US Women prepare for National Festival

The women of the Team USA system open the week long National Festival today at the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, NY. The annual pilgrimage that usually brings players here comes with a bitter taste this season as both the Olympic and U-18 teams took silver in the biggest events of the previous calender year. USA Hockey will be updating fans on the status of the festival with a live blog, located here.

The Festival for lack of a better term consists of three teams, U18, U22, and O22 (or U30 or U40 depending on who you ask) that will participate in daily practices, scrimmages, testing and off-ice training. For this season teams Red-White-Blue will be broken down as described and outlined from USA Hockey releases below.

Team Blue is comprised of the 22 players representing the United States as part of the U.S. Women’s Under-18 Select Team. The U-18 Select team will play a three game series with the Canadian U-18 team to conclude their festival August 18-21 at the Herb Brooks, 1980 rink in Lake Placid. The U-18 Team is coached by 2010 Olympic Assistant Jodi McKenna, who will be assisted by Brian Durocher, Emily McKissock, and Goaltending Coach; Mandy Cronin.

Team White includes the 22-player U.S. Women’s Under-22 Select Team. The U-22 Select team will play a three game series with the Canadian U-22 team to conclude their festival August 18-21 at the MasterCard Centre in Toronto. The U-22 team will be coached by Brown Head Coach Digit Murphy who will be assisted by Northeastern Assistant Coaches Linda Lundigran and Hilary Witt. The U-22 Roster is headlined by 2010 Olympians Jocelyne Lamoureux, Monique Lamoureux-Kolls, and Hilary Knight as well as U-18 veteran Kendall Coyne.



Team Red consists of the remaining 20 athletes participating in the Women’s National Festival. Team Red will conclude their festival with a two game series with a Men's elite team. Team Red is coached by Harvard bench boss Katey Stone who will be assisted by Dartmouth Head Coach Mark Hudak and U-Mass Boston Head Coach Maura Crowell. The red team has 12 Olympians from 2010 on its roster as well as several players making a Team USA debut or reintroduction.

The Full roster and staff for each team can be found below.
Team Red
Team White (U-22)
Team Blue (U-18)

For the combined portion of the festival the schedule (subject to change) appears as follows.