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The postgame press conference last Saturday was wrapping up when Brad Frost, the University of Minnesota women’s hockey coach, offered an unsolicited opinion that was hard to challenge.
The Gophers had just beaten Colgate, 3-2, in an NCAA Tournament quarterfinal game at Ridder Arena to advance to the Frozen Four. Dynamic forward Abbey Murphy, the most polarizing player in the women’s college game, got the Gophs going with two power-play goals, along with her usual physicality, grit and trash-talking. It marked Murphy’s fourth two-goal game in her most recent five outings, giving her 33 goals on the season, the most in the nation.
But Frost remained irked that Murphy wasn’t named to the all-Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) first team, and wasn’t one of the three finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Award as the nation’s top women’s player. (Murphy made second-team all-WCHA and the initial Patty Kaz list of 10 nominees.) Frost suspected some voters thought Murphy’s play crossed a line; her 37 penalties leads the country as well. By a lot.
“Before we go, have you seen a better player in the country in the last two weeks other than Murph?” Frost said. “Absolutely not. This kid’s playing (great), and she’s been doing it all year. I don’t even know why I’m saying it, but she’s been unbelievable here recently. I just hope she starts getting some notoriety about it.”
“Thanks, Frosty,” Murphy said sweetly from the far side of the dais.
“You bet,” Frost said, cracking up people in the room. “Let’s go. Too much sappy stuff.”
On the way out, Frost added this:
“People don’t like how she plays sometimes, and that’s their prerogative … I just think she’s a special player. Awards are voted on by other people, and championships are awarded by players, so hopefully we can get her something here this weekend.”
That won’t be easy. The Frozen Four is back at Minnesota’s Ridder Arena for the first time since 2018, and the fourth-ranked Gophs (29-11-1) drew the toughest possible opponent in Friday night’s semifinals — top-ranked Wisconsin (36-1-2), their biggest rival and the only school with more NCAA titles (seven) than Minnesota’s six. No. 2 Ohio State faces No. 3 Cornell in the other semifinal, with the winners meeting Sunday for the championship.
The Badgers swept all five games from the Gophers this season, though the last, for the WCHA championship, went down to the final 25 seconds before Wisconsin’s Sarah Wozniewicz potted the 4-3 winner.
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This might be Wisconsin’s longtime coach Mark Johnson’s best team yet. All top-three Patty Kaz finalists hail from Wisconsin —forward Casey O’Brien, the nation’s leading scorer with 85 points and the Badgers’ career leader in points and assists; forward Laila Edwards, the No. 2 goal-scorer in the country behind Murphy with 31; and two-way defender Caroline Harvey. The 2013 national champion Gophers, with forward Amanda Kessel (the winner), defender Megan Bozek and goalie Noora Raty. are the only other team to engineer a similar three-sweep. Plus Thursday, Wisconsin netminder Ava McNaughton was named the women’s college hockey Goalie of the Year.
The Badgers spoke carefully about Murphy, a redshirt senior, at Thursday’s pre-Frozen Four press conference. Johnson praised her as “a wonderful skater with a great shot” without addressing her physicality. McNaughton touched on it this way: “You know how she’s going to play and what her game plan is. It works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t. So you have to prepare for that. It’s important.”
All this for the player former Gophers and Olympic teammate Grace Zumwinkle, now with the PWHL’s Minnesota Frost, described as “the Brad Marchand of women’s hockey, or the Matthew Tkackuk, whichever you want.” As in, terrifically skilled and willing to mix it up. Think Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux, the Olympic gold medal-winning twins from North Dakota, only faster and tougher. Frost, in his 18th season at the U, says he’s never coached anyone like Murphy.
“She’s one of a kind,” he said.
The daughter of a U.S. Marine and a trauma nurse, Murphy grew up in a suburb south of Chicago, the youngest of three children. Like so many terrific female athletes, Murphy competed against older brothers — one a Division II wrestler, the other a Division III football player — who never took it easy on her. Murphy learned to stand up for herself, which carries over to the ice.
“Her sheer toughness is something that’s just incredible to watch,” Zumwinkle said. “No matter how many times she gets hit or whatever, she’s getting back up, and she’ll be out there the next shift. That’s a huge credit to her. She plays tough and knows people are going to come at her, and she’s willing to accept it.”
Taylor Heise, the 2022 Patty Kaz winner and another Gopher teammate, took it even further, calling Murphy “an animal” and someone she never wants to play against. (Fortunately for Heise, they might first be teammates again if both make the 2026 U.S. Olympic team as expected.)
“She’s putting up points every night and doing what she needs to do,” Heise said. “Some people may not like the way she plays, but she does it in a way that frickin’ wins. And I think she’s learning how she goes on how to be a 200-foot player, and not just be that grinder who gets under your skin and shows up here and there.”
Curiously, the Gophers didn’t make Murphy available to the media Thursday after initially planning to bring her to their press conference. Coach’s decision, we were told. Heise said she recently spoke with Murphy, who didn’t seem upset about the all-WCHA slight or anything else.
“I don’t think she takes that too seriously,” Heise said. “Obviously she knows she’s really good and has done so many different things. She has the confidence to bring it, too. She’s one of a kind.”
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