Universal Sports- If the U.S. women’s hockey team manages a return to the podium’s top step at the 2010 Winter Olympics, it can trace the roots of that journey to its crushing loss in the Olympic semifinals four years earlier. That’s when it became clear that not only were the Americans failing to keep pace with rival Canada, the 2002 and 2006 gold medalists, but they also were losing ground.

The U.S. National team consists of some of the best players in the world- Olympians Angela Ruggiero, Julie Chu, Caitlin Cahow, Molly Engstrom, Jenny Potter Natalie Darwitz are finding a new home in Blaine, Minnesota at the new training and residency center.

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Sweden’s shocker over the U.S. team in the Olympic semifinals, a 3-2 loss by shootout, stung in more ways than one. Not only did the Americans lose despite outshooting Sweden, but it was the first world or Olympic tournament not to end with a U.S. vs. Canada showdown. Adding insult to injury: the Swedes co-opted a slice of American sports history, watching the movie “Miracle,” the story of the 1980 U.S. “Miracle On Ice” team, repeatedly in the days before pulling off their own upset.

What the U.S. program has done since then has more to do with management than miracles. The program’s first national director of women’s ice hockey, Michele Amidon, began work six months after the Torino Games.

USA Hockey also started to develop a plan to revamp the players’ residency program, the extended training camp held prior to each Olympics. It made the financial commitment to hire a pool of rotating coaches, who would work all levels of the national development system, and hired support staff that included a year-round training and conditioning coach, as well as sports psychologist, for the women’s national team.

So far, so good. In the past two years, the U.S. team has experienced a run of success unprecedented in their team’s history, winning two world championships, both over Canada. Prior to 2008, Canada had won nine of 10 world titles. Going into the start of the Qwest Tour, a 10-game pre-Olympic tour that starts Sept. 25 in Minnesota with a game against the Western Collegiate Hockey Association All-Stars and also includes three games against Canada.

The U.S. record against their northern neighbors is 6-2, including two wins in the Hockey Canada Cup at the Olympic venue in Vancouver earlier this month. Of course, as 2010 Olympic host Canada might point out, there are games, and there are Games. “I like our results so far,” said Dave Ogrean, USA Hockey executive director. “But my final opinion won’t be formed until the end of the February.” If all goes to plan in Vancouver, U.S. hockey has Blaine to thank.

That’s Blaine, Minnesota, home to the year-old women’s residency program, where players done with their college careers found new life in this recent Olympic cycle. Unlike the men’s Olympic squad, whose players are plucked from NHL teams, women have few options to make money while playing in the four years between Olympics. Most can’t earn a living wage through the sport, and have to fit hockey around jobs, family or post-graduate schooling.

A vexing piece of the puzzle was the best way to keep veteran female players in the game once they graduated from college programs. USA Hockey thought it had the answer — a one- or two-year residency program in Lake Placid, home to that Miracle on Ice and a U.S. Olympic Training Center, where players lived in a dorm and trained together starting just prior to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Right time, wrong place. The program worked, with varying success.

After the U.S. won gold in the 1998 Games, the first Olympics for women’s hockey; it won silver in 2002 in Salt Lake and bronze in Torino. But Lake Placid, while providing high-quality training facilities in an unmatched setting at a lower cost than Blaine — last year’s Blaine residency program budget was around $500,000 — had limited off-ice options for players.

With Lake Placid, “I love the place to death, it has unbelievable facilities, but as far as getting away from the rink and getting away from training, it was hard,” said star defenseman Angela Ruggiero. With colleges and universities near Blaine, which is located fewer than 20 miles from Minneapolis, Ruggiero can pursue her master’s degree in sports administration while training to make her fourth Olympic team.

Three-time Olympian Jenny Potter, at 30 the team’s oldest player, can go home each night to her two kids and husband. Self-avowed “city person” Caitlin Cahow can commute from nearby Minneapolis for practice. Others worked jobs in the afternoons after morning training.

Blaine allows women players in the Olympic pipeline to balance life and hockey. “For me that’s very important,” said Ruggiero, 29, standing in the corridor at GM Place, home to the Vancouver Canucks and site of the 2010 Olympic hockey tournament during a break at the Hockey Canada Cup.

“It’s why I’m still playing.” Being situated in “The State of Hockey,” also helped. Minnesota is full of girls hockey programs, which bodes well for the future, and is home to the women’s pro league team Minnesota Whitecaps. “We’re much closer to quality competition in Minnesota,” said Jim Johannson, USA Hockey program assistant executive director. “Within a 50-mile radius, we have 150 teams we can play that are good-quality opponents.”

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