Tara Mounsey is feeling nostalgic these days, and who can blame her?
First, the Concord High graduate is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Olympic gold medal she helped the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team win in Nagano, Japan. We haven’t won gold since.
And second, she’s gearing up for another run, this time as a fan at her home in Milton, Mass.
The U.S. opens the tournament Sunday against Finland, the third-ranked team in the world, and Mounsey, reached at her home by phone last week, said beware.
“Finland can surprise people,” Mounsey said.
Mounsey also competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and added a silver medal, suffering a heartbreaking defeat to Canada, America’s bitter rival to this day.
She’s a nurse practitioner at New England Baptist Hospital and an Ivy League graduate who took her studies as seriously as her hockey. She’s got a family that includes two young boys, both of whom play hockey in the Milton Youth Hockey League. She coaches her sons and serves on the league’s board of directors.
And while some of that stuff may not surprise you, buckle your seatbelt if you remember Mounsey’s high-flying skating at Concord High and two Olympics.
She turns 40 in March.
“I can’t believe it’s been 20 years actually,” Mounsey said. “You think back on it and as the years go by, I realize how special that team was and that time in my life and that opportunity.”
Fueled by a father who bore down on her with jackhammer-like passion, Mounsey dazzled her hometown fans in several sports.
She played Little League with the boys and batted cleanup, then hit the ball a mile on the Concord High softball team. She joined the high school field hockey team – an unfamiliar sport to her – and broke records.
And, under Coach Dunc Walsh, she led the Concord High boys’ hockey team to the state title in 1996, the year in which she was named the best player in the state in the boys’ division.
A girl hasn’t won since.
She took a year off from Brown University to chase an Olympic medal, and her family made the ultimate commitment, traveling and spending to make sure she could do it.
“As a parent I realize everything my parents did for me and my brother,” Mounsey said, referring to Mick Mounsey of Concord, who played for the University of New Hampshire.
“I am still thankful.”
She made the National Team and became a focal part of the U.S.-Canada rivalry, a two-decades-old feud that continues today, in which the two teams are forever eying each other across the border, with no other teams factoring into the championship formula.
The gap has narrowed recently, but these two teams have an extraordinary history against one another.
In World Championship play dating back to 1990, Canada has won 10 gold medals, the U.S. eight, the rest of the world none.
The Olympics introduced women’s hockey in 1998, when the U.S. struck gold after a nail-chomping 3-1 win over top-seeded Canada in the final.
Twenty years ago.
“It was just the fact that we wanted to beat them so badly, and we’d do anything we had to do within legal limits to beat them,” Mounsey said. “You did everything you learned since you were 5 years old. Those games were fun. It was not fun winning a game, 9-0.”
Mounsey was penalized late in the game, with the U.S. leading by two goals. “Not great timing,” she told me. “It was a body check that Dunc Walsh would have been proud of. It was a little bit dramatized by the opponent, in the heat of the game. I went to the (penalty) box a little bit nervous, but I had faith in my team’s penalty kill.”
That was a special team, Mounsey said. She remains close with her teammates, texting and emailing and calling. Team USA, she said, had that unseen bond, or chemistry, or whatever you want to call it.
“Everyone was gritty,” Mounsey said. “There were no prima donnas on our team. No one was expecting someone else to do the work, which is hard to accomplish. No one cared who got points, as long as we got the points.”
Mounsey cited captains Cammi Granato and Karyn Bye, saying they were great leaders.
Since then, however, Canada has won the last four gold medals, beating the U.S. three times in the gold medal game. Mounsey grabbed silver in 2002 in Salt Lake City.
And while that sounds nice, it illustrates how hot this rivalry is, because when it comes to these two teams, silver is nearly the equivalent of aluminum.
Many American players cried after the gold medal game against Canada. Mounsey said she didn’t, mindful that her team simply didn’t deserve to win, which she said made it easier to accept.
She was honest with me about what went wrong, hinting that team play, work ethic and fire were missing.
“We were favorites, hands down” Mounsey said. “We didn’t have the same chemistry. It was a different team. We knew it. We had some younger players that just … ”
Mounsey paused, then reloaded.
“It was different than the younger players we had in ’98. It did not fully click. It was more individual effort than team effort looking back.”
And here we are again. The U.S. is seeded first, Canada second.
What else?
Mounsey, who scored 13 points in 11 Olympic games, knows the women’s hockey schedule. Of course she does. Twenty years have hardly dulled her passion for the sport or the team.
The gold medal game is Feb. 22. A win by the U.S. over Canada would be a lovely anniversary present.
“I’ve already marked that game,” Mounsey said, “to make sure that I’m home.”