While the focus was on Beijing this week, the hockey world got to relive some Olympic magic when Cammi Granato became the first woman inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.
Granato was part of an incoming class that included Brett Hull, Brian Leetch and Mike Richter for the museum in Eveleth, Minn., joining the three former NHL stars because of the role she played in growing hockey among American women.
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| Cammi Granato is the first woman to enter the U.S. H.O.F. (Getty Images) |
Granato, now 37 and living near Vancouver with her husband, former NHL player Ray Ferraro and their child, is the highest-scoring player in the history of U.S. women's hockey. She had 186 goals and 157 assists in 205 career games, but the defining moment of her career came when she captained and was the face of the U.S. team in Nagano as women's hockey made its Olympic debut.
The American women won gold at those games and the victory quickly sparked a new wave of interest in the sport among their peers back home.
"I noticed when we returned from Nagano, all of a sudden our sport had credibility," Granato said. "If we carried a hockey bag into the arena, people didn't look at us funny, and there was now a respect to our sport. It's been growing steadily since then."
According to the national governing body USA Hockey statistics, there are more than 60,000 active women hockey players now registered in the country, compared to about 27,000 in 1998. Until then, women's hockey was played mainly at the college level, much to the chagrin of Granato.
"I thought that college was the pinnacle," said Granato, who wound up at Providence College. "Then in my freshman year, we found out women's hockey was being talked about for the Olympics."
The sport was added to the Olympic lineup by Granato's senior year and it gave her a chance to fulfill a dream she had harbored since attending the Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988 as a teen. Her brother, Tony, now the coach of the Colorado Avalanche, was on that Team USA along with Leetch and Richter, and Cammi got so caught up in the atmosphere, she wondered aloud about getting on a future men's team.
"I was saying to my mom as we went to the opening ceremonies, 'I want to be an Olympian, and I want to represent the USA, and how can I do it?'" Granato said. "There was no women's hockey, and I'm a 15-year-old kid thinking I can conquer the world."
"This has been a dream for all the women who played hockey. I'm just happy to have watched and been a part of that huge growth."
Flying south for the winter
Looks like Toronto's Bryan McCabe will have a new home come September.
