Denver beats CC on visionary goal in overtime
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.—
Denver University overcame an early 2-0 Colorado College lead Friday afternoon, although it took all of three periods and 8:38 of sudden-death overtime to complete a 3-2 victory over the Tigers in the first semifinal of the WCHA Final Five tournament at Target Center.
The victory sends Denver (25-12-2) into tonight’s championship game, and the virtual certainty of advancing to the NCAA tournament. Colorado College will play in the third-place game at 2 p.m., but the injury-riddled Tigers, 27-11-1 and ranked among the top half-dozen all season, also are sure to be picked for the NCAA’s 12-team field.
But this was the first time any of the Denver seniors had ever beaten archrival Colorado College while wearing the dark color of the visiting team. Of course, this season, the Pioneers felt like all their games were as visitors, because they played wherever they could find ice while their new arena is being built. That’s some of the adversity that has made Denver a stronger team, it seems.
The winning goal was something like a phantom. Denver shooter Paul Veres never saw the puck go in, Colorado College defenseman Scott Swanson never saw it after it whizzed between his legs, and CC goaltender Jeff Sanger never saw the puck at all. Denver University coach George Gwozdecky “saw” the game-winning shot, but that was in a pre-overtime vision of some sort.
The stage was set when the Tigers jumped ahead on a K.J. Voorhees goal at 2:36 of the first period, and then on a neat shorthanded goal by Justin Morrison at 7:19.
But the injury-plaged Tigers, second place in the WCHA and now 27-11-1 overall, lost defenseman Danny Peters with a sprained knee before the first period ended, and they also lost the lead when Jon Newman scored at 9:19, and then Paul Comrie scored on a breakaway at 18:56.
Comrie wound up completely alone after the Pioneers caught CC pinching in on defense. “Their ‘D’ pinched in and Gavin Morgan made a great play to get it out on the boards,” said Comrie. “I was in the right place at the right time, and James Patterson gave me a pass.”
Patterson, in fact, was the closest skater to Comrie when the Pioneers’ first-team all-WCHA centerman got to freshman goalie Jeff Sanger and beat him with a deke to his forehand.
That tied it 2-2, and the game stayed that way, even though both teams played hard and had numerous good chances at either end. Sanger and Denver goalie Stephen Wagner had outstanding games.
In overtime, there was more of the same until Veres broke up the left side. “Kelly Popadynetz passed to me going up left wing,” said Veres, a senior who had only five goals for the season coming up that wing. “I tried to beat the defense by going wide all night, so this time I thought I’d pull up and shoot.
“I didn’t even see the puck go in. I just saw the light go on.”
The reason Veres couldn’t follow the puck’s flight is that when he pulled up, CC defenseman Scott Swanson was right in his way. When Veres went to shoot, Swanson braced himself to try to block it.
“He put on the brakes, and he was at a pretty tough angle to shoot,” said Swanson, a first team all-WCHA defenseman from Cottage Grove. “The puck went through my legs. I didn’t feel it hit me, but I must have put a screen on Jeff.”
Since Sanger couldn’t see the puck, either, it was left to Gwozdecky to explain his vision.
“I’m 2-for-2 as far as prognostications,” Gwozdecky said. “In December, in the final of the Denver Cup, we were going into overtime and I wrote down that we’d win the game on a goal by Mark Rycroft from Paul Comrie. That wasn’t too hard to predict. But I only do this before overtimes, so this time I tried to focus in and visualize what would happen.
“As soon as Paul scored, I showed them what I had written down — Paul Veres. And I even got the first assist right.”
CC coach Don Lucia, who is younger and can still learn that visionary stuff, tried to use other means to survive the game, such as filling in lineup slots for the missing Toby Petersen (broken leg), Darren Clark (broken arm) and now Dan Peters (sprained knee).
“I thought the game got better as it went along,” said Lucia. “We hit the post twice in overtime, and Wagner got sharper as the game wen ton too. It was a little wide-open early on, but then with the smaller rink and not-great ice, the game became one of chip it in and chip it out.”
Gwozdecky concurred about the Target Center ice. “The biggest factor in the game was the ice surface,” Gwozdecky said. “The puck was bouncing so much it took away from the skill game, and resembled volleyball more than hockey sometimes.”
Spehar’s 2 goals lead Gophers to 5-3 victory
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.—
The lure of tournament time was all that was required to awaken the special scoring touch of former Duluth East star Dave Spehar. The former state tournament scoring sensation regained his tournament-time flair by scoring his first two even-sgtrength goals of the season Thursday night, and assisted on another to ignite Minnesota to a 5-3 vict
After beating the Huskies before 10,128 fans at Target Center, the Gophers must come right back to face WCHA champion North Dakota at 7:05 tonight, after Colorado College and Denver meet in the first semifinal at 2:05 p.m.
“I couldn’t tell you what the difference was,” said Spehar, who has been criticized all season because his 10 goals had all come on power plays. “I sat down with the coach and we had a talk, and I wanted to lay it all on the line tonight.”
Spehar scored the Gophers second goal in the first period, set up the first of two Reggie Berg goals with a deft pass in the second period, and scored again in the third period for a 4-1 Minnesota lead.
As it turned out, the lead wasn’t as safe as it seemed. George Awada’s second goal and one by Lee Brooks brought the Huskies back to within 4-3, and forced Berg to score his second goal into an empty net to provide the final margin.
“David had eight good goal-scoring opportunities tonight,” said Gopher coach Doug Woog.Gopher captain Wyatt Smith didn’t let the crowd get settled into their seats after the national anthem before he was rushing up the left side and firing a slapshot from the faceoff spot past St. Cloud goaltender Dean Weasler.
It was not exactly the way the Huskies wanted to start the game, but Weasler, a freshman from Rosemount, came back to block 14 other Gopher shots in an inspired opening period.
But Spehar got untracked in old Greyhound fashion at 15:10 of the opening session. Freshman defenseman Nick Angell, Spehar’s former East teammate, carried out of his zone on the left side and sent a bank pass off the left boards to Spehar, curling with speed behind the defense. Spehar gathered up the puck, dashed to the left circle and, being a righthanded shooter, had a better angle to shoot into the lower, far corner for his first even-strength goal of the season.
“I was extremely disappointed in our first period,” said St. Cloud coach Craig Dahl, who signed a new 4-year contract two weeks ago. “The first goal was a shocker, and that had something to do with it. And I’m aware that Spehar hadn’t scored at even strength all season. But I’m not interested in moral victories in the Final Five, and I was proud of the way our guys came back. Hauser made some huge saves…huge.”
Both Weasler and Minnesota’s Adam Hauser, a freshman from Bovey, came up with big saves in the second period, but the Huskies finally broke through for the first goal against Hauser in two weeks when George Awada scored with a power-play rebound, finding some room high to the short side from a wide angle near the goal line to the left.
That goal came at 15:27 of the second period; referee Don Adam penalized Keith Anderson of the Huskies 20 seconds later; and the Gophers regained the 2-goal margin at 16:29, when Spehar circled out from the left corner, got clear to shoot, but instead passed to the right side, where Reggie Berg had an easy goal on the power play.
“He’s trying to tell me he’s a playmaker, and I’m trying to convince him he’s a goal-scorer. That was part of our talk today,” Woog said. “This was a highly competitive game, and St. Cloud could have won it just as easily. Whoever won this one was going to earn it.”
Matt Noga was robbed by Hauser to open the third period, and at 6:39, Spehar struck again. This time, Berg went deep into the zone on the right end boards and slid a long pass out toward the blue line. Spehar, coming on for a line change, got to the puck, moved in a couple of strides and pulled the trigger on a wrist shot that caught the lower right for a commanding 4-1 lead.
The Huskies weren’t about to roll over, however, and Awada barreled up the left side, finding the far edge with a backhand from the left circle at 10:29 to cut the deficit to 4-2. A minute and a half later, the fired-up Huskies struck again. This time, Lee Brooks, a freshman from Bloomington Jefferson, moved in to the top of the right faceoff circle and drilled a screened slapshot past Hauser and in off the left post.
That forced Hauser to survive a frantic finish, right up until Weasler went out for a sixth skater, and Berg skated out of the Gopher zone and flipped a 70-foot backhander into the open net with 54 seconds left.
UND, CC DOMINATE
TOP WCHA AWARDS
WCHA scoring champ Jason Blake was named the WCHA’s player of the year, in addition to making the all-WCHA first team for the third straight year, as North Dakota, which ran away with the regular-season WCHA title, did the same with the annual league awards, presented before Thursday’s opening game of the Final Five. Sioux coach Dean Blais was named coach of the year, for good measure.
The Sioux and runner-up Colorado College had two players each on the all-WCHA first team, and the two combined for all six on the second unit. Blake (27-40–67), CC’s Brian Swanson and Denver’s Paul Comrie are first-team forwards, Scott Swanson of CC and Brad Williamson of North Dakota are defense, and freshman Gregg Naumenko of Alaska-Anchorage first team goalie and rookie of the year.
The second team had North Dakota brothers Jay and Jeff Panzer at forward, Trevor Hammer at defense and Karl Goehring in goal, while CC’s winger Darren Clark and defenseman Dan Peters also made second team. The third team had Wyatt Smith of Minnesota, James Patterson of Denver and Lee Goren of North Dakota up front, Jordan Leopold of Minnesota and Jeff Dessner of Wisconsin on defense, and Wisconsin goalie Graham Melanson.
Senior defensemen Scott Swanson of CC and Kyle McLaughlin of St. Cloud State, were co-winners of the student-athlete award, and Williamson was named the league’s top defensive player. The all-rookie team consisted of goalie Naumenko, defensemen Leopold and Wisconsin’s Dave Tanabe, and the forwards were Tyler Arnason of St. Cloud State, Jesse Heerema of CC and Steve Cygan of Alaska-Anchorage.
Does U of M have climate for scandal?
The hot rumor from the WCHA Final Five tournament is that the University of Minnesota will not dismiss hockey coach Doug Woog, but will have him announce, in the fall, that he will be going into his final season at the helm.
Go for it, Doug. Sort of like Michael Jordan’s farewell tour, if you can make the analogy.
Hockey is a money-making sport at Minnesota, second only to basketball, we’re told. But it is only an accent to the big national business college basketball has become. And if Woog and the faltering Gopher hockey program had come under close scrutiny, there is simply no time to deal with that now, not with the basketball program up to its armpits in scandalous accusations of academic fraud.
It’s difficult to be concerned about a nuisance grass fire in your yard when your million-dollar mansion is on fire.
The key word being spoken at the dear, old U. of M. these days is “allegedly.” A former employee allegedly did a few hundred homework papers for a couple dozen basketball players. The St. Paul Pioneer Press revealed the accusations in a blockbuster series of stories last week, and the reverberations have been echoing back and forth around all corners ever since. Almost predictably, the rival Minneapolis Star Tribune has tempered some good catch-up attempts with a few columnist tidbits attacking credibility of the accusers. So have some of the incredibly naive folks who call talk-shows, and so has our new governor.
Yup, Jesse Ventura’s attempt to change from “the Body” to “the Mind” suffered a bit of a setback when he attacked the Pioneer Press for “sensationalism,” and for not holding back the story until after the Gophers played in their NCAA tournament game against Gonzaga. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the law-and-order, be-personally-responsible guv, who I happen to know a little bit, had declared immediate dismissal and prison incarceration for the violators. Even Jesse’s pleasure at surprising folks reached new dimensions with his blame-the-messenger stance.
To summarize, a fragmented group of tutors was separated from the university’s athletic academic counseling program — under protest by the top academic coordinators — to work only for basketball players, under a Clem Haskins deviation that he also had commandeered at Western Kentucky. Jan Gangelhoff, an unofficial “tutor,” allegedly wrote several hundred papers for basketball players.
Of all the claims and counter-claims, the best is the same paper being turned in by different players to different courses in different years, with the same indvertent mistake duplicated. Some players have verified Gangelhoff’s claims; others have said no, it didn’t happen. Although the ones disputing it sound pretty silly next to the documentation of evidence.
After a couple hundred papers, she grew weary enough to write about things that were more of personal interest to her, which, one report explained, led to a giant basketball player (presumably while keeping a straight face while turning in a paper), had as a theme, womens’ menstrual cycles.
Even though it all is still “allegedly” this, and “allegedly” that, the whole unseemly mess goes back to the university’s attempt to worry more about appearances than fact, when it comes to athletic problems. Gangelhoff had left the university, and even the tutoring work, before some small blip finally caused the administration to make a move. Apparently in order to show how protocol-conscious the university was, athletic director Mark Dienhart sent Gangelhoff an official letter, tersely advising her that the university was disassociating with her. Good move. Officially disassociating with an employee who had left six months earlier. The terseness of that message, Gangelhoff said in the original story, angered her enough to come forward to tell it all.
Of course, my connection with the Gopher hockey program, back when things started slipping and I reported the unhappiness of players amid a school record winning streak, makes an interesting connection here. There were 19 players on that team who approached me at different times the first half of that 1995-96 season with legitimate complaints about how they were being treated. I quoted only Brian Bonin, senior star and Hobey Baker-to-be, because I felt the rest might be mistreated by Woog.
I agreed to meet with athletic director Mark Dienhart, and, certain that he would want to ask me for the background of my story, I was prepared to tell him. If he had asked me the right questions, I also could have told him of several alleged NCAA violations that were pretty much topics for discussion among the players, but unproven. I asked Dienhart if we could be off the record. He said absolutely not, that everything would be ON the record. I told him my only reason for wanting to discuss the situation off the record was that if specifics were relayed to Woog, things could get worse for those players. He said no, it had to be on the record.
He then proceeded to try to batter my credibility. I had spent 28 years covering the Gophers, but Dienhart said I was out to get Woog so that the top recruits would go to UMD, because of my friendship with coach Mike Sertich. I told him that I was friends with every coach in the league, and in other leagues, and if UMD was using me as their recruiter in Minnesota, I had failed, because UMD had not gotten a single player in the past decade that the Gophers had wanted. That includes Derek Plante, Chris Marinucci, Brett Hauer, Dennis Vaske and numerous others, who were outstanding at UMD, but had not been recruited by Minnesota.
I realized, immediately, that Dienhart had no interest in learning about the basis for my story about widespread unhappiness among the Gopher players. I realized that it was part of a plan, that if nobody reported problems, and the public didn’t know problems existed, then there really wouldn’t be any problems.
Woog later was accused to have committed some NCAA violations, with the biggest one being proven about giving $500 to a player, and to have provided cases of beer on bustrips home after some series. Dienhart supported Woog despite those infractions.
When the story later broke about the violations, Dienhart was quoted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune saying that he refused to discuss details with me off the record, “…and he [Gilbert] refused to speak, once I said anything we say here is on the record.”
Interesting twist. He made it sound as though I lacked the courage to come forward, when that was my purpose for meeting him. I was trying to discuss the situation off the record to protect the players, but Dienhart, based on his accusatory challenges to me, had no interest in learning what was happening behind-the-scenes. Obviously, any problems we’d discuss would require further investigative action by him, but I thought it was curious that he prefered to not learn about them, rather than to learn of them off the record.
A few similar rips were made at me by Pat Forciea, who was a good friend of mine and who often exchanged close, personal, off-the-record comments with me in the Gopher hockey pressbox. He turned some of those public to stab me, but I understand. That was his role, as spin-doctor for the university, and he had a job to do. He has many jobs to do, in fact. He is assistant athletic director at Minnesota, and he runs a highly profitable public relations firm that does a lot of work for the university, and university-related advertisers and business connections.
The university has a rule that says no employee may be employed to do work with the university for any outside endeavor he may be involved with, but when he was asked about that in a recent story in the Star Tribune, Forciea said he cleared all his activities with Dienhart, and “Mark has a clear sense of what’s right and wrong.”
Incidentally, where has Pat Forciea been during this whole basketball controversy? I put no credibility at all in the rumor that he’s been hiding out in a dictionary, on the page where “conflict of interest” is defined.
Anyway, when this whole basketball mess hit, Dienhart said he knew nothing about any of this. It’s undoubtedly true. I believe Dienhart is an honorable man, to a point, but I also know that sometimes he seems to prefer to not know things. I also know that some universities hire athletic directors with the assumption that they WILL know what’s going on in their programs, which is called institutional control. In those cases, saying you don’t know about something is not only a poor excuse, but an admission of failure to do the job.
In any case, there are indications the University of Minnesota has become the perfect climate for assorted violations — some of them proven, some of them admitted, and some of them only alleged. Some people believe “our” university couldn’t be responsible for such reprehensible behavior. Others believe it suffering from a disease not unlike gangrene, where amputation is necessary, and the only decision remaining is how much must be amputated to eliminate the disease while still saving the victim.
Exasperating season could cultivate UMD resurgence
Quite a party they’re having down at Target Center in Minneapolis this weekend. It’s called the WCHA Final Five, for the survivors of first-round playoff series. UMD isn’t there this season, an amazing season of playing hard, playing mostly exciting style, but finding enough ways to lose enough games to finish last in the WCHA.
With the Bulldogs this season, the cry “Wait till next year!” is more than just hyperbole.
Coach Mike Sertich admitted he was baffled a few times this season as his team went down a 4-20-4 path to last place in the WCHA. He never stopped trying tactical methods to prod the team, it was simply stymied by a lack of goal-scoring. In 13 of those losses, the Bulldogs either lost by one goal, or pulled their goaltender, only to yield an empty-net goal.
“We had such high expectations, and we had to readjust our goals once reality set in,” said Sertich. “We went from hoping to contend at the top, to going for home ice, then to avoid the basement. Each segment, we had to readjust, and it seemed like we spent so much energy battling from behind, we never really got going.
“One of the surprises this season is that some of our strengths turned out to be weaknesses, and some of our weaknesses turned out to be strengths. We thought we might have trouble with such a young defense, but the young defensemen played so well, that became our strength.”
After senior and captain Bert Gilling, a steady if unspectacular defenseman, the next most experienced defensemen were sophomores Ryan Coole and Jesse Fibiger. They played well, but a freshman corps of Mark Carlson, Andy Reierson and Kent Sauer all had good-to-exceptional rookie years. Sophomore Craig Pierce played well in limited duty. Carlson and Fibiger, particularly, showed signs of being potential leaders. The Bulldogs have freshman Ryan Tessier and new recruit John Conboy from Silver Bay to add to the crew on defense.
“We thought one of our strengths would be that our veteran forwards would score,” added Sertich, “but that turned out to be a big weakness. Other than Jeff Scissons, our forwards were inconsistent at best. We’d show flashes, all through the season, but you have to learn to be an every-nighter, to play with that urgency all the time. A mature team does that, so we’re anxious to see if the year of maturity will help right away.”
UMD will lose only three seniors — Gilling on defense, backup goaltender Tony Gasparini, and winger Curtis Bois, a frustrated scorer who got just six goals this season, and three of those in one weekend. If the pros get insistent, they might come after goaltender Brant Nicklin and Scissons.
“I’m not planning on going anywhere but back to school,” said Nicklin. And his parents are hopeful that he finishes school.
“I’m not looking to get out,” said Scissons, whose brother, Scott, played briefly for the Minnesota Moose, and who watched enough players take a chance on pro hockey with minimal success that he became convinced college was the better choice. “Vancouver drafted me, and I don’t think they’re anxious to have me leave school. I’m still pretty skinny.,I usually start the season at about 190, but I’m 182 now, after the long season. I have to work on getting stronger.”
Scissons recalled being a freshman. “When Brant and I came in, we talked about when we’re seniors, how we could have a great team,” Scissons said. “I don’t even see the possibility of me leaving, and assuming everybody stays, we lose less than the other teams. The top teams, like North Dakota, CC and Denver, lose all their best players.”
Scissons was the best UMD forward in almost every game, and he wound up as the top-scoring junior in the entire WCHA. He was tormented, however, by failing to score with a Ryan Homstol rebound in sudden-death overtime in the final playoff game last Saturday night, after which Colorado College countered immediately for a breakaway goal by Brian Swanson at the other end.
Junior goaltender Brant Nicklin will carry the torment of that goal, even though it was a great shot by arguably the league’s best player. Nicklin, however, was brilliant all season, despite the record, and CC coach Don Lucia was only one opposing coach who suggested Nicklin probably was the “best goalie in the league” this season, and is aware of the clever coaching job done by Sertich.
“Sertie has won four WCHA championships in 17 years. I think that’s pretty outstanding,” said Lucia. “His teams are always very well coached, and they do some unconventional things that other teams are afraid to try. They’ll catch you by surprise doing things like getting their defense involved in the offense, or flying a guy in the neutral zone. Sertie is a tremendous coach who lets his guys play, and play creatively, and when he has top talent, he wins”
North Dakota and CC finished 1-2, with Denver third. UMD was 0-3-1 against North Dakota, with two games in overtime and a third with an empty-net clincher; the Bulldogs ended their season with four consecutive losses at CC, three by one goal, the other with an empty netter, and two in overtime. UMD split two games with Denver, winning 4-3 and losing 4-2. But while the ‘Dogs proved they could play the best teams evenly, they also sagged to inconsistency against the middle teams, which caused their final record to be a paltry 4-20-4 in the cellar.
Returnees like Homstol, Colin Anderson, Shawn Pogreba, Richie Anderson, Derek Derow, Mark Gunderson, Ryan Nosan and freshmen Tommy Nelson, Judd Medak, Nate Anderson and Eric Ness have scoring potential in their resumes, and if the year’s experience helps them put some pucks away, the future looks bright — possibly extremely bright as soon as next season.
Of the teams in the Final Five: North Dakota, the runaway league champ, loses eight seniors, including scoring stars Jason Blake, Adam Calder, David Hoogsteen, Jay Panzer, Jeff Ulmer, Jesse Bull, and Tom Philion — all forwards — and star defenseman Brad Williamson. Runner-up Colorado College loses six seniors, including top guns Brian Swanson, Darren Clark (from Superior), Jon Austin (from International Falls), plus the nation’s top-scoring defenseman, Scott Swanson (from Cottage Grove), and backup goaltender Todd Gustin (from Hibbing).
Denver loses 10 seniors, including the elusive Paul Comrie, James Patterson and Paul Veres up front, and Shawn Kurulak, Todd Kidd and Ryan Hacker on defense. Minnesota loses only four seniors, but they are pivotal — Wyatt Smith, Reggie Berg, Mike Anderson and defenseman Bill Kohn — and there have been rumblings that a couple underclassmen might leave early. St. Cloud State loses five, including offensive stars George Awada, Jason Goulet, Brad Goulet and Ryan Frisch, and defenseman Kyle McLaughlin.
Elsewhere, Wisconsin loses five players, including defensemen Craig Anderson, Luke Gruden and Tim Rothering; surprising Alaska-Anchorage loses only five seniors, and the Seawolves best players were underclassmen; Michigan Tech, in the process of rebuilding, loses only senior goaltender David Weninger.
UMD will miss its three departing seniors, but other teams will have more trouble filling the gaps left by the magnitude of the players they’re losing.
“We have to look at where we’re headed, and what it is we want, and what kind of players will make us successful again,” Sertich said.
For the first time in 20 years, the Bulldog recruits are all regional. Goaltender Rob Anderson from Superior is set to step in and support Nicklin, and Conboy should help the defense. Forwards Jon Francisco of Hermantown, Andy Sacchetti of Eveleth, and Josh Miskovich of Greenway of Coleraine, all have committed to UMD, although some or all of the three might play a year in the USHL. There are a couple more, still being sought.
“I don’t fault the effort we gave this year,” said Sertich. “The team was never boring, we never backed off into the trapping defensive style. It’s an an-lib game, and we always want to be creative. Having a successful team is a lot like trying to paint. We don’t want to ever get to the point where we’re just trying to make sure we keep all the paint on the canvas; we say don’t worry about that, just paint the picture.”
And next season, the frustrations of this season may serve to give UMD all the proper colors to try for a masterpiece.
Former East star Johnson ascends again at UWS
A National Hockey League scout who was watching the Minnesota high school hockey tournament a couple of weeks ago, mentioned that he once had seen a strong, 6-foot-3, good-skating winger named Clint Johnson play well enough for the University of Minnesota a few years ago that the scout came back for another look. But he never saw him play again.
“What happened to him, anyway?” the scout asked.
Well, things didn’t work out for Clint Johnson at Minnesota, but on the other hand, things worked out very well for Clint Johnson at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Johnson and the Yellowjackets left the Twin Ports Wednesday for its trip to the NCAA Division III hockey final four at Norwich, Conn.
Johnson, always cordial and humble, insisted that he wasn’t the Yellowjackets leading scorer, because defenseman and captain Chris Chelios, nephew of the NHL’s Chris Chelios, holds that honor with 40 points. But Johnson has 22 goals and 35 points, and leads the ‘Jackets in goal-scoring as they face Norwich in Friday’s tournament semifinal.
Back at Duluth East High School, Clint Johnson was a force. As a senior, he played on a line with the magical combination of sophomores Chris Locker and Dave Spehar, and he was the leading scorer as they made it to the state tournament. The next year, when East would win the state title, Clint was at Minnesota. He hadn’t been recruited, but had won an Evans Scholarship, given to a golf caddy-inspired high schooler for scholastic achievement.
“I went out for the team, but I red-shirted my first year,” said Johnson. “My freshman year, I felt that [coach Doug] Woog gave me the runaround. He kept telling me to keep working and I’d get my chance, but it never seemed to come. I got to play in two games over Christmas break, and I thought I did OK. I was all fired-up then, but I never played again.
“I wasn’t one of the inside guys. I made some good friends there, like Brett Abrahamson, and Danny Hendrickson, and they were in and out of the lineup, too. Week to week, I’d get all ready, and Woog would say I’d get my chance, but it never happened. It was a tough time for me, emotionally. I sort of gave up on everything, and I even shut myself out from school and my family.”
Johnson’s grades nose-dived, and he dropped out of school, shattered and disillusioned.
“I came home to Duluth and worked at two jobs just to try to get out of debt,” Johnson said. “I played a little rec-league hockey, for ‘Lake-Aire/Midway Bar,’ which my buddy’s dad owns. It was fun, just to play and enjoy the game again. Then one of the coaches at UWS called me and said if I had any interest to play again, I should give them a look. My mom wanted me to go back to school, so everything worked out.”
Johnson enrolled at UWS last year but had to sit out the season, to get his grades in order. But even then, he loved it.
“It was unreal,” Johnson said. “Last year I sat out and just watched the team play. I( needed time to get ready, and even this season it took me about 10 games to get going. The guys on the team are all great, and we’ve really improved.”
Coach Steve Nelson labors in comparative obscurity next to UMD’s high profile Division I program, but Division III hockey in the NCHA is strong and fast-paced. He put Johnson on a line with Jeff Glowa, from Calgary, and Eric Pitoscia, another former Duluth East player who first went to Lake Superior State but came home after one semester.
“They’re all sophomores, eligibility-wise, and they’re 1-2-3 in scoring among our forwards,” said Nelson, who is taking the Yellowjackets to the NCAA tournament for the sixth time in nine years, and has runner-up trophies for both 1994 and 1997.
“Talent-wise, this team might be better than those, but younger,” said Nelson. “Clint needs to show up for us to do well. He didn’t play all that well on Friday, and neither did the team, when we tied St. Thomas. But both Clint and Pitoscia — the East Boys — scored the next night and we won.”
Actually, Superior might have been host to the final four, had St. Norbert’s won. If there are two East and two West entries, the site alternates, but when the field wound up with three East teams and only UWS from the West, the tournament was shifted to Norwich.
Saturday’s victory was Yellowjacket style, which Nelson says means physical, strong along the boards, finish the checks and attack. In the victory, the ‘Jackets stayed away from the undisciplined penalties that plagued them in the first game, and they fired 52 shots on goal, while in one 12-minute stretch they prevented the Tommies from getting a shot.
Nelson likes the balance of all four lines, and the leadership of seniors Chelios and Todd Drouin — son of former North Star Jude Drouin — on defense, and the play of goaltenders Tom Pink, a junior from Superior, and Keith Bartholomaus, a senior from Brainerd. But his all-sophomore line has been able to lead the scoring, and Clint Johnson is a key to making it function.
Lucky for the Yellowjackets, things didn’t work out for Clint at Minnesota.
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.
For those who want to keep up with John Gilbert's view of sports, mainly hockey with a Minnesota slant, click on the following:
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