Sometimes the choice for these awards comes from detailed and nuanced viewing of the season as a whole and we pick a coach whose team made massive strides. Boston University’s Tara Watchorn and Cornell’s Doug Derraugh both would have been worthy choices this season. They certainly deserve and receive an honorable mention here.
But sometimes the the choice is more obvious.
It might even be boiled down to what may be the indelible and lasting image of this season for years to come. When Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson, appearing relaxed and confident, looked out over this team as they awaited a coach’s challenge review with 18.9 seconds left in the national championship game where his team was down 3-2 and their fate hung in the balance and asked them, “Who wants it?” about the upcoming penaly shot he solidified a choice that his peers had already made when they named him CCM/AHCA Coach of the Year prior to the Frozen Four.
With that one question he displayed the trust and composure that were hallmarks of his team this season. All while make a call and trusting his players in a situation he said he himself wouldn’t have wanted to be in as a player. The play was so crucial Johnson didn’t even watch Kirsten Simms take the penalty shot. But you wouldn’t have known it from his composed and simple question.
In the immediate aftermath of the game, seemed so stunned by his team’s come-from-behind OT win that he was asking everyone he encountered during the on-ice celebration, “Would you have wanted to take that?”
Sophomore goalie Ava McNaughton summed up Johnson’s impact in the championship post-game press conference saying, “He instills confidence within every single one of our players, every single day, every single practice, every single game, since day one of the season. We’re the ones who have to go out and execute it, but his his ability to just have such a driving force on the bench and just have such a presence, yet be so calm is something that I think it’s hard to come by.”
Wisconsin went into the season as a team with a stacked roster full of potential, but seeing that potential to fruition wasn’t a given. The team had to stay focused and disciplined whether they were eking out overitme wins in Duluth or cruising to an 11-1 win over St. Thomas. That they weren’t rattled when they went down in games throughout in the postseason showed their resilence, their composure and their unshakeable belief in each other and the work they’d put in to get to that point.
In the end, they had just one loss and set a new program record for wins in a season. They were scored on first and had to come from behind in each of their NCAA Tournament games and pulled off one of the most spectacular ends to a title game the sport has ever seen.
On a team full of stars, including all three Patty Kazmaier top three finalists, four First Team All-Americans, the national Goalie of the Year and five women playing for Team USA in the World Championships less than a month after the season, Johnson had complete buy-in. No player felt more important than any other and every one of them trusted the others to pick her up if she made a mistake. The result was a group that found a new level of playing free that elevated each individual’s game and created a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts.
Along the way, Johnson led the Badgers to their 10th WCHA Regular Season title, finishing with the most points (77) in school history. Their regular season title was Johnson’s 10th, the most of any head coach in WCHA history. Wisconsin led the nation in goals, assists, power-play and penalty-killing percentage, scoring offense, scoring defense and scoring margin.
This was the team’s 16th Frozen Four Appearance, which is tied with Minnesota for the most of any program. Wisconsin is making their 19th overall NCAA tournament appearance, the second-most in NCAA history.
For his unwavering faith in his team, for his calmness and ability to impart it on his players, for his success, and for, as Casey O’Brien put it in her Patty Kazmaier Award acceptance speech, “assembling this ridiculous roster” and guiding it to a historic and memorable national championship, for all these reasons and more, Wisconsin’s Mark Johnson is the 2025 USCHO Coach of the Year.
