamers and we’re attempting to determine them out,” he stated.
That aim — attempting to know his gamers’ mindset — by no means leaves the foreground for Johnson and his teaching workers.
On that Tuesday, coming off a 2-2 tie in opposition to St. Cloud State — one in all solely three video games the Badgers didn’t win in regulation all season — Johnson determined to not break down video with the staff. “Look forward,” he urged them. The teaching workers deliberate drills with their subsequent opponent, the College of Minnesota Duluth, in thoughts. And understanding it had been an extended season with an important hockey nonetheless to return, Johnson stated the staff would play a number of mini-games to finish follow on a enjoyable — but aggressive — notice.
“He desires to make (follow) one of the best a part of their day,” stated Dan Koch, an affiliate coach on the College of Wisconsin. “If coming to the rink seems like work, or they’re becoming bored, we’re not going to get something out of it. … He has an ideal really feel for (what the gamers want).”
It’s simply one of many emblems of a coach who has constructed one of many best ladies’s hockey packages the game has ever seen.
In 22 years as head coach of the Badgers, Johnson has change into the winningest coach in NCAA Division I ladies’s hockey historical past and the one coach to eclipse 600 wins. No program has received greater than Wisconsin’s seven nationwide championships, all celebrated with Johnson behind the bench.
And this yr’s roster is among the deepest and most expert in this system’s historical past, with 4 gamers nominated for the 2025 Patty Kazmaier Award, given to one of the best ladies’s hockey participant within the nation. The Badgers misplaced just one recreation in regulation this season — in opposition to the reigning champion Ohio State Buckeyes — and are coming off one other WCHA convention title with a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Now, the Badgers enter the NCAA Match, which begins on Thursday afternoon, because the No. 1 staff within the nation — and the favourite to win one other nationwide title. Can they ship on expectations?
This system’s rise to dominance begins with Johnson.
The son of legendary coach “Badger Bob” Johnson — who constructed the Wisconsin males’s hockey program and led the Pittsburgh Penguins to their first Stanley Cup — Mark grew up in Madison and is among the all-time best gamers to ever go well with up for the Badgers.
He’s well-known for profitable a gold medal on the 1980 Olympics and scoring two objectives within the “Miracle on Ice” semifinal recreation in opposition to the Soviet Union. He went on to play 11 seasons within the NHL earlier than retiring in 1992. By 1996, after a number of highschool teaching stints, Johnson was again in Madison as an assistant coach for the Badgers.
After six years, the top teaching job opened up. Johnson utilized, however the job went to one in all his former teammates, Mike Eaves, as an alternative. Johnson had a call to make: He might proceed as an assistant for one in all his associates, or he might return to the NHL to work as an assistant within the high skilled league.
“I had children on the time, and had been traded a number of occasions within the NHL,” he stated. “I didn’t wish to return to that way of life if I had a alternative.”
Because it turned out, there was a gap for the upstart Wisconsin ladies’s hockey program that had simply performed its first season in 1999. On the time, the job was thought of one thing of a danger. If Johnson left the boys’s recreation, would he have the ability to cross again over?
Johnson’s want to maintain his household in Madison and run his personal program received out; he was named head coach of the ladies’s hockey staff forward of the 2002-03 season.
“It was this leap of religion,” he stated. “Like, I’m going to take this bounce and I don’t know the place I’m going to land.”
At an introductory information convention, Johnson laid out his imaginative and prescient for this system and promised to offer stability for a staff that had gone via two coaches in its first three seasons. Skeptics didn’t imagine {that a} legendary males’s participant would stick within the ladies’s recreation; they assumed Johnson would bounce on the first job at a males’s program or an NHL staff.
Just a few months into the job, Colorado Avalanche coach Tony Granato supplied Johnson a place as an assistant, which he declined. There have been different alternatives over time, too, however since 2002, Johnson has been all in.
Over the primary few years, Johnson largely laid the muse of this system. He established a team-first tradition and a powerful, comparatively easy on-ice identification.
“He’s a instructor of the sport,” stated Koch. “He’s anyone that feels in the event you can skate, move, shoot, stick deal with higher than the opposite staff, your percentages of profitable are going to go up.”
Laila Edwards, who turned the primary Black lady to play for the U.S. ladies’s nationwide staff at a world championship in April 2024, stated head coach Mark Johnson is “palms off, however not too palms off to a degree the place we’re a large number.” (Ashley Landis / AP Photograph)
Johnson continued recruiting and creating the expertise he had inherited, corresponding to future Canadian Olympic defender Carla MacLeod, U.S. Olympian Molly Engstrom and Meghan Hunter, who’s now an assistant GM of the Chicago Blackhawks. He additionally challenged the college’s administration to maneuver the staff from a group rink within the suburbs to the Kohl Heart — dwelling of the boys’s hockey staff — till LaBahn Enviornment opened in 2012.
“He simply got here in and offered stability,” stated assistant coach Jackie Crum. “You had this startup program and this legendary Badger got here in, everybody revered him, he is aware of hockey, and his type of teaching simply matches for a feminine hockey participant.
“He’s not a yeller, he’s not a screamer. He’s not a swearer. He’s not berating. You watch these contained in the NHL documentaries they usually’re all ‘bleeps’ and ‘bleeps’ and that’s not him. Nor do I believe that will work for 18- to 22-year-old females.”
The Badgers made their first NCAA match look in Johnson’s third season (2004-05), and received back-to-back nationwide titles in 2006 and 2007 — the primary DI program not within the state of Minnesota to win an NCAA ladies’s hockey championship.
Wisconsin rapidly turned a vacation spot for elite hockey gamers, together with future Hockey Corridor of Fame inductees Meghan Duggan, Hilary Knight and Brianna Decker, who all received championships with the Badgers. It helps the Badgers that so many influential alumni have handed via the halls. Younger gamers who look as much as Knight or Duggan may wish to chart the identical path that leads via Madison.
However in the event you ask the gamers, all of it goes again to the top coach.
“(Mark has) constructed that program to the place it’s,” stated Knight. “It’s a dynasty.”
In the event you get to a Badgers ladies’s hockey recreation an hour earlier than puck drop, you’re already late. No less than if you’d like among the best seats in the home.
At LaBahn — with normal admission seating — the die-hard followers arrive hours prematurely to safe their favourite spot.
“Generally they get right here earlier than I do,” stated Edwards.
After video games, when gamers go to see their associates or household, they’ll mingle with the followers who’re ready within the concourse.
“It’s essentially the most particular factor,” stated captain Casey O’Brien. “It provides you one thing extra to play for. You wish to do nicely for them as a result of they make investments a lot in us and we sort of wish to pay it again.”
The Badgers have averaged the highest attendance in NCAA ladies’s hockey this season with round 3,500 followers per recreation — together with a massively attended double-header with the boys’s staff at Wrigley Discipline in January. Exterior of the College of Minnesota, no different program’s fan base is shut.
Wisconsin has hosted the six most-attended ladies’s school hockey video games ever, together with a file 15,359 at a “Fill the Bowl” recreation hosted on the Kohl Heart in 2017.
The fan base is only one a part of the Wisconsin expertise. The $34 million LaBahn Enviornment was constructed to offer professional-level amenities for its sports activities groups. And when it was inbuilt 2012, it was solely the second ladies’s hockey particular rink constructed within the nation after Ridder Enviornment in Minnesota.
The Wisconsin ladies’s hockey facility has a giant locker room, coaching amenities, remedy swimming pools — sizzling tub, chilly tub and sauna — and a staff lounge, which serves as a central spot for gamers to hang around between class and practices. These days, the staff has gotten into watching “Deal or No Deal.”
“I don’t know why, however recreation reveals are at all times on,” stated O’Brien. “And we get method too into it.”
At Wisconsin, the assets match what could be anticipated for a Massive Ten sports activities college that has a self-sufficient athletic division, which implies it funds its operation via its personal income quite than counting on college cash. This season, the athletics price range was set at over $170 million, a file excessive for the division.
LaBahn is adjoining to the Kohl Heart, which lately underwent round $48 million in renovations. The 2 buildings are related via a sequence of hallways, which give gamers direct entry to extra shared amenities with the boys’s hockey, basketball and volleyball groups, corresponding to school rooms, cafeterias and a brand-new 10,000 square-foot fitness center.
“The amenities are second to none right here,” stated defender Caroline Harvey.
After which there’s the enchantment of enjoying for a extremely embellished coach whose type extends past his even-tempered demeanor. Wisconsin does nicely to recruit elite gamers, and Johnson permits them to shine on the ice.
“He’s palms off, however not too palms off to a degree the place we’re a large number,” stated Edwards. “His job, as he’s taken it on, is giving us the techniques, belief and confidence and simply letting us exit and play.”
The highest staff within the land.
The #Badgers are the No. 1 seed within the @NCAAIceHockey Girls’s Match! pic.twitter.com/b2MbLgWL3Q
— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerWHockey) March 9, 2025
That teaching type has labored nicely for the 2024-25 Badgers roster that is filled with expertise up and down the lineup.
“It performs quite a bit into our enjoying type,” stated Harvey. “If he was extra inflexible, we’d in all probability be holding our sticks too tight. … You’re in a position to develop and develop and take a look at new issues right here, and also you’re not punished for that or any (errors).”
Naturally, not one of the 2024-25 Badgers had been alive when Johnson was scoring massive objectives on the worldwide stage. But it surely helps that his gamers know Johnson has “been there and carried out that” at each stage. That Crum was of their footwear, enjoying for Johnson’s Badgers, helps gamers too, giving them an older sister determine who is aware of precisely what they’re going via. To not point out, the trio of Crum, Koch and Johnson are of their fifteenth yr teaching this system collectively.
“All the pieces that occurs with the staff, we’ve been there, we’ve carried out it,” stated Crum. “We’ve been across the block. I do know the place they go on a Friday night time as a result of I used to be there as soon as too.”
Edwards and Harvey had been freshmen the primary time they skilled profitable at Wisconsin in 2023. Final season, the Badgers misplaced 1-0 to Ohio State within the championship recreation.
“We wish to win all of it,” stated Harvey, now a junior. “We don’t wish to be in the identical place we had been final yr.”
The 2024-25 Badgers are the match favorites. They’re 4 strains deep, with nice defenders and stable goaltending. 5 gamers have been named to the U.S. nationwide staff for the upcoming ladies’s world championships. And on Wednesday, three gamers (O’Brien, Harvey and Edwards) had been introduced because the finalists for the Patty Kazmaier.
Mark Johnson, well-known for his function within the “Miracle on Ice,” might win his eighth nationwide championship with the Badgers this month. Final yr, Wisconsin misplaced to the Ohio State Buckeyes 1-0 within the championship recreation. (Mark Stewart / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA As we speak Community)
O’Brien, Edwards, Kirsten Simms and Harvey are 4 of the highest 5 scorers within the NCAA. The final time the Badgers dominated the rankings like this was the 2010-11 nationwide championship staff with Duggan, Decker and Knight going 1-2-3 in scoring.
Nonetheless, Knight calls this present roster a “tremendous staff.” And coaches will agree.
“Going off of the talent, it’s in all probability the deepest we’ve ever been,” stated Crum.
O’Brien particularly is placing collectively a masterful season in her last yr on campus. She has scored a nation-leading 83 factors in solely 38 video games and is the favourite to win the Patty Kazmaier Award. Final week, she had three factors within the convention championship and was named participant of the match. She additionally turned the all-time main scorer in Badgers hockey historical past (males’s or ladies’s) along with her 269 profession factors.
“She’s been good for us for a very long time,” stated Johnson after the WCHA Last, calling her “one of the best participant in school hockey this yr by far.”
With a lot expertise, the expectation for the Badgers, like most years, is to win. However Ohio State is ranked No. 2 and is constructing its personal dynasty underneath head coach Nadine Muzerall, who has received two nationwide titles within the final three years. No. 4-ranked Minnesota could have home-ice benefit as match host.
Some veterans on this yr’s Badgers, corresponding to Edwards and Harvey, have skilled the highs and lows of profitable and dropping within the last recreation. Others, corresponding to O’Brien, try to win a 3rd championship. And sophomores, corresponding to Cassie Corridor or Kelly Gorbatenko, will attempt to erase the sting of a loss.
“They’re on a mission,” stated Johnson.
If the staff wins, it is going to be Johnson’s eighth nationwide championship and his fourth in six seasons. He stated he’s nonetheless motivated by the problem of constructing and training profitable rosters, particularly this yr.
“The staff is proficient, it’s deep, however how do you retain them hungry? How do you retain them motivated?” he questioned. “These sorts of challenges are why I rise up and luxuriate in coming to the rink.”
There’ll come a time when Johnson received’t be on the rink to run a follow or stand behind the bench. He doesn’t know precisely when he’ll retire, however he has been contemplating what the following chapter of his life may appear like.
Johnson and his spouse, Leslie, are planning to open a therapeutic horse ranch in Verona, a suburb of Madison. The couple, who’ve been married for over 40 years, hope it may be a spot of therapeutic for youngsters and households.
For now although, Johnson’s focus is on the trail to profitable one other nationwide championship. Because the No. 1 seed, the Badgers received’t play on the opening day of the match on Thursday, however will await their Saturday afternoon opponent for the regional last.
With a win — in opposition to the winner of Clarkson vs. Boston College — the Badgers will head to their third straight Frozen 4, which begins March 21 in Minneapolis.
“We positively have the group to win,” stated Edwards. “But it surely doesn’t imply we’re going to. There’s nonetheless work to be carried out.”
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Gil Talbot / NCAA Images / Getty, Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA As we speak Community through Imagn Photographs)
