She was still passed over as a Kazmaier finalist in favor of Minnesota's Courtney Kennedy, a native of Woburn, Massachusetts.

A similar fate awaited fellow Duluth sophomore Hanna Sikio. Despite finishing the season fifth in the nation in points and fourth in scoring, she was not among six forwards named All-American. Sikio isn't American. She happens to be Finnish, but that shouldn't have taken away from her accomplishments in All-American consideration.

None of these are gross miscarriages of justice. These were all decisions that could have gone either way. It just happens that they all went against foreigners and an in favor of red, white and blue Americans.

Europeans are suddenly a major player in women's college hockey. Their numbers are few, and there are just a handful of them but their impact is broad.

Duluth could not have won a national championship without its European contingent. With six of its players missing at the Four Nations Cup, the Bulldogs were given 4-0 and 8-0 beatings by Minnesota on back-to-back nights in November.

The foreign representation at Duluth goes further than the players on the ice, however: it starts with the coaching.

With three bigs names behind the bench, the Duluth coaching staff looks more like a who's-who of the Canadian National Team than a second year college hockey program in Minnesota.

Duluth Head Coach Shannon Miller was the boss behind the Canadian bench at the Olympics in 1998 when her team won a silver medal. Stacy Wilson, now an assistant coach at Duluth, was the captain of Team Canada. Manon Rheaume, who was Canada's starting goaltender in Nagano and was the first women to ever play in the NHL, is also an assistant.