Turin – For the better part of 41 minutes, Finland was on the verge of achieving the Lake Placid of women’s hockey.
Maija Hassinen was playing the part of goalie Jim Craig. Katie Kovalainen was impersonating scoring hero Mike Eruzione. Coach Hannu Saintula was sculpting the strategy behind the bench, ala Herb Brooks.
But Sarah Parsons, Katie King and Angela Ruggiero decided there would be no women’s miracle on ice Tuesday night.
“Not when I’m playing,” Ruggiero said after Team USA survived a scare to defeat Finland 7-3, earning a semifinal date with Sweden on Friday. The Finns will play Canada.
“We were so close. It’s just a big disappointment to lose when you’re so close,” said Finland forward Mari Pehkonen, who gave her teammates instant momentum with a goal 13 seconds into the game.
The teams traded goals later in the first period and the goal differential remained one. But when Kovalainen scored a power-play goal at 12:01 of the second period to give Finland a 3-1 lead, the Americans were in serious trouble. So, too, were the Finns.
Parsons sparked the rally, rocketing in a shot from the point to pull the Americans within 3-2 at 18:54 of the second period.
King tied the score just 1:28 into the third, then Ruggiero gave Team USA its first lead at 10:16 with a coast-to-coast rush.
Within five minutes and 20 seconds of the go-ahead goal, Natalie Darwitz, Krissy Wendell and Ruggiero scored to make it 7-3.
“Once the first one went in, and the second one went in, the floodgates kind of opened,” defenseman Lyndsay Wall said.
