Private schools used to have their own puck tourney

Cretin-Derham Hall ran away from Grand Rapids in a 7-0 state tournament championship final, climaxing a surprise-filled week at Saint Paul’s Xcel Energy Center. The fact that a colorful Grand Rapids team simply ran out of gas after upsetting Roseau and favored Hill-Murray in the first two rounds, was less surprising than the emergence of Cretin-Derham Hall, winning its first title in only its second state appearance.

When Hill-Murray and Holy Angels played to a 3-3 tie at midseason, they were considered co-No. 1 hockey teams. But with No. 1 Holy Angels suffering its only loss in a sectional upset by Apple Valley, Hill-Murray came into this yearÂ’s state tournament No. 1 in Class AA. Duluth Marshall reached the Xcel Center as the No. 1 ranked team in Class A.

Interesting to check through the historical tidbits of the state tournament program to see the listing of tournament appearances. The perennially powerful Pioneers never made it to the state tournament until 1975, while Marshall, a powerful little school on top of the hill in Duluth, never made it until 2001.

That is true, and it is also very misleading. The state hockey tournament program is a great source for historical tidbits such as those, but the Minnesota State High School League’s detailed accounts of state hockey history leaves what amounts to a “black hole” when it comes to the private and parochial schools.

Backers of public schools still bristle at the mention of private schools, and complain that they “recruit” from the productive youth hockey programs in public school areas. That talk subsided after the first Hill-Murray teams appeared dominant, and came back strong when Holy Angels swept to prominence in recent years. Accusations and evidence of recruiting by public schools, through open-enrollment, have pretty much drowned out the protests that private schools should be segregated into their own tournaments.

As a matter of fact, they used to do exactly that. State private school tournaments were held separately from the public school tournament in the 1960s and early 1970s, but the great teams that played in those glory years have dropped into the black hole of state puck history.

Except, of course, in the fertile memory banks of those who played on those teams, and those who played against them.

Bill Lechner, the coach at Hill-Murray for the past nine years, gave in to the demands of Hill-MurrayÂ’s alumni this year and brought out the old horizontally striped green-and-white sweater to wear at the Section 3 championship game. Facing arch-rival White Bear Lake before a doubleheader crowd that counted an over-capacity 7,425 at the state fair Coliseum, Lechner wore the sweater and Hill-Murray defeated the Bears 5-4 in the second sudden-death overtime.

“This is a gawd-awful sweater,” said Lechner, who is a bit more conservative in his game outfits. “But 2002 was the last time we made it to state, and three years tied the longest drought Hill-Murray has had without winning the section. I’ve had so many phone calls from alumni, telling me about how much tradition we’ve had, that I wore the sweater. Now I can put it back in the closet – at least until next year’s section final.”

Hill-Murray’s return was so stirring that nobody – from the referees, to the official scorer, to Lechner and some of the Pioneer players themselves, questioned the call that defenseman Derek McCallum’s shot from the blue line had won the game. Only a few folks standing behind the Bear goal realized that Bryant Skarda deftly got his stick blade on the low shot and deflected it into the upper right corner. “I don’t care if I get credit for it,” Skarda said, after acknowledging he deflected in the biggest goal of his life. “As long as we won the game.”

ThatÂ’s LechnerÂ’s one-for-all and all-for-one attitude at the Hill-Murray helm, just as it was his even-keel attitude 30-some years ago, when he was the goaltender at Cretin. Yes, Cretin-Derham Hall used to be just Cretin, just as Hill-Murray used to be just Hill, before merging with Archbishop Murray girls school, and Marshall School of Duluth used to be Duluth Cathedral, before moving up on the hill and being renamed after a significant donor.

Cretin-Derham Hall’s victory was reported as a shock because Cretin’s historic achievements in baseball and football have been so prominent they’ve overshadowed the school’s hockey past. That, and the “black hole” theory. Only people so naive about hockey are unaware that Cretin used to be a “Paradise” for hockey players, as the Paradise brothers — including NHL and hockey Hall of Fame resident Bob Paradise — led a group of skilled players to the St. Paul school.

“I graduated in 1971 from Cretin,” said Lechner. “We made it to the state independent tournament my junior year at Aldrich Arena, and my senior year at Duluth.”

If you probe the gracious and modest Lechner, whose first love was baseball, he will divulge his greatest moment in the Cretin nets. “We were playing St. Agnes in the section final to go to state,” he recalled. “Tom Younghans came in on a breakaway with a minute left in the third period. I stopped him…or maybe he missed the net. Whatever, the puck didn’t go in, and we son 3-2 to go to state. I’d have been really scared if I’d known what Tommy Younghans would become.”

Younghans went on to star at the University of Minnesota, and then with the Minnesota North Stars, where his always-hustling spirit won over the fans, and could be traced to his hockey roots.

“I played four years at St. Agnes, and we had good teams, but the only year we made it to the private school tournament was 1968, when I was a freshman,” said Younghans, who is trying to pull together a 30th anniversary reunion of his NCAA championship Gopher days. “We played Duluth Cathedral in the title game, and we lost. They had Pokey Trachsel, and Phil Hoene and Kevin Hoene. It’s funny, butnow I play senior men’s hockey with several Hoenes, and last fall we played against a Duluth team that had Pokey Trachsel on it.

“There were some great teams in the private schools back then, just as there are now, but unfortunately we weren’t allowed to play in the public school tournament. Every year, back then, there were two or three teams that would have challenged for the overall state title.”

There were some outstanding teams in the Catholic and private school sectors then, and they’d prove their skill level against the top public schools throughout the regular season. Then, as the public schools started gearing up for their regional play – now called sectional – the private and Catholic teams would go into their own small domain and play each other. Wakota Arena in South St. Paul, where the first private tournaments were held until the tournament began alternating between Aldrich Arena and the Duluth Arena – now the DECC – may have lacked the size, scope and media attention of the “big tournament,” but it never lacked for emotion and passionate hockey.

Blake and Breck were the primary private schools, and both were impressive, with Jack Blatherwick coaching Breck, and Rod Anderson coaching such luminaries as Ric Schafer at Blake. St. Paul Academy, where Tommy Vannelli and Robin Larson led SPA to glory, and St. Thomas Academy came to prominence after those early years.

The private schools were good, but they were usually overmatched by Catholic schools such as St. Agnes with Younghans following Mike Mallinger, Jerry OÂ’Connor and Jim Morin, and Cretin with future pro hockey brothers Bob and Dick Paradise, faced decent teams from Rochester Lourdes, Fridley Grace, St. BernardÂ’s, Benilde, and St. Cloud Cathedral. But without question, the two major powers were Hill and Duluth Cathedral.

Duluth Cathedral, under the brilliant coaching touch of a real estate salesman named Del Genereau, wrote its own rules for practice. The team almost never practiced indoors, because Genereau believed shoveling and flooding the outdoor rink was not only good for conditioning but made the players appreciate their practice time, and facing the elements made for overload training and an easy transition to the smooth-sliding pucks of indoor games.

The 1967 Duluth Cathedral team remains encapsulated as the best team its fans will ever see in high school hockey. Phil Hoene, who later starred at UMD and with the Los Angeles Kings, centered Larry Trachsel and Dan Sivertson on the first line; Kevin Hoene, later a star and coach at Notre Dame, centered the second line, with Tom Paul, a future Harvard star, on one wing, and Tom Cartier, a prominent Duluth businessman these days, on the other. Mike Randolph, the East coach, was a ninth-grader who centered the third line. Pokey Trachsel, who still holds the UMD record for five goals in a single game, was a ninth-grader who led the defense.

“That one might have been the best, but we won the independent tournament the first five years it was held,” said Kevin Hoene, now a financial consultant in Duluth. “I played in four of those tournaments, two at Wakota and one at the Duluth Arena, and the ’68 tournament at Aldrich. I remember Cretin had a great team, with the Paradise brothers and a lot of other good players, but St. Bernard’s upset them 4-3 in the semifinals when a goalie named Carl Swapinski made 51 saves to beat them at Wakota Arena. We were staying at the Golden Steer Motel, and we went out and after we beat St. Bernard’s 9-0 in the final, we thanked Cretin for softening them up.”

In the 1967 public school tournament, history was made because the string of three straight state championships by International Falls was snapped when Greenway of Coleraine won the title behind a sensational sophomore centerman named Mike Antonovich, and the Raiders beat a great Hibbing team, led by Bob Collyard, in the semifinals. Those two teams were probably the best two teams in the tournament. But Duluth Cathedral, which snapped the International Falls streak of 58 straight victories early in the season, beat both Greenway and Hibbing 4-1 that season, while going undefeated against all Minnesota challengers.

The game of the year in Duluth – and certainly among the greatest high school games in anybody’s history – came when Duluth Cathedral faced archrival Duluth East. The teams had tied earlier in the season, and the rematch was on a Wednesday night, at the Duluth Arena, with its 5,500 capacity. The game was on regional television, and it drew an overflow crowd of 6,122.

The tension was electrifying, and East, which had a half-dozen future Division I players in its lineup, led 4-2. Then Phil Hoene scored a goal to make it 4-3. On the ensuing faceoff, “Phantom Phil” sped in and scored again, 7 seconds later, and incredibly, he scored yet again, 20 seconds after that – a pure hat trick in 27 seconds, and Cathedral won 6-4.

“Cathedral had never beaten East until then, and East had won the state title a few years before that,” Kevin Hoene recalled. “We played six or seven teams that season that were rated No. 1 in the state when we played them, and we beat them all.

“When we moved up on the hill, into the new school, we built our own rink and it was almost Olympic width,” Hoene added. “We had a great guy named Bernie Pfeffer who kept up the ice. He build a thing with a sweeper on the front, and hot water tank at the back, and we called it a ‘Zambernie.’ ”

Mike Randolph remembers also, of course.

“Pokey Trachsel was the only one who never picked up a shovel and never picked up a plow, but he had the keys to the Zambernie,” said Randolph. “He’d make me sit up front on the plow, then he’d drive. We’d go up there and play seven days a week, on our own. Being on top of the hill, there would be some days with an unbelievable wind. At practice, we’d flip to see who got to do the drills with the wind at their back.”

Randolph also remembers beating the state’s best public school teams. “We beat the public school tournament champion three of my four years,” said Randolph. “The only one we didn’t beat was Edina, because we didn’t play them the year they beat Warroad in the final. But that year, we went up to Warroad and beat them 3-2 – right in Warroad. I’ll never forget it, because it was Pokey against Henry. We stayed overnight up there, and we couldn’t believe that Henry had a key to the arena, the Warroad Gardens. He took us around and let us in there.”

Randolph has tried to transfer the Del Genereau coaching technique to his current East teams, where he has former teammate Larry Trachsel as assistant coach. “I remember one time Del came up to a kid named Mike Zeman and told him, ‘You’ll never make it as a defenseman… why don’t you try playing goal?’ ” Randolph said. “He did, and we won state with him in goal.”

He also remembers some of the wry touches Genereau would use for maximum effect. Kevin Hoene’s wingers were griping that their centerman wasn’t moving the puck well enough. “So when Kevin went out on a line change for a faceoff, Del kept his wings on the bench,” Randolph recalled. “Kevin asked what was going on, and Del said, ‘We;;, you’re not using them anyway, so I thought maybe you could play without them.’ ”

Hoene didn’t remember that exact situation, but laughed and acknowledged it might well have happened. At any rate, as that Cathedral dynasty started to wane, Hill – and later Hill-Murray – was just emerging.

“We finally beat Cathedral at Aldrich after they had won five straight private tournament titles,” said Dick Spannbauer, a Hill defenseman and later a star for Herb Brooks with the Gophers. “We won the tournament in 1972 at Aldrich, but we had a great team the year before, in 1970 and 1971, too. We had Bob Young and Les aLarson on one defense pair, and I played with Greg Tauer on the other, with Langevin as fifth defenseman in 1970. The next year, it was Young and Larson on once set, and Langevin and me on the other.”
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Not bad defense for a college team. Young, who had a fantastic shot from the point, went to Denver University to play for Murray Armstrong, Larson went to Notre Dame and played with CathedralÂ’s Kevin Hoene, Langevin went to UMD, and later the New York Islanders, and Spannbauer was a giant defenseman who helped the Gophers win their first NCAA title ever. Langevin, of course, later was voted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, but for one season he was No. 5 on HillÂ’s defense.

“In 1971, we lost to Blake 4-2 in the tournament final in Duluth,” said Spannbauer. “We were 26-1-1 that year, and our only loss was to Blake, where Ric Schafer was their star.”

In those days, there were few if any accusations of recruiting, because there really wasnÂ’t the kind of temptations offered by the open enrollment and the high-powered neighboring programs of today.

“We were all from different little parishes, just like the Cretin guys were, or the St. Agnes or St. Bernard’s guys,” said Spannbauer. “We had Matt and Pat Conroy, Tim Whisler, Rick and Mike Belde, Joe Nelson, Fred Simon – a lot of guys who went on to play Division I college. But it was a foregone conclusion that the kids who went to the Catholic grade schools would be going to Catholic high schools. I was in the first graduyating class from Hill-Murray after they merged, and by my senior year, I think some guys might have started to trickle in to play hockey.

“But before, we were No. 1 in in some state polls, even though we were in the private tournament. We didn’t have indoor ice, so our coach, Andre Beaulieu, would have us scrimmage all the time. We’d have standing room crowds for scrimmages against Edina out at Braemar.”

The Duluth Cathedral heydays also were built on respect, not recruiting. “In Duluth, you couldn’t hop from one district to another,” said Hoene. “Our kids came from the different parishes. If you were Catholic, there was a good chance you’d be going to Cathedral.”

Randolph said: “Cathedral was a Catholic school, and kids went there because of their family’s religious background. We knew we couldn’t play in the public school hockey tournament, but we came to Cathedral for other reasons.”

The reasons have been blurred as the years passed. Mike (Lefty) Curran, star goaltender at International Falls, North Dakota, the Fighting Saints, and with the silver-medal-winning 1972 U.S. Olympic team, recalls those good old days in the 1950s and 60s.

“Cretin used to play International Falls every year,” Curran said. “Falls lost to Cretin in 1957, and came back to beat ‘em the next night, and that was a year Falls went on to win the state title (at 23-2). They had a couple of Paradises out here, and we knew how good they were. And of course, Cathedral ended the Falls streak after 58 straight wins.”

That, of course, was long before Bill Lechner played goalie for Cretin, and longer before Lechner pulled out that green and white striped sweater to help this yearÂ’s Hill-Murray make it back to state. Along with Cretin-Derham Hall, and Blake, and Marshall. Strong teams, with a heritage that now challenges the public schools, but which has roots that go far back to the days of the state independent tournament.

Badgers hit the road to find home-cookin’ touch

Former Minnesota Fighting Saints coach and current Canadian NHL broadcaster Harry Neale once spoke about his team’s winless slump by saying: “We can’t win on the road, and we’re having trouble winning at home – and my failure as a coach is being unable to find anyplace else for us to play.”

The University of Wisconsin hockey team is not in the same circumstance. The Badgers had been winning BOTH home and road, until they suddenly lost four straight games at home, and lost both the No. 1 national rating and sole possession of first place in the WCHA as well. Fortunately for the Badgers, they hit the road Friday night and whipped Minnesota-Duluth 7-2 before a sellout crowd of 5,315 at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center.

Call it “road, sweet road.”

The victory raised the Badgers back into first place all alone, because Denver and Minnesota, the two teams that had swept the Badgers at Kohl Center the last two weeks to gain a three-way tie for the WCHA lead, are both idle this weekend. With a 14-5-2 league slate and 19-6-2 overall, every Wisconsin loss has come at home this season, while the Badgers are 10-0-1 in road games.

The big crowd came to honor Brett Hull, the just-retired NHL star whose UMD number 29 was retired between periods. Hull, more famous for wearing No. 9 in the NHL when he retired earlier this season as the third-best goal-scorer in NHL history – behind a couple of guys named Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe – played only two seasons at UMD but scored 32 goals as a freshman in the 1984-85 Bulldog run to the NCAA final four, and scored 52 goals as a sophomore before signing with Calgary and turning pro.

Even though he only played two years of college, Hull called his days in Duluth “the foundation of my career. When I came here on my first recruiting visit, I knew this was the place.” Hull added that he was humbled to be so honored that his jersey number would be raised to the DECC rafters alongside only Keith (Huffer) Christiansen’s No. 9. Then Hull, who returns to Duluth every summer to play golf, and visit his ex-wife and their daughter, concluded his first-intermission tribute at center ice by saying: “Let’s kick some Badger butt!”

The Bulldogs trailed only 2-1 at that point, but it was they who left the DECC with their tails between their legs. Wisconsin also had some “home cooking” for their road series, literally, as their series-opening goal output duplicated their total of all seven goals in their four losses. The weekend started with a big pasta feed at the Duluth home of senior Nick Licari, whose dad, Steve Licari, and his new wife entertained the troops with some serious carbo loading. Nick Licari played his usually tough, aggressive game, and Ross Carlson, Wisconsin’s other Duluth native, scored a pivotal goal that broke open a 3-2 game late in the second period, igniting a flurry of three unanswered Wisconsin goals in the third while the Bulldogs were left spiraling the other direction, to their seventh straight loss.

Freshmen took a large share of the spotlight, as goaltender Shane Connelly, who was pressed into service when star Brian Elliott went out with a knee injury three weeks ago – and who had been the victim of Wisconsin’s four-game losing streak – came through with 28 saves to earn his first Badger victory. And center Ben Street, another freshman, scored the final two goals in the game, after coach Mike Eaves juggled his lines with immediate effect late in the second period.

Tom Gilbert, Andrew Joudrey, Robbie Earl and Adam Burish scored the other Wisconsin goals, while UMD countered with a first-period goal by MacGregor Sharp and a second period marker by Nick Kemp – also freshmen – to keep the game close. UMD’s lack of firepower doomed the Bulldogs to their seventh straight loss, and their ninth home WCHA loss in a row, dropping to 5-13-3 in the WCHA in a three-way battle with Michigan Tech and Alaska-Anchorage to avoid last place, and 8-17-4 overall.

“We had been missing a little something the last two weeks,” said Connelly, who made 16 of his 28 saves to defuse an aroused UMD attack in the second period. “We all had shared the blame for the four losses in the room, but tonight we played a lot smarter. You could see we got it back. I got a little work in the second period – that was fun.”

Eaves noted that when Elliott went out, Connelly played well, but the team seemed to have a psychological shift, possibly from thinking they had to help the freshman goalie more. Whatever it was, the Badgers got off their free-wheeling style. “It wasn’t that we lost the goalie, but it changed the whole dynamics of the team,” said Eaves.

“The guys really felt good for Shane tonight. We had put it on the table. I told him, ‘We didn’t just drop you in the deep end, we dropped you in the Pacific Ocean. But you’re a better goalie now because of those four games. Keep improving, and we’ll win as a team.’ “
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The final result hinged on a key line change Eaves made, as he juggled to put Carlson with Street, and Skille, and Burish was reunited with Earl and Joe Pavelski. The switch resulted in four consecutive goals, by Carlson, Burish and two by Street.

The Badgers opened with a strong first period, as Gilbert moved in with a stolen outlet pas with both sides short a man, and fired past Josh Johnson midway through the first period. After Sharp tied it for Duluth, Joudrey made it 2-1 on a stunning rush, as Ryan MacMurchy lagged an outlet pass up the right boards, while Burish skated to the puck and rushed up the right on a 2-on-1. It appeared Burish might have carried it too deep, but his late pass just past the right pipe was converted at the crease by Joudrey at 12:44 – just 46 seconds after UMD had tied the game.

Earl notched his 14th goal after slipping behind the defense for a long pass at 4:39 of the second period, but this time UMD countered immediately, with Kemp scoring 24 seconds later to cut it to 3-2. Ten minutes later, Carlson carried behind the UMD goal, swung out on the right side and held the puck until he got about 15 feet out, then he whirled and fired a low shot between the legs of goaltender Johnson, who had dropped but left a tiny five-hole opening.

“That fourth goal killed us,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin, whose team gave up seven goals for the second straight game. “It was a backbreaker that found its way in.”

If JohnsonÂ’s goal killed the Bulldogs hopes, the wake of three more goals in the final period submerged them.

Burish finished off a neat rush with Pavelski and Earl at 11:38 of the third period, then Street scored less than a minute later, and stuffed in another in the closing minutes. Road, sweet road. By then, many of the fans had headed for the exits. Brett Hull remained, however, to suffer with his former team — and to do a couple of television interviews before heading off to Detroit to watch the Super Bowl.

Pioneers power-play breakthrough decides Frozen Four

COLUMBUS, OHIO — DenverÂ’s consistency is what got the Pioneers to the Frozen Four, but the Pioneers changed formulas to win their second straight NCAA hockey championship. Oh they remained consistent all right, and in fact reinforced their strengths, but they also obliterated a couple of weaknesses during a weekend culminated by Saturday nightÂ’s 4-1 title-game victory over North Dakota – the “other” hottest team in collegiate hockey.

DenverÂ’s strengths included a solid corps of high-character veterans blended artfully by coach George Gwozdecky with a premier crop of skilled freshmen, with a dominant combination of strong goal-scoring, big and solid two-way defensemen and exceptional goaltending. ThatÂ’s a pretty compelling explanation for a 32-9-2 season record.

Those strengths were highlighted when the final game scoring was handled by veterans Jeff Drummond, one of seven seniors, who scored the first goal, and junior first-line center Gabe Gauthier – a likely candidate to be next year’s captain – who scored the final goal after setting up the first one, while freshman Paul Stastny scored the other two goals and assisted on Gauthier’s empty-net tally. At the other end of the Value City rink at Schottenstein Center, freshman goaltender Peter Mannino was more dominant, making 44 saves to make the final game score look more lopsided than it was, considering North Dakota outshot the Pioneers 45-24.

The Pioneers assets were sufficient to obscure a weakness on the power play, even while Denver was winning a share of the MacNaughton Cup for the WCHA regular-season title, capturing the Broadmoor Trophy for the WCHA Final Five, and claiming the Northeast Regional NCAA berth in the Frozen Four. Entering the Frozen Four, Denver had scored 47 goals in 241 tries for a meager 19.5 percent effectiveness. But the Pioneers erupted to go 8-for-18 on power plays at the Frozen Four — a sizzling 44-percent, including all the goals in the 6-2 semifinal victory over CC, and two of the four in the 4-1 championship game against North Dakota.

That means Denver scored 15 percent of its 43-game total of 55 power-play goals in the final two games, vaulting transforming a 19.5-percent weakness to 44.4-percent efficiency against two of the best penalty-killing teams in the nation. The suddenly aroused power play was decisive for the Pioneers, because Colorado College limited them to only 11 of their 29 shots at even strength shots, and North Dakota held the Pioneers to 12 even-strength shots in 24 total shots on goal in the final.

Furthermore, while itÂ’s both easy and superficial to automatically name the tournament winning goaltender as most valuable player, in this case, Mannino deserved the accolades. While the Pioneers had numerous outstanding performances, the freshman goalie from Farmington Hills, Mich., made 41 saves while Colorado College outshot Denver in the 6-2 semifinal victory before making a season-high 44 saves in the 4-1 final.

Mannino came into the Frozen Four with a 2.39 goals-against average and a .917 save percentage, then, while playing both games of a weekend for the first time all season, he stopped 83 of 86 shots, for a 1.50 goals-against and a .965 save percentage. That improved his already-strong season to a 2.22 goals-against record and a WCHA-best .927 save percentage.

Among other statistical achievements earned by their Frozen Four exploits, Denver’s Matt Carle and Brett Skinner solidified their status as the1-2 scorers among defenseman, with the sophomore Carle getting a goal and two assists against CC and another assist against UND for a season total of 13-31—44 tally, while Skinner had four assists against CC, and while failing to score in the final game, he had good reason, continuing to play solidly after having his shoulder separated on the first shift, to finish 4-35—39.

Stastny, with his two goals and an assist gained by a respectful pass to Gauthier instead of trying for a hat trick against an empty net, finished 17-28—45 to catch Wisconsin’s Joe Pavelski as the top-scoring WCHA freshman.

StastnyÂ’s name gives him away. On paper, heÂ’s a young man who was born in Quebec City, but thatÂ’s because his home moved to where his father – NHL superstar Peter Stastny – was located. In this high-tech, ultra-stiff composite hockey stick era Stastny might be the only player in Division 1 college hockey – to say nothing of elite high school, or even Bantam or Peewee hockey — who still uses a wooden stick.

“I’ve been using a wooden stick for the last six years, the same pattern my dad used,” Stastny said. “I suppose now I’ll take this stick and throw it in the basement with all the other souvenir sticks we’ve saved.”

That stick stroked a one-timer off Carle’s perfect pass across the slot to make it 3-1 on a Pioneer power play in the third period. It was a crucial goal in the outcome, obviously, although Stastny’s first goal – the game-winner to break a 1-1 tie midway through the second period, and also on the power play – was supremely important, if less artistic. That came when Kevin Ulanski’s shot from inside right point hit Stastny in the rear end and deflected past Jordan Parise. Presumably, Stastny won’t save his breezers amid those wooden sticks.

After the game, Gwozdecky maintained his usually poised demeanor, but he hesitated several times answering media questions, and despite his countenance, it was obvious he had to fight to hold his emotions. He talked about the pressure of expectations as defending champion all season, and about his teamÂ’s great leadership, from one end to the other.

He singled out a couple of special players, in senior defenseman Matt Laatsch, the captain, and junior defenseman Brett Skinner.

“Skinner was rammed hard into the end boards on the first shift of the game,” Gwozdecky said. “He separated his shoulder, and the doctors looked at him. He came back and played, maybe his best game as a Pioneer.”

As for Laatsch, the captain, a 6-foot-3, 205-pounder from Lakeville, Minn., Gwozdecky said he embodied everything a coach could ask for, and more. “Laatsch came in as a walk-on, had to go through a lot to play, then had a horrible infection that affected his body after duodenal ulcer surgery,” Gwozdecky said. “Doctors said to forget about playing, that he’d never play hockey again. He not only came back, he ended up as our captain, and he helped shoulder the burden of expectations for us all season.”

Denver became the fourth team in NCAA history to win back-to-back titles, and only Michigan has won three in a row. He attributed the Pioneers success to the rigors of survival in the WCHA.

“We had prepared for a very physical game,” Gwozdecky said. “I want to say what a great job North Dakota did; they gave us everything plus. The pressure they put on us, how hard they played…they brought out the best in us…That’s the way it is in the WCHA. All 10 teams work so hard, and I think we all make each other better. If you can survive the WCHA, you’re ready for the playoffs.”

Burdens will double next season, but they will be far easier to deal with. True, the Pioneers lose those seven key seniors – first-goal scorer Jeff Drummond and Ulanski off the first line, tenacious Luke Fulghum off the second line, Jon Foster off the third line, and defensemen Laatsch, Jussi Halme and Nick Larson. Those seven accounted for 74 goals, led by 21 each from Fulghum and Foster.

But Gwozdecky started a unit on which four of the six were freshmen, and the returning Pioneers will be led by top scorer Gauthier (2133—54), the defensive duo of Carle and Skinner, and both Mannino and his season-long alternate Glenn Fisher. And while Gwozdecky credited assistants Steve Miller and Seth Apert for recruiting what he claims “may be the most effective freshman class I’ve ever had, either as coach or assistant coach,” there will be another strong freshman crop coming in.

“It will be a different team, and we’ll try to establish a new identity,” said Gwozdecky.

But it will be hard to disguise the new identity inside those DU jerseys. Two NCAA titles in a row, and only Michigan has ever won three straight…Hmmm…The 2006 NCAA Frozen Four will be at Bradley Center in Milwaukee. DonÂ’t be surprised if the Denver Pioneers are there with new challenges to conquer.

Irmen, ‘Import Line’ spark Gophers to WCHA lead

MINNEAPOLIS, MN. — The hottest team in the WCHA is the University of Minnesota, because of the hottest line in the league, which should be called the “Tourist Line,” or the “Import Line.”

The line, with two sophomores and a freshman, are all non-Minnesota natives, and they have scored almost exactly half the Gophers total goals for the season. It was Danny IrmenÂ’s turn to pull the trigger when the Gophers swept a crucial early-season series from Wisconsin, which turned out to be worth first place in the WCHA.

A sophomore right winger, Irmen scored on a penalty shot at 5:28 of the third period to break a 2-2 tie and give the Gophers a 3-2 opening victory, before 10,190 fans at Mariucci Arena. Gino Guyer had scored his first goal of the season at 0:11 of the third period to tie the game, and Irmen, who assisted on linemate Ryan Potulny’s ninth goal of the season to start the game, scored his fourth goal of the season on the penalty shot to win it, after he was hauled down from beind.

Irmen followed up by scoring two goals for the difference in a 4-2 Gopher victory in the rematch, before 10,587 – a crowd that not only was a record at Mariucci Arena, but also a Mariucci series record of 20,777 in a building busting at the seams with standing-room patrons. Irmen rapped the first goal of the game past superb Wisconsin goaltender Bernd Bruckler, igniting a 3-0 start. Midway through the second period Irmen, a right-hand shot, broke up the left side and drilled a one-timer off Tyler Hirsch’s perfect pass across the slot.

Irmen’s three goals and an assist gave him four points on the seven goals Minnesota scored, boosting his total to 6-7—13, which equals Ryan Potulny (9-4—13) for the team scoring lead as Minnesota moved to a 5-1 WCHA mark, 7-2 overall.

Irmen, who is from Fargo, N.D., plays on a line centered by Ryan Potulny, another sophomore, who is from Grand Forks, N.D., with Kris Chucko, a freshman from Burnaby, British Columbia, at left wing. The days when the University of Minnesota hockey team was composed entirely of homestate Minnesotans are long gone, although Irman and Potulny – clearly the offensive inspiration for the Gophers – are from just a long slapshot across the Red River, the border between Minnesota and North Dakota. The remaining nine forwards are all Minnesotans.

Potulny played high school hockey at Grand Forks Red River, and Irmen moved an hour north to join him, before both took off for Lincoln, Neb., where they finished high school while playing for the Lincoln Stars of the USHL. They led the Stars to the Clark Cup, played one more season there, then came to Minnesota together.

“When I came in, I wanted to be a go-to guy, but last year we had a lot of talent,” said Irmen. “This year, we have some talent too, but we don’t take anything for granted.”

Opponents certainly can’t take the “Import Line” for granted, either. The Gophers have scored 35 goals in crafting their 7-2 record, and Irmen and Potulny have 15 of them. Toss in the two from freshman Chucko, and the line has accounted for 17 goals – almost exactly half of the total. The only other Gopher with as many as three goals is freshman defenseman Derek Peltier, who moved in smartly from the left point to score with a perfect pass from Gino Guyer, who followed up goals by Irmen and Peltier with a goal of his own for a 3-0 Minnesota lead in the first period.

The success of the rebuilding Gophers is further proof of the considerable storage of wealth of depth in the program, and it has even surprised coach Don Lucia.

“I did not anticipate we’d be sitting 7-2,” said Lucia, whose team lost a preseason tournament game 1-0 at Alaska-Anchorage, and dropped a 4-2 game at North Dakota before bouncing back for a split. Alaska-Anchorage did the Gophers a favor by sweeping previously unbeaten Minnesota-Duluth, stunning the Bulldogs while Minnesota streaked past for first place.

“When you lose great players, like we did from last year’s team, you hope you have more coming up, and so far, we’ve been a great team,” Lucia added, emphasizing the word team. “Nobody cares who scores. I’m happy where we’re at right now, and it’s a good time for us to have a break. We know we’re not good enough to just show up and win, so everybody’s working, and we’re putting points in the bank.”

Lucia admitted it took some transition time for Irmen and Potulny after their junior stardom at Lincoln. “The hardest thing for them was to come in last year when we had 12 forwards returning from an NCAA championship team,” he said. “They understood, they had to wait their turn.”

Potulny was injured, and played only 15 games a year ago, scoring six goals, while Irmen scored 14 goals as a freshman.

“Danny works so hard, I’d love to have eight wingers just like him,” said Lucia.

Guyer, a junior center who has been a willing team support player the last two years, admits he put pressure on himself to score this year, and pressing didnÂ’t help. Scoring a goal each game against Wisconsin helped break him loose, however, although, typically, he preferred to spread the credit around, singling out freshmen like Peltier, Alex Goligoski, and forwards Mike Howe and Brent Borgen.

“This team is not as skilled as last year, because we had an enormous amount of talent last year,” said Guyer. “We’re still highly talented, but we have a great work ethic this year. Everybody goes 100 miles per hour and works hard. I think a big part of our success is the freshman group we’ve got. The freshmen come to the rink with a smile every day, and that’s contagious.”

Elliott’s ‘mini-shutout’ helps Badgers reach NCAA final

MILWAUKEE, WIS. — Wisconsin goaltender Brian Elliott had to settle for a “mini-shutout” Thursday, but he was at his best when the pressure was greatest and Wisconsin whipped Maine 5-2 in the second semifinal of the NCAA MenÂ’s Frozen Four hockey tournament. The victory gives Wisconsin a unique opportunity to duplicate the NCAA WomenÂ’s title that the Badgers already have in hand when they face Boston College Saturday at 7 p.m. for the menÂ’s national championship.

“When the women won the title, Mark Johnson said the ultimate winner was women’s hockey,” said Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves, a former star and co-conspirator with Johnson on a Badger NCAA championship team in 1977. “I think we could say that when we play Boston College Saturday night, the ultimate winner will be men’s hockey, because it will be two tremendous teams playing and it should be a great game.”

The Badgers (29-10-3) will face Boston College, which outlasted North Dakota 6-5 in ThursdayÂ’s first semifinal. After the first game drew 17,637 to Bradley Center, the night game drew 17,691, and it was a raucous, Badger-backing gang that made the hour-long trek east from Madison to cheer for the Badgers from the time they hit the ice.

Elliott made 19 of his 32 saves in the second period, preventing the Black Bears from keeping pace, as the Badgers scored twice to break a 1-1 tie. For the game, Wisconsin got two goals and an assist from Robbie Earl, a goal and an assist each from Ross Carlson and Adam Burish, and possibly the key goal of the game from Bob Street to pull away from a 3-2 nail-biter.

“The Ben Street goal was huge,” said Eaves. “The game was like a three-act play. They played well at first and then we came on in the first period, then in the second and third periods, our big players came up big – Elliott, Robbie Earl, Ross Carlson, Burish…”

Burish was first to take the spotlight, scoring midway through the first period. Burish had special reason to realize that a Badger title is almost mandatory to his family, because his sister, Nikki Burish, was a star on the Badger women’s team. “My sister said, ‘If you don’t win this thing, I’ll be one-up on you for the rest of your life,’ ” Burish said. “Now we have one more left to win a championship. That’s what we came here to do.”

Maine, however, tied it at 17:37 when Keith Johnson shot from the slot. Elliott went down to block it, and as Maine’s Keith Johnson loomed over him looking for a rebound, it was unnecessary, because the puck had found its way in already. The goal ended an amazing streak; Elliott had shut out Minnesota 4-0 in the third-place game of the WCHA Final Five, then blanked Bemidji State 4-0 in the first game of the Midwest Regional, and shut out Cornell 1-0 in three overtimes – almost two full games. The 270 minutes include an NCAA tournament record of 210 minutes. Elliott had gotten his game together after recovering from a knee injury to run up an 8-1 string, and he has given up only eight goals in the nine games, with five shutouts.

The goal didn’t seem to bother Elliot -– not based on his second period. Maine outshot Wisconsin 19-13 in the middle session, but the only goals came when Carlson and Earl connected. Carlson got the puck on the penalty kill and sped up the left side. With one defenseman retreating to cover, Johnson did a little hop-step to the slot, and drilled his shot past Maine’s freshman goaltender Ben Bishop at 4:18, to break the 1-1 tie. The 2-1 lead was hardly substantial, but with Elliott in goal, it was a good building block. Four minutes later, Earl carried up the right side and scored again, and it was 3-1.
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Elliott credited his teammates for blocking a lot of shots. His teammates don’t need to compliment Elliott – it goes without saying. “People talk about how Dominik Hasek plays so well in practice as well as games,” said Eaves. “That’s Brian, too. In practice, he doesn’t want to let any in.”

Perhaps an even more impressive factor for the junior goalie who leads the nation in goals-against average (1.55) and save percentage (.938), and now has a 26-5-3 record for the season, is that when a rare goal does get by him, he remains unruffled, and rarely gives up another in close order.

At 11:19 of the third period, the Black Bears executed an impressive rush. Josh Soares carried in on the right side and left a behind-the-back pass for Greg Moore, who passed across the slot to Mike Lundin, and the junior defenseman stepped into his shot and scored, high right.

That cut WisconsinÂ’s lead to 3-2, but 57 seconds later, Street, a freshman center from British Columbia, carried up the right side and shot from the circle. Bishop blocked it, but after a teammate overskated the rebound, Street got to it. Then he whiffed on one shot, but chipped a follow-up backhand in. That one punctured MaineÂ’s attempt at generating momentum.

EarlÂ’s second goal was an empty-netter, but it couldnÂ’t have been prettier to the big crowd. With Bishop pulled for an extra attacker, Josh Engel flipped the puck ahead. Earl chased after it, and got to it barely in time to convert a wide-angle shot from the left side with 1:44 remaining.

For the game, Wisconsin outshot Maine 39-34.

“Now we’ve got a chance to win the last game of the year,” said Eaves. “That’s something we’ve talked about since the first game of the year.”

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• 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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• Exhaust Notes:

  PADDLING
  More and more cars are offering steering-wheel paddles to allow drivers manual control over automatic or CVT transmissions. A good idea might be to standardize them. Most allow upshifting by pulling on the right-side paddle and downshifting with the left. But a recent road-test of the new Porsche Panamera, the paddles for the slick PDK direct-sequential gearbox were counter-intuitive -- both the right or left thumb paddles could upshift or downshift, but pushing on either one would upshift, and pulling back on either paddle downshifted. I enjoy using paddles, but I spent the full week trying not to downshift when I wanted to upshift. A little simple standardization would alleviate the problem.
  
  

  SPEAKING OF PADDLES
  The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution has the best paddle system, and Infiniti has made the best mainstream copy of that system for the new Q50, and other sporty models. And why not? It's simply the best. In both, the paddles are long, slender magnesium strips, affixed to the steering column rather than the steering wheel. Pull on the right paddle and upshift, pull on the left and downshift. The beauty is that while needing to upshift in a tight curve might cause a driver to lose the steering wheel paddle for an instant, but having the paddles long, and fixed, means no matter how hard the steering wheel is cranked, reaching anywhere on the right puts the upshift paddle on your fingertips.
  
  

  TIRES MAKE CONTACT
  Even in snow-country, a few stubborn old-school drivers want to stick with rear-wheel drive, but the vast majority realize the clear superiority of front-wheel drive. Going to all-wheel drive, naturally, is the all-out best. But the majority of drivers facing icy roadways complain about traction for going, stopping and steering with all configurations. They overlook the simple but total influence of having the right tires can make. There are several companies that make good all-season or snow tires, but there are precious few that are exceptional. The Bridgestone Blizzak continues to be the best=known and most popular, but in places like Duluth, MN., where scaling 10-12 blocks of 20-30 degree hills is a daily challenge, my favorite is the Nokian WR. Made without compromising tread compound, the Nokians maintain their flexibility no matter how cold it gets, so they stick, even on icy streets, and can turn a skittish car into a winter-beater.