Abbey Murphy could have left the University of Minnesota last spring with a degree and a job waiting for her in the PWHL. Instead, she’s back with the Gophers chasing an elusive national title as a graduate student.

There were a lot of reasons for her decision, Murphy said during an interview with the Pioneer Press in January, the most important of which was the fact that she is happy — likes her teammates and coaches, likes being a student.

United States’ Abbey Murphy, right, checks Finland’s Julia Schalin during a preliminary round match of women’s ice hockey between the United States and Finland at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

“You’re only in college once,” she said. “I was lucky enough to have another year of eligibility; I was lucky to be able to make that decision.”

Recent changes in NCAA rules help, as well — Murphy has deals with athletic clothing business UNRL and vitamins and supplements company Metabolic Elite, according to her Instagram account — and, she said, there isn’t a better place than the UMN to get ready for the Olympics.

“Training staff and facilities at the U are incredible,” Murphy said. “I don’t think there’s anything out there and that comes close. College is just a very unique position now, all this stuff they’re allowing us to have. I feel really good here, especially with the training and coaching staff.”

Through preliminary play, Murphy, 23, had a goal and five assists heading into Monday’s semifinal matchup between Group A winner Team USA (5-0) and Group B winner Sweden (5-0), which features Gophers blue liner Josefin Bouveng. The winner of Monday’s games will advance to the gold medal game on Thursday; the loser will play for bronze, something the U.S. hasn’t done since 2006 in Torino.

Three of Murphy’s assists came in the Americans’ 5-0 rout of defending champion Canada and the U.S. went 4-0-0 in the annual rivalry series with Canada last fall after beating the Canadians in the IIHF world championship.

“I think our team is hot right now,” Murphy said before leaving for Italy. “And that’s a fun way to look at it.”

Murphy has been a Team USA staple as far back as her U18 days in Evergreen Park, Ill., and has won her share of gold medals, including IIHF championships in 2023 and 2025. In Murphy’s previous Olympics, 2002 in Beijing, the U.S. came home with silver after losing to Canada in the final.

Gophers forward Ella Huber, left, celebrates with teammates after a goal by Abbey Murphy (center) in Minnesota’s 3-2 NCAA regional victory over Colgate on March 15, 2025, at Ridder Arena (Brad Rempel / Gophers Athletics)

“I’ve learned a lot of things from playing in the Olympics and in college,” Murphy said. “I’m faster and stronger, things like that. My brain’s faster; I’m thinking the game on a higher level and it’s fun. I’m just trying to do whatever it takes to win and be productive.”

In 26 games with the Gophers this season, Murphy has 36 goals and 61 points and has tied Ohio State coach Nadine Muzzeral for the program goals record with 139.

Murphy, 23, is one of four Gophers in Italy — Bouveng, Nelli Laitinen (Finland) and Tereza Plosová (Czechia) are the others — and it hasn’t been easy for the U. In four games without them, the third-ranked Gophers are 1-3 with a victory over top-ranked Wisconsin.

“There is certainly a presence about Murph, right?” coach Brad Frost said after the Gophers’ split with Wisconsin. “There’s a confidence and a swagger; she’s earned that because she’s proven that she can do the things that she does.”

Murphy is joined by former teammates Taylor Heise and Grace Zumwinkle on the U.S. roster. It’s Zumwinkle’s second Games, and Heise’s first. Both Heise and Zumwinkle are playing for the Frost in the PWHL, and Heise was the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winner as the best college player in 2022.

But neither won a national title, something the Gophers haven’t managed since 2016. Murphy has one more chance when she and her teammates return from Italy for the stretch run.

“I’ve always wanted to win one. It’s always in the back of my mind,” she said. “But if we don’t in the end, I won’t regret it. I’ll be gone for a month, it’s a little bit weird, but I trust they’ll get the job done and we’re gonna come back to set it up for the (WCHA) playoffs. I’m really for it.”

In the meantime, it’s gold on Murphy’s mind. Her experience with this particular team — which includes Olympic veterans such as Lee Steclein, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Kelly Pannek — has been unparalleled, she said.

“We have a coach (John Wroblewski) we trust. Every little thing he does is for a reason, and this team was put together for a reason,” Murphy said before leaving for Italy. “It’s our job to put our heads down and work. It’s been an absolute blast, a heck of a ride.

“We’ve been here for a common goal, and that was to get ready for the three training camps and the rivalry series. We had a job to do, and these games have been incredible. You play with whoever and adapt. These are the best players in the world. It’s quite incredible. We’re really confident in where we stand, and we’re not really satisfied at all.”

ON A ROLL

The U.S. women have outscored their Olympic opponents 26-1 so far. Here is how they won Group A and earned a spot in Monday’s semifinal against Sweden:

United States 5, Czechia 1

United States 5, Finland 0

United States 5, Switzerland 0

United States 5, Canada 0

United States 6, Italy 0

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NONPROFITS

Roz Tsai

The Wilder Foundation, St. Paul, announced the appointment of Roz Tsai as chief human resources officer, effective Jan. 19. Tsai succeeds vice president of human resources Jennie Hawkins, who has served Wilder for 38 years. Tsai most recently served as vice president of talent, learning, and organizational effectiveness at Thrivent, Minneapolis.

ARCHITECTURE/ENGINEERING

MSR Design, a Minneapolis architecture firm, announced the elevation of Jeffery Davis and Kate Michaud to firm principals. Michaud is director of project delivery and Davis leads the firm’s Utah office.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Piper Sandler Cos., a Minneapolis-based national investment bank, announced the addition of Dan Wolf as a managing director in the health care investment banking group. Wolf returns to Piper Sandler where he began his career as a health care investment banking analyst. Prior to rejoining the firm, he served as chief financial officer at Theradaptive.

GOVERNMENT

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon announced the appointment of Justin Erickson as deputy secretary of state for operations. Erickson served as general counsel for the office since May 2024 and previously was deputy general counsel. Deputy General Counsel Lauren Bethke will succeed Erickson in the role of general counsel.

HEALTH CARE

Mayo Clinic, Rochester, announced it has appointed Todd Manion chair of revenue cycle for the health system. Manion succeeds Sharon Kelley; he previously served as chair of coding, revenue integrity, outpatient clinical documentation improvement and provider education at Mayo. He joined Mayo Clinic in 2021 after spending more than 12 years as a managing director at Deloitte & Touche.

HONORS

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, St. Paul, announced five honorees statewide who received its 2025 President’s Leadership Excellence Award: Chrissy Elton, area director of LSS Meals; Heidi Leach, senior director of business technology; Linda Meaux-Stewart, program coordinator at Portland House; Tameka Miller, program director for Metro Youth Housing Services, and Amy Tudor, program director for Housing Services.

LAW

Maslon, Minneapolis, announced it is celebrating its 80th anniversary in 2026. … Faegre Drinker, Minneapolis, announced that Erika Campbell has joined the firm’s private client group. Campbell previously clerked for the Honorable Gerald Schroeder of the Idaho Supreme Court. … Fredrikson, Minneapolis, announced that Chief Operating Officer Ann Rainhart has been named to the O Shaped 2026 O List, honoring individuals who embody the 5 Os mindset, a list of professional principals meant to guide the legal profession.

MANUFACTURING

Smyth Cos., an Eagan-based provider of product packaging label printing and services for business, announced the appointment of Steve Wirrig as chief executive officer. Wirrig most recently served as CEO of NovaVision and also was CEO of Rohrer Corp. and served in various leadership positions at Coveris, KubeTech, Rexam and Textron.

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

Patterson Cos. Inc., a Mendota Heights-based national supplier of medial equipment to veterinary and dental practices, announced the appointment of Patrik Eriksson as Patterson Dental’s North American president. Eriksson most recently served as CEO at Vimian Group. … Kindeva, a Woodbury-based developer of drug-delivery combination devices, announced that President David Stevens has assumed the role of CEO. He succeeds Milton Boyer, who will continue to serve as an independent member of the board of directors.

SERVICES

Viking Electric, a Minneapolis-based electrical products distributor and services provider for business, announced the hire of Susan McDougall as vice president of human resources. She previously served in similar roles at Tennant Co., Deluxe Corp. and the University of St. Thomas.

SPONSORSHIPS

The Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx professional basketball teams announced a multiyear partnership with Wings Credit Union, Apple Valley, as the official credit union of both teams.

TECHNOLOGY

FORTÉ, formerly AVI Systems, an Eden Prairie-based provider of audio-visual systems for businesses and schools, announced the following promotions: Zach Valigura to senior vice president of delivery; Kendra Apelt, vice president of digital solutions, and Chris Clark, vice president of accounting. … Jamf, a Minneapolis-based provider of Apple-based software to enterprises, announced the appointment of David Helfer as chief revenue officer. Helfer most recently served as chief customer and revenue officer at Mimecast. He succeeds Liz Benz, Jamf’s current chief sales officer.

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EMAIL ITEMS to businessnews@pioneerpress.com.

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Lindsey Vonn was preparing to fly back to her home country on Sunday after her terrifying head-over-heels crash in the Olympic downhill, the U.S. Ski Team’s chief told the Associated Press.

Sophie Goldschmidt, president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, said the team’s medical staff has been coordinating Vonn’s recovery since the crash and subsequent helicopter evacuation at the Milan Cortina Games and would try to accompany her home. Vonn has had multiple surgeries in Italy to repair a complex tibia fracture in her left leg.

“We’re working through all of that at the moment,” Goldschmidt said. “We’ve got a great team around helping her, and she’ll go back to the U.S. for further surgeries.”

Spectators tuning in to see Vonn attempt to win a medal at age 41 with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee and a partial titanium replacement in her right knee were stunned when she clipped a gate 13 seconds into her run, resulting in a spinning, airborne crash that sent her careening down the Dolomite mountain.

“The impact, the silence, everyone was just in shock. And you could tell it was a really nasty injury,” said Goldschmidt, who was there. “There’s a lot of danger in doing all sorts of Alpine sports, but it gives more of an appreciation for how superhuman these athletes are.

“I mean, putting your body on the line, going at those speeds, the physicality. Sometimes actually on the broadcast it’s really hard to get that across,” Goldschmidt added. “Danger sometimes brings fans in and is pretty captivating. We obviously hope we won’t have injuries like that, but it is unfortunately part and parcel of our sports.”

Vonn herself said she has no regrets.

“When I think back on my crash, I didn’t stand in the starting gate unaware of the potential consequences,” Vonn said in an Instagram post late Saturday. “I knew what I was doing. I chose to take a risk. Every skier in that starting gate took the same risk. Because even if you are the strongest person in the world, the mountain always holds the cards.

“But just because I was ready, that didn’t guarantee me anything. Nothing in life is guaranteed. That’s the gamble of chasing your dreams, you might fall. But if you don’t try you’ll never know,” Vonn added.

Goldschmidt visited Vonn at the hospital twice and said, “She’s not in pain. She’s in a stable condition.

“She took an aggressive line and was all in, and it was inches off what could have ended up a very different way,” Goldschmidt said. “But what she’s done for our sports and the sport in general, her being a role model, has gone to a whole new level. You learn often more about people during these tough moments than when they’re winning.”

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Wa Chi Minh Vang spent nine years in jail in Vietnam, where he ran afoul of government operatives for preaching Christianity within the country’s tight-knit Hmong community. His father, he said, died in jail, but Wa Chi Minh Vang never stopped advocating for greater religious freedom through his “Hmong United for Justice” YouTube channel, which he ran for years from Minnesota in an attempt to rally fellow refugees to the cause.

After seven years in a refugee camp in Thailand, his sister Thi Dua Vang, her husband and five other members of their family were finally able to join him in St. Paul in December 2023, when eight Hmong-Vietnamese families arrived together in the Twin Cities. The area’s Hmong-Vietnamese Christian community had suddenly nearly doubled in size.

Thi Dua Vang kisses her one-year-old granddaughter, Pang Chia, as she and her husband, A Pao Giang, speak with journalists at an undisclosed location on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“We’re very, very small,” said Wa Chi Minh Vang, sitting with his sister, her husband and their granddaughter, who remain in hiding together in Minnesota following Thi Dua Vang’s two-week detention last month by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. “We’re just 20 families.”

Wa Chi Minh Vang talks about his sister, Thi Dua Vang, with journalists at an undisclosed location on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Thi Dua Vang’s life changed on the morning of Jan. 8, and not for the better. At 7:40 a.m., federal agents knocked on the door of her St. Paul rental home. Thi Dua Vang, a grocery worker, had put in late hours the night before and was still in bed, but her 11-year-old son opened the door.

“Do you know this guy?” they asked him, showing him a name. “Oh, that’s my mom!” her son replied.

“Where’s your mom?” they pressed.

“My mom’s still sleeping,” he said.

Within minutes, the federal agents had roused Thi Dua Vang from bed. Two years after relocating to Minnesota, praying for a better life, the 49-year-old’s next ordeal began. She and her husband are in the U.S. legally and in the process of acquiring green cards.

In the month since, her experience has underscored the scope of both Operation Metro Surge and Operation PARRIS, two federal efforts that claim to focus on detaining “the worst of the worst” while re-interviewing lawful refugees whose permanent residency applications are still in the pipeline. Critics, from civil rights advocates to federal judges, have pointed to detentions like Vang’s as they question why the federal government’s tactics have aggressively detained unwitting, everyday workers who have no criminal history and face no criminal charges.

In a written statement, a media office for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said of Thi Dua Vang: “This individual was in the United States without legal status and was arrested by ICE. They have been released on bond and will have their day in court.”

A two-week ordeal

Meanwhile, in Thi Dua Vang’s St. Paul home, the federal agents explained they needed to check paperwork related to her application for a permanent residency credential known as a green card.

After spending two weeks in federal detention, Thi Dua Vang, right, tearfully embraces her husband, A Pao Giang, outside a federal facility in Houston, Texas on Jan. 21, 2026. (Courtesy of Wa Chi Minh Vang)

The agents collected all of the papers she showed them, including her personal I.D. and her Social Security card, in a bag. Then they quickly collected her and transported her to the Bishop Henry Whipple Building, a federal office building at Fort Snelling that has doubled as a detention facility during Operation Metro Surge, the Department of Homeland Security’s weeks-long immigration enforcement action.

The next day, she was boarded onto a plane to El Paso, Texas, where she was held for about a week in a chilly, prison-like setting, surrounded by other women, most of them Spanish-speakers. Unable to speak English or Spanish, Thi Dua Vang said she was at a loss to communicate with others around her. On Jan. 12, she was boarded onto yet another plane, where she was the only woman among a large group of Latin men.

From her best understanding of the situation, she recalled, she thought she was headed back to Vietnam alone.

“She has no criminal history,” said Wa Chi Minh Vang, at a loss to understand why the government would attempt to deport her, while translating questions from a reporter to her and her husband during a recent interview. “She has no criminal anything. She works in a grocery store and comes home. She’s been here just two years.”

The airplane taxied out toward the runway, and then taxied back, she said. Her name was called. She was taken off the plane and placed back in detention, with little understanding of why. Within three days, she was transported to another federal facility, this one in Houston, Texas, where she shared another chilly detention cell with 20 other women, most of them Spanish speakers.

During her two weeks in detention, food consisted of a light soup for breakfast, a potato for lunch and another for dinner. She was never offered the opportunity to go outside for fresh air, to stretch her legs or see the sun.

A court appearance on Jan. 20 resulted in an offer: she could get out of detention on a $3,500 bond. Her family, through an attorney, agreed to pay the sum, though it was unclear why she would be considered a flight risk or on what charges she was being held on. Wa Chi Minh Vang and her husband drove for the better part of two days, spending the night in Oklahoma City. At 3 p.m. on Jan. 21, they received an email indicating Thi Dua Vang would be freed within three hours.

Even driving as fast as they could without getting pulled over, they were still at least seven hours away.

Thi Dua Vang with her and husband Apao Yang talk to a reporter at an undisclosed location on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Released, and then hounded

Released from the federal detention facility in Houston near 8 p.m. with her cell phone but no documents, Thi Dua Vang made a plaintive call to her family. She had nowhere to go but to linger outside the federal buildings, which would not allow her to stay in the lobby.

“Are you guys coming?” she asked. “They released me outside.”

Her husband and brother were still almost four hours away, they said. They asked her to use her phone to take pictures of her whereabouts so they could use the surroundings as landmarks to find her. At 11 p.m., the three were tearfully reunited, having overcome just the first two-week hurdle in what’s become an ongoing immigration nightmare.

Once back in Minnesota, Thi Dua Vang found she had lost her job at the grocery store as someone had already taken her place. She checked in with ICE officials, who told her to make annual visits to their office from now on. Her husband and brother brought her to Driver and Vehicle Services to see about replacing her missing I.D. and other documents confiscated but never returned by ICE.

Then, at 11 a.m. on Jan. 27, came another knock on her door. It was federal agents — again. This time, she knew not to open up for them. They returned on the afternoon of Jan. 31, but again walked away empty-handed, though it did not appear they walked far. Relatives spotted two large Black vehicles parked on either side of her home until 2 a.m. the next morning.

Since then, she’s gone into hiding with her husband, praying that ICE will finally leave her alone.

“She’s very, very scared,” Wa Chi Minh Vang said. Her husband is equally apprehensive but also optimistic. America is supposed to be the land of the free, he said. For two years, for his family, it had been.

“He’s scared of driving,” Wa Chi Minh Vang said. “He says, ‘We’re not angry. We suffered persecution in Vietnam and went to Thailand, and we came to this country. We trust God. We don’t have the power to do anything, but we trust God.’”

As of Wednesday afternoon, an online fundraiser on GoFundMe.com — tinyurl.com/ThiDuaFund — had raised more than $30,000 for Thi Dua Vang’s family from more than 770 donations.

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