The Minnesota Frost will welcome back six gold-medal winners from the Olympics in Milan: Captain Kendall Coyne Schofield, Lee Stecklein, Kelly Pannek, Grace Zumwinkle, Britta Curl-Salemme, and Taylor Heise. That's the largest contingent on any single PWHL team, and bodes well for the Frost as they head into the stretch run.
"It's super exciting for them and we obviously love to watch them have success at any level," said Katy Knoll.
"But on the biggest stage, it's just such a great representation of our team, of themselves and we couldn't be happier for them. And then when they come back, we know they'll be great for us as well."
Denisa Křížová and Klara Hymlárová also went to Milan as part of the Czech team that lost in the quarterfinals.
The long break was an opportunity for the players who stayed in North America to recharge before resuming practices.
"It's nice to have a second to breathe during the season and go away for a couple days, get your mind off hockey; I think that's kind of refreshing," noted goaltender Nicole Hensley.
"And it allows you to have some downtime to hang out and just do some different stuff with your teammates – like, we played pickleball the other day. We went to the rodeo. So kind of got to hang out. Everybody knows each other pretty well by this point in the season, but to kind of hang out in different settings and have an opportunity to get closer in a different way than just playing hockey every day."
The group of players that enjoyed some down time began practicing two weeks ago.
"Even though it's a long time off, you still want to make sure that your habits are good and that we're working hard every day. It's about preparing so that when we start back up, we're ready to go," explained Knoll.
Hensley said that the time was spent working on some individual skills.
"I think you can work on a little bit more individualistic stuff and more skill stuff when you don't have as many people on the ice. The second week we've sped it up a little bit, played more game-like things just to get back in the swing for when the full group is back."
Currently second in the standings, Minnesota will look to continue the momentum that they've built in the first part of the season.
"We expect [the Olympic players] to come back and we be ready to go the same way they expect us to be ready to go off a break," said Hensley.
"I think they'll come back a little refreshed, little change of scenery, and hopefully everyone's ready to go for the rest of the year."
Knoll added, "They're probably gelling well over there and having a good time so that when they come back, it'll be like they haven't missed a beat at all."
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