Granato finally got a chance to team up with some of the best of her gender on the ice in Nagano in 1998, when the International Olympic Committee added women’s ice hockey to its roster. As the U.S. captain, Granato led her team to the sport’s first-ever gold medal. Now the 30-year-old Granato is back, hoping for a reprise in Salt Lake.

So far, so good. Team USA started by polishing off the Russians (7-0) in exhibition play. Once the Games officially opened, the U.S. first ripped Germany (10-0), then defeated China (12-1). Goalie Sarah Tueting actually seemed a bit embarrassed about allowing the lone goal. She said it was tough to concentrate when her teammates kept the puck at the other end of the ice for so much of the game. She’d taken a rare moment to search out her parents in the stands when the puck shot past. (Tueting only had nine saves while her opponent, Chinese goalie Hong Guo, had 59.) On Saturday, the U.S. finished the preliminary rounds by routing Finland (5-0).

Such lopsided scores are great for the home crowd and for boosting the team’s spirits. “Everyone loves to see the scoreboard light up. We just try to rush the net and get the puck in the goal,” said forward Katie King after the team’s first two games. “One lines scores, then the next and the next. Every line on this team can score and that’s what makes us a good team.”

But there is a downside to the uneven scores. Some wonder if women’s hockey can really make it as a sport if there is no real competition. Canada is widely considered the American team’s only real rival-and the U.S. has beaten the Canadians in their last eight matches. “I’d like to win every game we play 45 to nothing,” says U.S. Coach Ben Smith. “But there’s a realization and understanding that for the sport to get acceptance, [we need]… competition.”

There’s no doubt the sport is growing in the United States. More than 5,000 girls have joined organized hockey teams here since Granato & Co. brought home Nagano gold in 1998. A number of states have already established girls hockey leagues. And last fall, Nike, Bauer Nike Hockey and the Utah Athletic Foundation announced they’d establish the first girls’ hockey league in Utah. The girls will hit the ice in the Utah Olympic Oval (site of the speedskating competitions) after the Games end. Olympic women’s hockey has improved too. This year, eight teams will vie for gold. Only six competed in Nagano. “All the teams have improved,” says U.S. forward Karen Bye.

Other high-profile female athletes agree that women’s hockey may finally be coming into its own. “These chicks rule,” said Sydney 2000 track gold medalist Marion Jones. “These ladies have the opportunity now. The stage is theirs.” Growing up, Jones says she didn’t have many female role models either. Seeing winning female athletes-in any sport-helps give girls something to shoot for, she says. “You don’t necessarily have to be a ballerina.”

Soccer star Tiffeny Milbrett, who scored three goals in the attention-grabbing 1999 World Cup and now plays for the New York Power WUSA soccer team, thinks women’s hockey could well follow the path to a professional league of its own too. “This sport is just taking off,” says Milbrett, in Salt Lake to cheer the U.S. women. “I compare it to where we were in the early ’90s. We all did soccer and hockey because we loved to. We didn’t know where it would take us…Now, we’re breaking new ground.”

For Granato, the Games got off to a storybook start. She was tapped to carry the Olympic torch during opening ceremonies-a huge honor on its own. But then Granato learned she would hand the flame to the final torch-bearer, a mystery athlete who’d be joined by 19 companions. The torch-lighter turned out to be Mike Eruzione, captain of that 1980 Olympic hockey team Cammi had spent so many hours watching as a child. “She never felt her feet touch the stairs,” says Granato’s mom, Natalie. “When she touched that flame, it was an amazing connection. She had dreamed about these players as a little girl, and here she was-their equal.” This week she has the chance to do something the men never did: bring home back-to-back gold medals.