A decade to play

The Wayne State women’s hockey team has improved in the past decade. The team’s ongoing rivalry with Mercyhurst, goal-setting and growing as a team have all contributed to a decade of improvement.
Jim Fetter, in his seventh year as head coach, has set expectations, standards and goals, and is now poised to reach those goals on and off the ice.
Academically, the team has improved from a 2.6 cumulative GPA in 2002 to a 3.3 average GPA this year.
“Fetter has done a great job,” Tom Gorman, assistant sports information director, said. “The team has set higher standards and is growing every year.” 
 Rosie Cardillo, a former player, remembers some of the team’s earlier struggles.
“I played with Wayne State during its inaugural season in 1999,” she said. “Our coaches had a hard time recruiting players back then because we were a new team. Our team mostly consisted of Michigan-area players.
“Today, Wayne State has a reputable program, and they recruit players from Canada and across the U.S.”
Cardillo, who played for Wayne State for two years until 2001, saw progress from the beginning.
“Our program was just beginning,” she said, “yet we gradually became competitive during the time I played there.”
Since then, the women’s hockey team has improved even further, and the rest of the nation has taken notice. WSU has been ranked in the top 10 in the country for six of the past seven years.
But it hasn’t all been about statistics and grade.
Other players cite the cultural and social impacts that have benefited the team over the decade.
Current Wayne State hockey player Chelsea Burnett said: “There is a lot more respect for women and this sport. Female sports also have been taken more seriously than in the past.” 
One obstacle the team has had to deal with is the loss of their male counterparts. Due to financial reasons, the men’s team folded following the 2007-08 season. According to Burnett, the loss of the WSU men’s hockey team has meant less publicity for the team.
“No one on campus really knows that we have a hockey team anymore,” she said.
 The loss of the men’s hockey team has created some contradictions regarding the standing of the women’s program.
”The women’s team has made a separate identity, and has truly established itself,” Gorman said.
That separate identity means the women’s program should be safe from the fate of the men’s team, according to Fetter.
“Were strong, solid, and although some relationships may have been lost, like ideas from coach to coach on situational plays, the women’s program is safe,” Fetter said.
Although the past decade has been a great, positive growing experience for the women’s hockey team, struggles still exist.
A struggle like the rivalry with Mercyhurst College has continued for a decade.
“We always had a tough time against Mercyhurst,” Cardillo said. “They came into the league at the same time as us.”
It was MC, though, which began to build an experienced roster.
“Mercyhurst has depth, a player who was on the Olympic team, five to six players who have played internationally,” Fetter said. “We lack that type of experience, but slowly we are starting to close that gap.”
 For example, the WSU hockey team now has 14 women who have played outside of the United States, playing in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia.
But Mercyhurst remains as an unconquered challenge.
 This year, WSU lost to Mercyhurst in its first two (of four) regular-season meetings.
“We couldn’t capitalize on our chances, and we couldn’t finish,” Burnett said about the losses against Merchyhurst.
The team has only beaten Mercyhurst twice in the past eight years. In 2007, WSU beat Mercyhurst away in a 5-4 overtime finish.