Richly Deserved: Tracking Apprentice Angela's Quest for Silver

For several weeks we have kept an eye on the U.S. Olympian chosen in an online NBC poll to be a candidate on The Apprentice: Los Angeles.

A couple of weeks ago, the task which led to Angela Ruggiero’s firing aired. However that only meant instead of seeing her try to win tasks for Kinetic, she’s anchoring the U.S. blueline at the World Championships trying to win her country’s ninth silver medal in 10 tournaments.

The first championships took place in 1990 and the U.S. finished second. They would go on to be the runner up the next seven times before that awful 2005 tournament in which they managed to fluke their way to a gold medal in a shootout after being held scoreless through regulation time and overtime in the final game.

So it’s time for redemption in Winnipeg and Selkirk, Manitoba as the U.S. attempt to regain their home base, second from the top of the medal podium.

So far, so good.

They faced mighty Kazakhstan in their first game. They opened the scoring at 2:40 of the first period on a goal by, oh!, Angela Ruggiero!

But they struggled mightily the remainder of the game, and even though #4 in your program added a second-period assist, fans at the Selkirk Arena were on the edge of their seats as the U.S. hung on for a 9-0 victory.

Two nights later, they faced the intimidating-looking team from China. And even though Ruggiero was held to two assists, her teammates pulled her though with a heart-stopping 9-1 triumph.

They hardly have time to recover from those grueling games as the playoff round begins on Saturday leading to Tuesday’s final and the chance for the U.S. to prove once again that they have the second-best women’s hockey team in the world.

But they do catch a major break. The Russian team, who Angela used as motivation during The Apprentice: Los Angeles at the suggestion of Donald Trump, lost 3-2 to Sweden and 4-1 to Finland in their pool and were eliminated. There is an explanation though. Only about 200 women play organized hockey in Russia.

Back in a few days with more action.

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