Exceptional defensemen lead puck powers
Goal-scorers get the glory, and goaltenders become instant heroes, that’s the easy part of watching a hockey game. But both the scorers and the savers depend on their defensemen for their success.
On some teams, defensemen are ordered to stay at home and defend. On others, they may fly up the ice to join the offense. On all of them, it is up to the defensemen to clear the zone with crisp passes, giving their goaltenders a moment of peace and starting the rushes toward the other end all at the same time.
Many times, defensemen can be unsung and overlooked. Not this year. While this has been a season of unexcelled strength in numbers among Up North area high school hockey teams in both Classes AA and A, it also has been dominated by a crop of defensemen that may be unmatched in recent history.
It would be possible to fill an entire roster with all-star selections from Section 7AA and 7A.
Consider the Duluth area. Perennial power Duluth East struggled to a 2-2 start when senior defenseman Anunti was out with a preseason injury. When he came back, he stabilized the defense and the Greyhounds took off on a 10-game winning streak. And even when they struggled late in the season, it wasn’t because of their defense, but their goal-scoring that wavered.
Coach Mike Randolph’s method for getting the offense untracked took a novel twist: He moved top scoring forwards Ross Carlson and Nick Licari back to defense for one game, a 4-3 victory over Grand Rapids, then moved them back up front and the ‘Hounds crushed Cloquet 7-1.
“Now Ross and Nick keep asking me if they can go back to defense,” said Randolph. “They loved it.”
No such movement was necessary for Hermantown, which made a run at the Lake Superior Conference championship by upsetting East 4-3 to climax a superb season. The Hawks top line of Jon Francisco, Andy Corran and Chris Baron does most of the scoring, but the Hawks didn’t really get rolling until senior J.R. Bradley came off a long dose of mono that caused him to miss three weeks of school as well as a month of hockey.
“He had two goals and two assists in our first game, then he went out,” said coach Bruce Plante. “At 6-3 and 220, he’s a great skater, and obviously he makes a difference in our team.”
While Hermantown is the favorite in section 2A, Silver Bay and Marshall are two Lake Superior Conference teams who will challenge defending state champ Eveleth-Gilbert in 7A. And their defense will not rest.
Silver Bay has John Conboy, a strong, forceful senior who has accepted a scholarship to play at UMD in the fall. He rarely leaves the ice, staying out as long as his wind will last, and capable of dominating play at both ends of the rink. When he seems to be spent defending, the puck pops loose and Conboy will race up the rink to generate attacks.
“It’s the fifth year he’s played for us,” said Mariner coach Mike Guzzo. “Sometimes he sits back a little against another team’s top line, but he’s so fast, he really helps our offense.”
At Marshall, the Hilltoppers resurgence under coach Brendan Flaherty was smoldering until Tomaino decided that playing at prep school wasn’t for him, and he transfered home from Faribault Shattuck. After sitting out for two weeks, Tomaino stepped onto the ice and the junior blueliner’s forceful presence both offensively and defensively caused the Toppers to flare into a genuine sectional threat.
On the Iron Range, Eveleth was going for its second straight IRC title behind the scoring of the explosive Andy Sacchetti, but Book’Em Heitzman — he’s really Dan Heitzman, but goes by the name “Book’Em” Heitzman after the “Book ’em, Daniel” line from the old television show Hawaii Five-O — is responsible for getting the puck up to the big line and plays in every pressure situation.
The Golden Bears suffered a stunning 5-0 loss to Greenway last Saturday. Ninth-grade forwards Gino Guyer and Andy Sertich team with senior Josh Miskovich on the first line, which scored four of the five Greenway goals. But the solid Raider defense, led by Geisler’s rushing and puck-moving, is equally impressive.
Hibbing gained a tie with Greenway for the title by beating Eveleth-Gilbert 5-4 Tuesday in an overtime thriller. Hibbing’s strength is three lines that keep coming at foes with unwavering balance. But most of the goals are scored when the tandem of Suihkonen and Fatticci on the ice.
It was Fatticci who broke across the blue line and rifled his second goal of the game into the Eveleth goal at 2:26 of overtime Tuesday. He’s headed for Bemidji State’s new Division 1 program in the fall. Suihkonen, a lanky, stickhandling rusher with a hard shot is heading for Alaska-Anchorage. Hibbing coach Mark DeCenzo points to Erik Maras, an unheralded junior, as a key defensive defenseman.
Unlike Hibbing’s two Division 1 recruited defensemen, Greenway’s seniors have no college offers yet., which puzzles Raider coach Pat Guyer.
“There is not a better senior player that we’ve played against than Josh Miskovich,” said Guyer. “If I was starting a team, he’d be my No. 1 choice.”
OK, coach, but he’s a forward. How about senior defenseman Geisler? “OK, I’d have to have two first choices,” Guyer said, hedging.
And then there’s Andy Johnson, the 6-6 giant who has signed a tender to play football at Minnesota, and Bryan Hanson, yet another senior. Johnson can seemingly poke-check from his goal to the blue line. “And defensively, Hanson might be the best of all,” said Guyer.
With the sectional playoffs starting next week, watch the headlines for the exploits of the forwards and goaltenders. But watch the defensemen to see which teams advance.
Bulldogs shut out Seawolves…and tie
The good news was that UMD goaltender Tony Gasparini shut out the Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves on Saturday night.
The bad news is that the Bulldogs, likewise, failed to score.
The result was yet another weird chapter in this season of frustration by the hard-working Bulldogs, who had lost the Friday opener 5-3 under more curious circumstances.
“We got a point without scoring a goal Saturday night,” said UMD coach Mike Sertich, whose team has only 10 points in 22 WCHA games this season. “We played pretty well Saturday night.”
The Bulldogs were outshot 36-31 in the scoreless game, which was the fourth 0-0 tie in WCHA history, with three of those involving Alaska-Anchorage.
“They were pretty aggressive, but we didn’t have the kind of individual breakdowns that killed us Friday night.”
If individual breakdowns in decision-making or defensive coverage hurt the Bulldogs, so did another in a series of strange goal calls that have conspired to foul up the ‘Dogs all season. Twice this season goals that were clearly in the goal were declared nongoals, when UMD had apparently scored. Saturday night, there was a different twist on the scenario, but again it was UMD that paid the price.
After leading 1-0 and 2-1, the Bulldogs were victimized by three goals in a five-minute span that vaulted the Seawolves to a 4-2 lead and an eventual 5-3 victory. But the fourth goal came after a scramble, when bodies piled up near the crease, Gasparini was down, and play stopped.
Referee Buzz Christensen discussed the situation, then talked to the goal judge, then declared a goal for the Seawolves.
“That one still hasn’t gone in,” said Sertich. “So they get a goal that wasn’t in…I guess that’s just another part of this year.”
Often, the weather in Anchorage is milder than in Minnesota, because of ocean wind currents. Last weekend, it was frigid, below zero, in Anchorage. The Bulldogs left at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, after the game, and flew to Seattle, then to Minneapolis, where they boarded a bus for the ride home. The trek finished in Duluth at around 4:30 p.m.
Back home in the DECC this weekend, the Bulldogs will face Michigan Tech Friday and Saturday, in a battle of the WCHA’s eighth and ninth teams. The Bulldogs are 3-15-4 in ninth place, while Tech is 7-15 in eighth.
If UMD has any hope of rising from the cellar, this weekend is pivotal, because the ‘Dogs trail Tech by four points and have only six games remaining. After Tech, UMD has a weekend off, then entertains Minnesota before going to Colorado College to end the regular season.
The Bulldogs claimed their first two WCHA victories by sweeping Tech 5-2 and 6-2 in Houghton back in early December. The Huskies are fresh from being swept by first-place North Dakota, after being swept at Minnesota two weeks ago.
COLLEGE PUCK NOTES/Duluth’s Dave Spehar made the trip to Colorado College with Minnesota last week, but coach Doug Woog didn’t have him dress for the Friday game. Spehar has eight goals, but none at even strength, despite generating several scoring chances for himself each game. Woog said on the game’s broadcast that the staff decided which players to dress to give the Gophers the best chance to win. Apparently, the staff decided it didn’t need goal-scorers. At any rate, after the Gophers offered little resistance in losing 5-1, the coaches decided to dress Spehar for the second game, although they did not decide to bench the 19 players who failed to score Friday. The Gophers lost 2-1 Saturday, and stand in seventh place at 7-10-3 for 17 points.
Harvard’s women’s hockey team is ranked No. 1 in the nation, but had never beaten New Hampshire until Saturday night, when the Crimson beat UNH 4-2 amid a flurry of significant performances. Goaltender Alison Kuusisto, a freshman from Duluth, got her third start and won the game; Angie Francisco of Duluth scored the goal that lifted Harvard into a 2-2 tie; and A. J. Mleczko scored her 18th goal and added her 41st and 42nd assists for 60 points, breaking the school single-season record of 57 points, set last year by Francisco.
Greenway, East rise to puck peak
There were some dramatic games in the Up North region last week. For one, how about Duluth East reaffirming its focus after a couple of wayward weeks with a rousing 7-1 rout at Cloquet? Or, how about Greenway of Coleraine skating onto the Hippodrome ice and whipping Eveleth-Gilbert 5-0?
Meanwhile, at the DECC, games can’t get much more intense than the 2-2 tie between Marshall and Silver Bay.
The most dramatic moment of the whole season in Section 7 might be the seeding meeting, when representatives of all the teams gather to vote on how to seed the sectional hockey tournament.
It appears Elk River, which shouldn’t be in Section 7AA geographically, will be top seed. The Elks beat Duluth East early, and that’s the only game they’ve had against Section 7 teams. The Elks did, however, knock off Hill-Murray and have reaffirmed their No. 1 station in the Up North state ratings with a 17-1 record.
The question is, who is No. 2 in 7AA? Duluth East, which beat Greenway, but lost to Hibbing; Greenway, which lost to East and split with Hibbing; and Hibbing, which beat East and split with Greenway but faced a major hurdle at Eveleth Tuesday, all had a right to claim the No. 2 slot.
East lost to Hibbing, Hastings and Hermantown in a four-game stretch that could mean the ‘Hounds should avoid schools with names beginning with an “H,” but they came back a little in a 4-3 victory over Grand Rapids, when coach Mike Randolph switched Ross Carlson and Nick Licari to defense. After the shakeup, Randolph put Licari and Carlson back up front, and the ‘Hounds played one of their best games of the season to throttle Cloquet 7-1. It could have been worse; Mike Marshall and Zach Burns scored twice each and East led 7-0 before Cloquet scored during the running-time conclusion.
“Before we lost to Hermantown, our last loss in the Lake Superior Conference had been in the ’94-’95 season to Denfeld,” said Randolph. “I had heard enough glass at practice to realize our guys were shooting for the corners so much they were missing the net. So we concentrated on shooting for the middle of the net.”
A bigger question was who would win the Iron Range Conference. Greenway, by winning an extremely impressive 5-0 game in the jam-packed Hippodrome on Saturday night, improved to 7-1 in the IRC, reaffirmed its grip on No. 1 in the Up North Regional ratings, and climbed to No. 3 in the Up North State ratings. Eveleth dropped to 9-2 in its bid to repeat as IRC champ. Hibbing took an 8-1 record into Tuesday’s showdown at Eveleth, having beaten the Golden Bears by a goal in their previous meeting. Eveleth is 18-3 overall, but slipped to 9-2 in the IRC.
“I really have no clue about what it takes to win the IRC,” said Greenway coach Pat Guyer. “We’ve got this thing with 2-point games and 4-point games, but then somehow we play one less IRC game than Hibbing. We’re told that if Hibbing beats Eveleth (Tuesday), we could still get the most points, but we wouldn’t be IRC champ. I think if we don’t win the IRC, I’ll make up a trophy myself and present it to the team.”
The Raiders outshot Eveleth 29-14, including an 11-2 edge in the second period when Greenway had to kill a couple of power plays. Freshman Gino Guyer scored the first goal, Mike Forconi the second, and Josh Miskovich — a senior with no college offers yet — scored the last three.
The Raiders got Eveleth off-balance at the start, put them away with three second-period goals, and made it appear that playing a tougher schedule against AA teams might have been worthwhile.
In Class A, the Silver Bay-Marshall game had all the intensity of a game with seeding as a reward, but it appears Eveleth-Gilbert will be No. 1 seed in the north of 7A, while Silver Bay will be No. 1 in the south and Marshall No. 2.
“We’re locked in as South 2,” said Marshall coach Brendan Flaherty. “Silver Bay will be South 1, and we’ll be South 2.”
That was because Marshall lost by a goal at Silver Bay, when the Toppers were without ace defenseman Tony Tomaino and forward Eric Mendel. In Thursday’s rematch, Mendell’s opening goal gave Marshall a 1-0 lead, but Silver Bay defenseman John Conboy scored the tying goal on a power play midway through the second period, and assisted on Andy Martinson’s goal in the last minute of the middle session. After each team had had a turn with the lead, Jon Blomqvist tied the game for good with 58 seconds left in regulation time.
For good measure, Marshall also defeated a very good Hayward, Wis., team in a 1-0 battle last week.
UP NORTH BOYS HOCKEY RATINGS
STATE
1. Elk River, 17-1
2. Roseau, 19-1
3. Greenway of Coleraine, 16-4
4. Eagan, 18-1
5. Hastings, 16-4
6. Duluth East, 16-5
7. Hibbing, 16-4
8. Eveleth-Gilbert, 18-3
9. Roseville, 17-3.
10. Hill-Murray, 15-3-1
REGIONAL
1. Greenway of Coleraine, 16-4
2. Duluth East, 16-5
3. Hibbing, 16-4
4. Eveleth-Gilbert 18-3
5. Hermantown, 16-3-1
6. Marshall, 12-5-2
7. Silver Bay, 14-5-2
8. Hayward (Wis.), 15-2-1
9. Proctor, 9-11-2
10. Grand Rapids, 7-13
Lamphier lights fuse for Dynamite
The Duluth Dynamite overcame an inspired performance by a youthful Brainerd team last Friday to advance to Tuesday night’s Section 8 girls hockey semifinals.
The quarterfinal against Brainerd at Pioneer Hall was tense even after sophomore Allison O’Hara scored to break a scoreless tie midway through the second period. Then Tresa Lamphier took charge.
Contained for almost two full periods as the focal point of Brainerd’s defense, Lamphier’s intensity level rose and her rushes became more determined. She converted a Leah Wrazidlo rebound with 1:13 remaining in the second period for a 2-0 lead, then added another goal in the first minute of the third, and completed a hat trick with a forceful solo rush in the final minute for a 4-0 victory.
The three goals boosted Lamphier’s season total to 36, which, with 19 assists, gives her 55 points going into Tuesday’s match against St. Cloud in the semifinals at Grand Rapids. If the Dynamite (18-4-1) intend to have a shot at reaching and unseating defending section champ and state runner-up Hibbing in Friday’s final, Lamphier would need to be both a scoring and inspirational leader.
She obviously is capable. If Harvard star Angie Francisco is the best current women’s collegiate player from Duluth without the benefit of girls high school hockey, then Tresa Lamphier is the best prospect in the three-year existence of Duluth’s girls prep program.
Not that such status is any guarantee. Lamphier has captured the attention of Shannon Miller, the coach of the new UMD women’s program, who has been recruiting worldwide for the team that will start next fall. Miller has invited Lamphier to join the fledgling Bulldog program — as a walk-on.
Lamphier said she was flattered, and would love to play at UMD, but scholarship money might become a factor. “I’ve talked to Bemidji State and Wisconsin, too,” said Lamphier, a 3.0-grade senior. “If I can get some financial aid, it would help me decide.”
Dynamite coach Jack Scherer thinks UMD would be wise to get Lamphier, no matter what. “It would make a statement to the community that UMD won’t overlook the best local players,” said Scherer.
Scherer and Lamphier haven’t always enjoyed coach-player harmony. “She drives me nuts, sometimes,” said Scherer. “She was a loose cannon last year because when she’d get frustrated she’d lose her temper. I had to send her to the dressing room with eight minutes left in the section semifinals because she was out there running girls.
“She’s been much better this year, and I’ll tell you what: I wish the whole team had her fire.”
That fire, Lamphier acknowledged sheepishly, might have been developed when she and linemate Wrazidlo played on much rougher boys youth hockey teams growing up.
“This is the 11th year Leah and I have played together,” said Lamphier. “We played on the West Duluth Squirts, Peewees and Bantams. We did OK, and it never was too physical, even in Bantams, until the other teams found out we were girls. Then they’d come after us.”
After playing boys Bantams, Lamphier went back and made the Duluth Icebreakers girls team. “I have to admit, girls hockey is more fun,” she said.
Brainerd, with no seniors and 10 of its 19 players still in junior high school, was outshot 33-2 in the game. Some Brainerd fans suggested it was unfair Brainerd should have to play an “all-star” team made up of girls from multiple high schools.
Scherer and East athletic director Mike Miernicki said they would like to see enough qualified girls playing so that East, Denfeld and Central could each field teams. That isn’t possible now, however. The 20 players in the current lineup include four girls from Denfeld and one from Central, with the other 15 from East. So it might be possible for East to have its own team in the future, but what would happen to the girls from Central and Denfeld?
“We’re hoping they don’t split us up yet, because there aren’t enough girls from Central and Denfeld to put a team together,” said Scherer.
Lamphier and Wrazidlo are both from Denfeld, as is O’Hara, a sophomore defenseman, and Samantha Wabik, a seventh-grade back-up goaltender. Regular goalie Sanya Sandahl is from Central, and joins Lamphier and Wrazidlo as only the third senior on the team.
Sandahl needed only to make two saves — one in the first and one in the third — in the shutout against Brainerd. “The least I had before that was four, in a 13-0 game against Eveleth,” said Sandahl, whose play improved dramatically when she attended a summer hockey camp.
How about in the 2-2 tie against Hibbing three weeks ago?
“I had 36 saves, to 23 for [Hibbing goalie] Natalie Lamme,” she said. When asked for more statistics she responded that her goals-against average is 1.3, and her save percentage is 94, and her grade-point average is 3.86.
Good enough numbers for college, all of them, and her ability to rattle them off indicates that yes, she likes math, among other challenging courses. “I’ve talked to Princeton, Providence and some other eastern colleges,” Sandahl said.
GIRLS HOCKEY NOTES/Hibbing continued its drive to defend its Section 8AA title, facing Bemidji in Tuesday’s semifinals at Grand Rapids. The final is set for St. Cloud, but if Duluth and Hibbing are the finalists, it will be Friday night at Grand Rapids.
The girls are assured of a new state champion, since Apple Valley was eliminated 2-1 in two overtimes by Eastview in the Section 2 quarterfinals…Elsewhere, Minnetonka’s record (18-3-1) was meaningless compared to facing stronger competition, as Eden Prairie, with a 6-14-2 record, ousted Minnetonka 2-0.
Hibbing’s Sandelin learns of life beyond hockey
“Hockey is life.” You can read that on t-shirts, and posters, and in all sorts of flippant, rowdy settings. Scott Sandelin knows better.
Sandelin is an impressive young man who is in his fifth year as assistant coach to Dean Blais at the University of North Dakota. The Fighting Sioux success is more than significantly influenced by Sandelin’s stability, as well as his coaching touch and his recruiting instincts.
He has impressed Up North hockey fans since his days playing defense for his hometown Hibbing Bluejackets. He went off to play at North Dakota, where his defensive abilities and his leadership were so obvious he was voted captain both his junior and senior years. He was team most valuable player and first-team all-WCHA his senior year.
Having been drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round of the 1982 draft, Sandelin set off to play pro hockey. He came back to get his bachelor’s degree in marketing, however, and during a six-year minor league hockey career that also included terms in the Philadelphia and North Star organizations, he came to realize there were other things in his life besides playing hockey.
He came back to the region to coach the Fargo-Moorhead Express in the now-defunct American Hockey Association for the 1992-93 season, and then ran the Fargo-Moorhead Kings junior team for a year, before Blais took the North Dakota job and brought his fellow-Iron Range Conference alum with him.
“I met my wife, Wendy, in Hershey, when I was playing hockey there,” said Sandelin. “She’s a nurse, and anesthetist, and we’d been married seven years in June.”
Sandelin, always a classy, soft-spoken man who is a tireless worker, learned there was more to life than hockey the hard way, when his dad was discovered to have cancer.
“I lost my dad to lung cancer on Veteran’s Day, three years ago,” Sandelin said.
Most everybody has had a loved one or family member afflicted with cancer these days, and there is no way to adequately prepare for or handle the affect. Sandelin got a double dose.
“My mom, who lives in Eagan, found a spot on her lung a year ago that turned out to be cancer. They operated and took out the upper lobe and part of the middle lobe of one lung, and she’d doing fine now.”
Scott and Wendy learned last summer that they were going to become parents. They were so excited about Wendy’s first pregnancy that when Wendy found a small lump in her breast in August, they assumed it was just some bodily change accompanying the pregnancy.
The first week in November, however, a thorough examination detected that the lump was malignant. “I remember, because we learned about it on the Friday we played Clarkson,” Sandelin said. “We had assumed it was just a change.”
With the baby not due until January, Wendy and Scott went through all sorts of mental flip-flops.
“The first thing was that we were concerned that any surgery could induce labor,” Sandelin said. “We thought about a Caesarian, but we had concerns with that, too.”
Wendy underwent a mastectomy in Grand Forks, and both mother and baby got through it in fine shape.
“The lump was small, and there was no effect on the lymph nodes or anything else, so everything looks good,” Sandelin said.
But they held off on chemotherapy.
“She was able to go through natural childbirth,” Sandelin said. “Ryan John Sandelin was born Jan. 3, and she started chemo two weeks later. She’s young, just 30, and everything is positive for the prognosis.”
As for the saying “Hockey is life,” maybe it should be amended to say: “Hockey is a game; people are life.”
Sandelin smiled when asked how he was holding up, after all the traumatic effects.
“For me, Wendy has been great,” he said. “She has a great attitude, and I do fine when she does fine.”
And the baby has changed both of their lives for the better, as babies tend to do.
“He was 7 pounds, 6 ounces,” said Sandelin. “And I think he’s going to be a right-handed shot.”
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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