There’s no crying in hockey.

Except when you win the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the top player in NCAA women’s hockey.

Just ask Meghan Duggan, a 23-year-old forward on Team USA.

“It’s such a prestigious award. I know so many of the past winners and I looked up to so many of them,” says Duggan, who won the 2011 Patty Kazmaier Award after a stellar season at the University of Wisconsin.

“When my name was called, I think it was the only time in my life that I burst into tears within seconds. It was just an accumulation of our season and of my career, and it’s just a tremendous honour.”

Duggan’s 2010-11 season may go down – no, check that – WILL go down as one of the greatest of all-time in women’s hockey.

In 41 games, Duggan scored 39 goals and added 48 assists for 87 points. Her most impressive stat may be the plus-69 she posted on a Wisconsin Badgers team that outscored its opponents 212 to 70.

Absolute dominance.

Duggan took her solid regular season into the playoffs and the Wisconsin captain led the Badgers to their third national title in five years. It was also Duggan’s third title (2007, 2009, 2011).

Oh yeah… she was also named most valuable player of the NCAA Frozen Four tournament.

“No one wants to end their college career,” Duggan says in advance of the IIHF World Women’s Championship, which open in Switzerland on Saturday. “We all wish we could play for years and years and years. It’s great hockey. But, if you have to go out, there’s no better way to go out in your senior season than to win a national championship.”

Duggan was asked if this title, being her last in college hockey, is the most special of the three. Duggan, though, isn’t prepared to pick favourites, saying each of the three national titles were different and special.

Duggan is prepared to compare all of the college teams she played on at Wisconsin and her conclusion is this year’s team is the best of them all.

“I think it was,” she says. “It was the combination of our skill, the chemistry we had and the passion the girls had for the game. From Day 1, I knew our team had a chance to do incredible things.”

USA Hockey is hoping Duggan can carry that unbelievable momentum from her college season into the women’s worlds. Duggan is experienced beyond her 23 years.

She has played in a lot of high-pressure, high-stakes games, none bigger than the gold medal final of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

Canada ended up shutting out Team USA 2-0, a game that the Americans still think about and will certainly use as additional motivation in Switzerland.

“That was a monumental day in my life,” Duggan says. “The whole experience was huge for me. How it ended up was not ideal for us as Americans. It’s still there and it creates an extra drive, an extra chip on our shoulders every time we play Canada and every time we play international competition.”

It’s easy to forget that the United States actually enters this world women’s event as the two-time defending champion. Team USA beat Canada at the 2008 worlds in Harbin, China and, a year later, in Hämeenlinna, Finland.

As has been the case in the past, the United States has undergone some changes since the Olympics. The most notable is the hiring of Reagan Carey as the new director of women’s hockey.

Carey, who spent almost a decade with the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers, will try and continue the momentum USA Hockey has enjoyed in the past under the direction of Michele Amidon, who is now the organization’s regional manager of the American Development Model.

Carey says this year’s version of Team USA is a mixture of the young and experienced, quipping that “we have players who just got their driver’s license and we’ve got players who are shuttling their own kids to and from school”.

Two of the well-known leaders of past major events – Julie Chu and Jenny Potter – are back for another run at gold. But Carey thinks this is a year where there will be less pressure on the vets to shoulder all the leadership.

And that means younger players like Duggan have an opportunity to step up.

“She had a dynamic season and got some well-earned accolades across the board,” Carey says of Duggan. “I’m really excited to see that carry over to this team and for her to find her space as a leader. She has been a leader and will continue to be.

“It comes down to our whole team having that sense of collective leadership. We’re not looking to one player to lead us through. We’re looking for everyone to step up and Meghan is a great example of someone who embraces that challenge.”

Duggan agrees, even though she still sees herself as one of the newcomers.

“You adopt more of a leadership role,” she says. “It’s difficult for me because sometimes I still see myself as just a kid on the team but other players remind me that I can have more of an impact on the team and more of a leadership role. I’m trying to jump into that.”

The United States opens defence of their world championship gold medal on April 17 against Slovakia.

If Team USA can find a way to win, it would mark three consecutive years of success at the world’s level. For Duggan, it would also cap one of the great individual seasons in women’s hockey history.

CHRIS JUREWICZ