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Decker Already a Team USA Veteran at Age 23

By Daniel Williams - Special to USAHockey.com, 11/25/14, 5:30PM MST

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Decker has played in three World Championships and the 2014 Olympic Winter Games

Brianna Decker is getting used to wearing the red, white and blue U.S. sweater.

The former University of Wisconsin standout is just 23 years old, but she has already become a veteran for the national team. Decker has played in three IIHF Women’s World Championships (winning twice), six Four Nations Cups (winning three) and, notably, the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, where Team USA earned silver.

For Decker, a Dousman, Wis., native, playing for Team USA has been a dream come true.

“I have been working towards making the national team my whole life,” Decker said at a national team training camp in October at the University of Denver. “To finally be here and to be a veteran on this team, it is kind of surreal. It’s weird that I am one of the older girls on the team now.”

Decker has a strong pedigree and in four years at Wisconsin, she proved to be one of the nation’s top offensive players. As a junior in 2012, she won the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the best women’s player in college hockey.

Her offensive skills have been evident during her time with the national team and it translated to her experience at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where Decker scored twice and added four assists in five contests.

“She is a little powerhouse,” new national team coach Ken Klee said of the 5-foot-4 Decker. “She is small in stature, but she is fast and she wants to score and she wants to battle and she just really wants to always get in there and mix it up.”

A participant in the U.S. national team program since being a USA Hockey Player Development Camp attendee in 2005, Decker has rapidly turned into one of the national teams top players.

Earlier this month, Decker scored two goals and added an assist for Team USA in the Four Nations Cup in Kamloops, B.C. Decker was named the U.S. Player of the Game in both a 3-0 win over Sweden in round-robin play and again the next day in a 3-2 championship game shootout loss to hosts Canada. Team USA finished second.

“Her great skill set plus a great work ethic is what has helped make her be so successful in the past, and it’s what is going to keep her being successful for us in the future,” Klee said. “We are lucky to have her.”

Her teammates agree. Despite Decker’s relatively young age, she has proven to be a natural leader both on and off the ice, and she was recently named as an assistant captain for the Four Nations Cup.

“I have had a lot of great leadership that I was brought up with since I have been here,” said Decker, who helped the U.S. U18 team win the Women’s U18 World Championships in 2008 and 2009. “So hopefully I can continue to give some of that back to the younger girls.”

“I had so many great leaders like Meghan Duggan, Julie Chu and Angela Ruggiero who made every opportunity that I had to put on this jersey fun. So I am going to try and give that back to the best of my ability with my teammates.”

But while she has seemingly already climbed the mountain, what makes Decker a special player besides her skill is her perspective.

“No matter who you are or how long you have been on the team, everyone has to come in every year and be the best player they can be and more so the best team player you can be,” Decker said.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

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