Both Gophers, UMD needed rivalry sweep, but got split

MINNEAPOLIS, MN. — ThereÂ’s nothing like a good old-fashioned rivalry, such as when Minnesota faced Minnesota-Duluth at Mariucci Arena last weekend. You can throw away the record books when those two play. Come to think of it, both teams might prefer if you threw away the current record book.

Minnesota’s “Border Line” seems to have become borderline, while UMD shows indications of coming out of a lengthy scoring slump, but, as they say, none of that matters in a rivalry like this.

Minnesota-Duluth, located on the tip of Lake Superior, is a campus of the University of Minnesota, so Bulldog hockey games against the “Main U” annually are the biggest sports event in Duluth. There are seasons when UMD is Minnesota’s biggest rivalry, too, but from both competitive and regional impact, Minnesota also looms as the biggest natural rival for Wisconsin, North Dakota, and St. Cloud State.

A split of their weekend series only seemed appropriate, although it wasnÂ’t what either team wanted — or needed. Minnesota held off UMDÂ’s late rally for a 4-3 victory in the first game, and the Bulldogs secured a 2-1 victory in the rematch.

Scoring was no problem for Minnesota all season, thanks to the “Border LineÂ’s” three non-native Minnesotans — Ryan Potulny from Grand Forks, Dan Irmen from Fargo, and Kris Chucko from Burnaby (British Columbia), The line scored 20 of MinnesotaÂ’s 43 goals in the first nine weeks they were together, but it scored only one goal in the two losses to Michigan Tech, and its only goal during the UMD weekend was when a power-play rebound scramble tally Saturday was reappropriated to Chucko.

Unlike Minnesota, UMD didnÂ’t have hot scorers to going cold, so much as cold scorers trying to warm up. Marco Peluso warmed up to broil by scoring two of the UMD goals and assisting on the other in the 4-3 loss, and assisting on two of the three in the 3-2 victory.

The first game was scoreless through one period, then the teams erupted for four goals in less than four minutes early in the second. Derek PeltierÂ’s goal staked Minnesota to a 1-0 lead, Peluso countered promptly for UMD, and Garrett Smaagaard and defenseman Judd Stevens scored Minnesota goals for a 3-1 lead.

UMD goalie Josh Johnson played very well to hold the 3-1 deficit, but with eight minutes to go in the third period, Nate Hagemo’s power-play goal gave Minnesota a 4-1 lead, and the standing-room Gopher crowd of 10,149 started to taunt the Bulldogs with their “Nah, nah, nah, nah, goodbye” song. “When we got that power play goal, I thought the game was over,” said Gopher coach Don Lucia. “But they made some good plays – they’ve got some good players.”

UMD’s less-heralded big line came through, when Evan Schwabe fed Peluso, whose backhander was blocked by Gopher goalie Kellen Briggs, but Bryan McGregor converted with 3:04 left. On its next line shift, Peluso drilled a long rebound with 2:15 to go, and the Gopher fans stopped taunting at 4-3, but Minnesota held on. “The bottom line was, we won the game,” said a relieved Lucia. “And it was a very, very important win for us.”

Equally important was UMD’s response with a much more inspired effort the next night. “Much more aggressive, more physical,” said UMD coach Scott Sandelin. “We played so well in the first period that I wondered if we could sustain it for three periods.”

Senior Bulldog defenseman Tim Hambly walked in from the point to whistle a high, hard one past Briggs midway through the first period, and while ChuckoÂ’s goal tied it, UMD outshot Minnesota 17-15 in a chance-filled session. UMD took charge in the second period when Nick Anderson and Evan Schwabe scored for a 3-1 lead in the first four minutes.

Tyler Hirsch knocked in Jake FlemingÂ’s rebound at 9:15 of the second period, and it looked like the game was percolating toward a wild finish. But goalie Isaac Reichmuth stood firm, and UMD resolutely kept the puck in MinnesotaÂ’s end, outshooting the Gophers 12-6 in the third period and 45-33 for the game. An even larger crowd of10,303 was poised to cheer and jeer, but departed unfulfilled.

“That’s as good as I’ve seen a team play against us all year,” said Lucia. “They were getting to the pucks first, they got it out of their zone, and they took control of the game. We got 17 of our shots on the power play, but 5-on-5, Duluth had much more energy.”

Each team could take heart in how their victory brought them closer to where they were.

Minnesota had been cruising along No. 1 in the nation, and it appeared inevitable that the Gophers would make up its games-in-hand to overtake WCHA leader Wisconsin. But the Gophers were beaten twice at Mariucci Arena by Colorado College, and lost twice in their next home series to last-place Michigan Tech. Two straight series sweeps by visitors to Minnesota hadnÂ’t happened in 28 years, not since the late and legendary Herb Brooks coached the Gophers through a rebuilding season in 1977, the year after their second NCAA title in a three-year span.

Despite flashes of strong play, Minnesota is 1-5 record in its last three WCHA home sets, and12-8 in league play, as the Gophers learned the other side of the games-in-hand opportunity – you still have to win them to gain ground. Especially when Wisconsin refuses to fade at the upper reaches of the WCHA, and took a week off with a lofty 14-4 record, while onrushing Colorado College and Denver joined them in the “4-loss club” at 15-4-1 and 13-4-1, respectively.

UMDÂ’s struggles have been longer. A Frozen Four appearance last spring led to being declared the coachesÂ’ preseason pick to win the WCHA, and a 5-1 start and the No. 1 national ranking followed. Then the Bulldogs quit scoring, and sputtered through a 3-12-2 stretch — 2-9-2 in the WCHA. Some hope was rekindled when UMD won the second game at St. Cloud, then tied and won at Colorado College, so the split at Minnesota means the Bulldogs, who had won just once in nine games, are on a 3-1-1 rise, even though their 9-10-3 record means they are, still looking for .500, and playoff home-ice.

As for big rivalries: A revenge motive is part of the Badgers upcoming weekend, because half of WisconsinÂ’s league losses came on an early-season weekend at Mariucci. And, for this coming weekend at least, the Minnesota-Wisconsin rivalry is the biggest for both teams.

Huskies stop Potulny, Gophers 8-7 in OT WCHA semi

SAINT PAUL, MN. — Matt Hartman, a fourth-line sophomore, flung a shot from deep in the left corner that found the Minnesota net at 9:14 of sudden-death overtime, lifting St. Cloud State to an improbable 8-7 victory Friday night, and into a berth in SaturdayÂ’s WCHA Final Five playoff championship game. The triumph came despite a heroic performance by MinnesotaÂ’s Ryan Potulny, who scored his fourth goal of the game with 15 seconds remaining to tie the game and force overtime.

In the overtime, Hartman rushed up the left boards and pulled up sharply in the corner. “Nate [Raduns] had bumped the puck ahead to me, and when I got to the corner, I saw Brocklehurst screaming down the slot there,” said Hartman.

Gopher backup goaltender Jeff Frazee also apparently saw Brocklehurst coming down the slot, and started to move off the short-side pipe, anticipating a pass. “I thought I’d throw the puck on net, and it found a way through,” said Hartman. “I saw the net fly up, but I had no idea where it went in.”

The winning shot was improbable, and so was the score, but even more improbable is that the Huskies (22-15-4) snapped Minnesota’s eight-game winning streak and find themselves one game away from a berth in the NCAA tournament’s 16-team field. The playoff winner gets an automatic berth, and that’s the only way the Huskies could reach the select field. Minnesota (27-7-5) remains the nation’s No. 1 rank and will face Wisconsin in Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. third-place game – a game which could determine the nation’s No. 1 seed overall, with Minnesota No. 1 and Wisconsin No. 2 in the Pairwise ranking. St. Cloud State will take on North Dakota at 7:30 for the championship.

Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota are already secured among the nationÂ’s top 16 teams and should make the field easily when the NCAA selection committee announces its picks Sunday. But St. Cloud State had no chance of making the NCAA on ratings.

“No question, we’re playing to get into the NCAA tournament,” said coach Bob Motzko, who is in his first year at St. Cloud after assisting at Minnesota.

After North Dakota had beaten Wisconsin 4-3 in the afternoon semifinal, the Xcel Energy Center public address announcer said: “With this victory, North Dakota now advances to the championship game against Minnesota tomorrow night…”

“We heard that, in the lobby of the hotel,” said Hartman, whose winning goal was his second of the game and 10th of the season.
Brad Hooten, who also had two goals to give him six for the season, said: “No question, we fed off it.”

With both teams stressing low goals-against, the goal-scoring binge was out of character for both. Minnesota was outshot 16-8 in the first period but outshot the Huskies 51-38 for the game. “It is draining for a coach,” said Motzko. “But when the game got going like it did, we had to keep going. We knew they were having fun getting back into it, so we told the guys they had to keep going. You get into a nutty game like this, you’ve got to go with it.”

Potulny certainly went with it, and as evidence of how strange the game became is that his spectacular night — with four goals and one assist — became overshadowed by the Huskies ability to overcome it. Potulny now has 38-25—63 to take the nationÂ’s point-scoring lead as well as expanding his goal-scoring lead.

The teams played nearly half the first period without a goal. Ben Gordon got one on a slick pass across the slot from Blake Wheeler at 9:36 to stake Minnesota to a 1-0 lead, but Matt Hartman tied it 1-1 at 10:57 when he scored with a one-timer after Matt StephensonÂ’s shot was deflected to him at the left of the carge. Minnesota sophomore defenseman Alex Goligoski regained the lead 2-1 for Minnesota at 13:33, but then went off for a penalty that opened the chance for Andrew Gordon, who scored his 20th with a screened wrist shot from center point that eluded goaltender Kellen Briggs at 15:02.

The flurry of four goals in six minutes should have been an indication of things to come, but nobody could foresee the second period antics, as the Huskies scored three straight goals to stun the Gophers. Andrew Gordon got his second of the game at 0:58, Casey Borer beat Briggs with a wrist shot from the left point at 3:50, and Grant Clafton scored at 5:54, making it the first time in 49 games the Gophers had yielded as many as five goals, and prompting Minnesota coach Don Lucia to pull Briggs for backup Jeff Frazee.

“It was one of those games where the puck was going in, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be 8-7,” said Lucia. “When they got ahead by three, I thought it was one of those nights for us.”
Potulny and the Gopher power play kept the game within reach, as Potulny, a left-handed shooter, drilled Phil KesselÂ’s pass from the right circle at 9:43 to cut it to 5-3. But after Potulny scored his nation-leading 35th goal, Brock Hooten scored his fifth for St. Cloud by intercepting a careless breakout attempt up the slot, walking in and firing past Frazee at 11:40 of the middle period.

Before the second period ended, Potulny smacked in Danny Irmen’s pass at 14:08, and then completed his hat trick with a power play goal when Kessel went behind the net and fed him at his favorite right circle station – with a scant 0.4 seconds remaining. It was dramatic, and it cut the deficit to 6-5, but amazingly enough, the drama was still in its preliminary stage.

“The way we played, it’s just not going to cut it,” said Potulny. “I think the team decided it was time to turn things around, and I was in the right spot at the right time.”

The Gophers had outshot St. Cloud 17-12 in the wild second period, and they stormed the Huskies goal for a 20-7 shooting edge in the third, which put ace St. Cloud goaltender Bobby Goepfert under intense pressure. Despite the score, he played well. “He let in seven, and he made some big-time saves,” Lucia said.

The Huskies were left clinging to the 6-5 lead through the first 16 minutes of the third period, then Hooten blocked the puck free and zoomed in to score on a breakaway for a 7-5 Huskies lead at 16:21.
Undeterred, the Gophers swarmed on the attack, and Irmen lifted a rebound up and over the fallen Goepfert with 2:01 to play to cut it to 7-6.

“When St. Cloud went back up by two goals, I was so mad I didn’t even want to pull the goalie,” said Lucia. “Then we scored, and I had to.”

Lucia called time, and pulled Frazee for a six-skater attack. The Gophers pressed, the Huskies defended, and as the last minute ticked away, Kessel forechecked the puck free to Irmen, who curled up the boards from the left corner and spotted Potulny at – guess where? – the right circle. Irmen’s pinpoint pass was perfect, and Potulny one-timed it for his 38th goal of the season at 19:45.

“We tie it with 15 seconds to go,” said Lucia, who could appreciate how much the fans must have enjoyed the explosive game. “For the fans – my gosh – they should’ve charged $50.”

Sioux upset, Badger title prove Women’s WCHA parity

Ever since the WCHA sanctioned womenÂ’s hockey, league members have patiently awaited the day when parity would truly arrive, and when the University of Minnesota-Duluth and the University of Minnesota would be challenged by teams throughout the rest of the league.

The time might have arrived, officially, on Saturday, February 11, 2006. That was the day that Wisconsin defeated Minnesota to gain a split of their series, and successfully clinch the WomenÂ’s WCHA championship for Wisconsin. It is the first time someone other than UMD or Minnesota has won the league regular-season championship after six seasons of Bulldog/Gopher domination.

Of course, UMD won the first three of five NCAA womenÂ’s hockey tournaments, and Minnesota won the most recent two, as well. WisconsinÂ’s rise has been evident all season, but the actual mathematic clinching of the crown, outdistancing second-place UMD, made it official.

The Badger title may have been a foregone conclusion, but more specific evidence of WCHA parity came in Duluth, where the leagueÂ’s newest member, North Dakota, defeated the UMD Bulldogs 2-0 to split their series.

“This was definitely huge for us,” said North Dakota sophomore Cara Wooster, who scored the first goal – and the first winning goal the Fighting Sioux have ever registered against UMD. “It’s the first time we’ve put everything together.”

St. Cloud State, Mankato State, Ohio State, and Bemidji State had gotten things together earlier this season, and all had sprung an upset or two this season. Part of that is the superstar players at Minnesota and UMD are off playing with the Olympic teams, or have graduated. That still left North Dakota out in the cold, so to speak, and the Sioux were fresh off two losses to Bemidji State when they came to Duluth with a 2-18-2 league record, compared to UMDÂ’s 16-6-2.

North DakotaÂ’s first-ever triumph against UMD was accomplished under interesting circumstances, not the least of which was that just 24 hours earlier UMD had crushed North Dakota 8-0. That first game came when UMD climaxed a rocky week of turmoil with a flawless performance, and it was one that made observers wonder when North Dakota could ever hope to defeat a power like UMD.

The answer came quickly, the next night. But there was more to the story.

While beating Minnesota 4-2 on January 20, the Bulldogs stormed to a 4-0 lead and then went into neutral. The Bulldog machine started unraveling right then, as the Gophers not only dominated the second half of that game, losing 4-2, but beat UMD 2-0 the next night. That started an unraveling of the Bulldogs, who had stayed in contention with Wisconsin until that weekend.

Coach Shannon Miller had been privately concerned about warning signals earlier in the season. The team had talent, speed, defense and superb goaltending, a blend of skilled veteran players and impressive newcomers, but cohesiveness was rivaled by the threat of attitude divisiveness, preventing the elusive attribute called chemistry. It didnÂ’t seem to matter when the Bulldogs cruised through a 12-1-1 streak, with only Wisconsin able to inflict the tie and loss, in a pivotal December series at the DECC.

But when the first-game fade led to the second-game loss against Minnesota, UMD went to St. Cloud State and lost 2-1 and 3-1, meaning the Bulldogs had scored two goals in 11 periods of play. Next came a trip to Ohio State for a shaky 3-2 victory, then a 1-1 tie. The offense had fizzled, proving disfunctional by scoring only six goals in five games over that 1-3-1 stretch, which led into the North Dakota series.

UMD has always had a nearly cocky attitude under Miller. She is abrupt and mercurial, and one of the best coaches in the sport, and her teams are always confident of being well-prepared. But this team was different. The confidence teetered on cockiness, and where past teams have been occasionally raucous, this one was sometimes a little raw in its demeanor. In past years, the few loose cannons were always kept in check by the prevailing majority with high-level character, such as Caroline Ouellette, Julianne Vasicheck, Maria Rooth, and numerous others.

Miller addressed the situation occasionally, and during between-periods talks, and individually with some players, including captain Allison Lehrke. But nothing changed, and it appeared to worsen into more divisiveness during the recent stretch. Miller said it reached beyond her patience level on the Ohio State trip.

So Miller took action. She took the captaincy away from Lehrke and awarded it to goaltender Riitta Schaublin, with defenseman Krista McArthur an assistant who would also wear the “C” to talk to officials. She suspended junior defenseman Jill Sales and junior winger Juliane Jubinville a game apiece for violating team protocol, with Jubinville missing Friday and Sales Saturday against North Dakota. A spare forward, Becky Salyards, was dismissed from the team, but that was believed to be an unrelated academic issue.

Whatever, the week of turmoil seemed to unite the Bulldogs for an overwhelming effort, resulting in a flawless first game against North Dakota. Freshman Tawni Mattila scored the first two goals of the game, Myriam Trepanier and Karine DeMeule made it 4-0 at the first intermission, and Noemie Marin boosted the lead to 5-0, and Trepanier scored again, for a 6-0 cushion after two. Marin got her 20th in the third period, and Lehrke, who may have played her strongest game of the season, finished the 8-0 rout with the final goal.

“After what we’ve gone through, we’ve got to hope our team would come together,” said Miller. “This is a new beginning for us this week, and I honestly don’t think it mattered who we were playing, with all due respect to North Dakota. Our whole focus this week has been on looking at ourselves, and the whole emphasis has been on respect. All we have had to learn is to treat each other and ourselves with respect, and I think everybody responded with a strong effort.”
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That was what North Dakota skated into – a whirlwind of emotional fire, as well as a strong array of talent. So impressive was UMD’s first-game attack that North Dakota coach Shantel Rivard pulled starting goaltender Amber Hasbargen after Mattila’s second goal, at 7:59 of the first period, and replaced her with senior backup, Margaret-Ann Hinkley. The onslaught continued, and Rivard sent Hasbargen back in to finish, as UMD outshot the Sioux 45-19.

Overlooked, perhaps, was that while UMD allowed only 19 shots, goalie Riitta Schaublin had to make a half-dozen saves on breakaways, providing a security blanket for some disturbing defensive lapses. Even her home public relations staff overlooked Schaublin’s shutout, giving the “three stars” to Mattila, Trepanier and Marin — the trio of two-goal scorers.

In Game 2, Hinkley started for North Dakota, and blocked shot after UMD shot until she had thwarted all 25 shots for the shutout. Few of the shots were truly threatening, however, because he Sioux teammates pretty much outplayed and outhustled UMD on every shift, from start to finish. It was the most impressive, and most nearly perfect game North DakotaÂ’s womenÂ’s team had ever played, and Schaublin had to play well again.

North Dakota opened with force, and paid for it when Melissa Jaques was called for a penalty at 0:22. The Sioux killed it, and it was Jaques who fired a shot on a later North Dakota power play that led to Cara Wooster converting an unchallenged rebound for a quick shot and goal from the right edge of the net at 9:07.

That didnÂ’t seem very substantial, because it seemed inevitable that the Bulldog offense would take over. The Bulldogs were clearly not as sharp, not as inspired as in the first game, but credit must go to North Dakota, which was playing a game for the archives of the program’s history. When North Dakota got a power play in the third period, Schaublin blocked Christey AllenÂ’s shot from the left side, but the rebound went to the right, where Devon Fingland was all alone to convert at 7:38.

“After last night, we wanted to come out and make a statement,” said Cara Wooster. “We knew they’d come out hard and we had to play well to weather it, but we wanted to show we could play, too. It was our best game, and our biggest win. We just wanted to make a statement.”

That statement was: Parity has arrived in the WomenÂ’s WCHA.

Should make for an interesting playoff.

Newell’s ‘dream’ gets abrupt third period wake-up call

For every dream-come-true there are dozens of unfulfilled dreams, and a fair number of nightmares. In sports, sometimes they can happen simultaneously. Kendall Newell qualified as evidence when she got her first goaltending start of the season for St. Cloud State on the same Minnesota-Duluth ice once christened by her dad, Rick Newell.

If it had been a dream, Kendall Newell, a sophomore who has only played hockey for seven years, and most of those in the southwestern desert area of Phoenix, would have blanked the third-ranked Bulldogs to overturn the nightmarish ending of the first series game. She watched that one from the bench as a 2-1 Huskies lead dissolved with five minutes remaining, when UMD scored a pair of power-play goals 42 seconds apart to steal a 3-2 victory. The Bulldogs barely outshot the Huskies 30-28, and St. Cloud junior Lauri St. Jacques made 27 saves, 12 of them in the third period by the late-arriving Bulldogs.

The rematch started out pretty much in dream-come-true form for Newell, even though UMD’s aroused Bulldogs played a much more spirited game, pelting her with shots from every angle. For two periods, Newell stopped everything – including all 19 second-period UMD shots – as the Huskies grabbed a 2-0 first-period lead on power-play goals by Megan McCarthy and Hailey Clarkson.

The dream ended in a rude awakening when UMD scored three straight goals in the third period, then hit an empty net in the closing seconds for a 4-2 victory and a sweep. The nightmare was slow to build as UMD again started slowly, being outshot 8-3 in the first period, then roared back with 19 shots in each of the last two periods for a 41-24 margin in the game.

St. Cloud State coach Jason Lesteberg accepted the two near-misses, even though the Huskies outscored UMD 4-1 during the first two periods of the series, only to be overturned by UMD’s 6-0 edge in the two third periods. “They’re a good hockey team, but it’s an even league with a lot of parity,” Lesteberg said. “We’re 0-4, but if we play like we did in the first two periods, we can win a lot of games.”

Even though she was overlooked in the point-happy “three stars” selection, Kendall Newell’s 37 saves gave the Huskies a chance to win the second game. The disappointment of the loss, however, overshadowed the thrill of her strong performance.

And the fact that the game came on the same Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center ice where her dad once skated was not overlooked. Rick Newell had come down from Winnipeg to Duluth to go to college in the 1960s, a wide-eyed, eager kid, who provided a quick-trigger temper on defense as he helped the formative University of Minnesota-Duluth menÂ’s program get formed.

Rick Newell played in the first UMD game in what was then the new Duluth Arena, and was a strong force on defense for a UMD hockey program that as it moved into the prestigious WCHA. Among Rick NewellÂ’s teammates were Keith (Huffer) Christiansen, who was just voted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, and a winger named Bruce McLeod, who later became athletic director at UMD and is now commissioner of the WCHA.

After a pro career, Rick Newell settled in Phoenix, where he and his wife, Lesley, raised Kendall. She never saw any videos of her dad playing, and she only saw a few scrapbook-type photos of his days at UMD. But genetics won out, and she cultivated a dream of someday playing college hockey in a skating class in seventh grade. She found a girls team in the area to play on as an eighth-grader, and a year later, when that team dissolved, Kendall played on a boys Bantam team in eighth grade.

The Newells enrolled their daughter as a ninth-grader at prestigious Xavier College Prep, a private Catholic girls school affiliated with the Brophy boys school. The girls didnÂ’t play hockey, so the self-taught Kendall Newell played goal for the Brophy boys junior varsity, then moved up to become the only girl to ever play on a varsity team at Brophy, in the Arizona High School league.

Significant social pressure – and a number of boys who played goal – caused Kendall to be asked not to play as a senior, her dad recalled. Through a friend, Rick Newell learned of a team in Milwaukee, Wis. – an Under-19 team called the Wisconsin Wild. “Kendall became a frequent flyer as a senior,” Rick said. “On weekends she would fly to Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Boston, or Chicago, then she’d come home to go to school and practice with a boys traveling team.”

Kendall Newell also had found a few USA Hockey development camps to attend along the way, and several colleges contacted her after her season at Milwaukee. “Jason flew out and talked to her, and she told him she’d go to St. Cloud on a Tuesday,” her dad said. “The next day, UMD called, and the day after that, Boston College offered her a scholarship. But she had given her word to St. Cloud, and that’s where she went.”

Deep down, Kendall may have dreamed of playing for the same college where her dad played, but she made the St. Cloud team as freshman back-up to Laurie St. Jacques last season, although it was often frustrating. When St. Jacques was injured early, Newell not only filled in but won several games, even recording a shutout. That didnÂ’t make it any easier to wait, on the bench, without playing for dozens of games after St. Jacques came back and assumed the starting role. For the season, St. Jacques was 5-15-3, with a 3.44 goals-against, and an .892 save percentage. Newell proved she could play, however, with a 4-5-1 record, a 3.00 goals-against average, and an .896 save percentage.

This season, St. Jacques is a junior, and played well when the Huskies lost 2-1 to open the season at Ohio State. The next night St. Jacques was the primary victim in a 5-1 Ohio State romp. Newell replaced her late in the game, giving up only one goal on 12 shots.

Lesteberg watched videotapes of the games and decided he was going to try alternating goalies, relieving St. Jacques of the heavy burden, while giving the eager Newell a chance to share the load. When that planÂ’s implementation came in Duluth, it was dream time.

Out in Phoenix, the Newells found a way to tune into the Duluth broadcast of the games over the Internet, although itÂ’s hard to say whether their daughterÂ’s aggressive goaltending was adequately conveyed to the desert. UMD was pretty passive in the first period, when St. Cloud outshot the Bulldogs 8-3 and took a 2-0 lead as McCarthy scored from the top of the left circle with a short-side shot at 14:35, and Clarkson got loose on a breakaway two minutes later.

In the second period, the Bulldogs got more aggressive, but so did Newell. She showed great style when she had to, and she turned acrobatic when style points weren’t going to be sufficient against repeated UMD flurries. She blocked all 19 shots on goal in the middle period, and at one point, she knocked down a UMD skater with a chop of her big stick, which drew a tripping penalty. “I didn’t hit her that hard,” Newell protested.

In the third, however, things came undone. At 3:39, Newell had stopped a wraparound attempt and a couple of good chances before Jessica Koizumi scored for UMD. “They made a pass across in front, and I was down, trying to pull the puck in,” Newell said.

“Apparently,” she added, sounding unconvinced, “it ended up behind me.”
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If that ended the dream of a shutout, the second goal was a sudden nightmare – coming just six seconds later. A young goalie could be shattered enough by the first goal that she wasnÂ’t ready for the second, but that wasnÂ’t the case. UMD’s Allison Lehrke fired the puck in from center ice after the ensuing faceoff, and speedy freshman Mari Pehkonen smacked it off a defensemanÂ’s stick and in. “They dumped it in, and I stopped it,” said Newell. “I played it off to the side for one of my defensemen, but she [Pehkonen] came in so fast she got to the puck first.”

Newell regained her composure and stopped the aroused Bulldogs until a power play at the 8-minute mark. Michaela Lanzl fired a screened shot from inside the right point, and the puck deflected in at 8:34. Tawni Mattila, a UMD freshman from Duluth who had scored her first college goal Friday night, was at the crease for a tip.

“She tipped it right in front of me, and it almost hit my leg, but it went in,” said Newell. Mattila said she didn’t tip it, but the puck changed direction off something. The dream had blown up, and with Newell pulled for a sixth attacker, Lanzl scored an empty-netter with 10 seconds left.

The dream of a storybook victory was shattered, but the larger dream – of playing college hockey – gained a broader horizon.

“I can see my parents at home, sitting around the computer,” said Newell.

In the Arizona desert, Rick Newell stayed glued to the broadcast, although he admitted his wife barged out of the room after the second goal. It was suggested to Kendall that her first-period penalty might have been an appropriate tribute to her father, whose hot-blooded play compiled penalties more often than points.

“I never saw any tapes of my dad playing,” she said. “That was my first penalty, but I don’t think I’m going to call him and say I got it in his honor.”

Rejuvenated Michigan Tech sweeps stunned Gophers

MINNEAPOLIS, MN. — Finishing first in the WCHA means you get to play at home against the last-place team in the first round of playoffs. But if Michigan Tech stays in last place, there will be a terrific scramble at the top to try to avoid facing the Huskies. Of course, if Michigan Tech continues to play the 2005 portion of the schedule the way it played the first two weekends of January, the Huskies have no chance to remain in last place.

Michigan Tech swept two games from Minnesota at Mariucci Arena last weekend, winning 6-3 and 3-1 against the nation’s No. 3 ranked – and previously No. 1 ranked – college team. Maybe some credit should go to an eight-inch snowfall on Friday that transformed the Twin Cities into “Houghton West,” but it was the first time Tech had swept the Golden Gophers ever at the new Mariucci Arena, and the first time any Tech team had swept any Gopher team in Minneapolis since John MacInnes’s Huskies inflicted two losses on Herb Brooks’s Gophers in 1975.

That’s not all. The only other WCHA series Tech has played in calendar 2005 was at Denver on January 7-8, when the Huskies stung No. 5 Denver 3-0 before losing the rematch 1-0. So Tech is 3-1 since the first of the year – and now stands 4-14 for the season.

“Yeah, and we should have won the other game out at Denver,” said John Scott, Tech’s gigantic junior defenseman. Scott would be gigantic under any circumstances, at 6-foot-7 and 255 pounds, but he looks even more gigantic in Tech’s lineup, which features Chris Conner, Lars Helminen, and Mike Batovanja, all of whom are 5-foot-7, and Jimmy Kerr and John Hartman, both of whom are 5-foot-9.

With Tech returning home to engage Colorado College in Houghton, all those technological students at Tech might be wondering if “turnaround” is one word or hyphenated. Also, is “road warrior” two words or hyphenated? The term “player-of-the-week” is easier; it can be hyphenated, or it can be spelled “Ellsworth,” although goaltender Cam Ellsworth was deflecting credit after stopping 39 of 42 Minnesota shots in the 6-3 game, and 37 of 38 in the 2-1 second game to earn defensive player of the week laurels.
“The best thing about it is we got two wins,” said Ellsworth. “Goaltending is an easy job when the team is playing well, and it’s tough when the team is playing badly. I’m not doing much different, but now that we’re winning, it’s a lot easier.”
Now that weÂ’re winning? How about now that weÂ’ve gone on the road to beat two of the best teams in the country? Ellsworth apparently found an invisible shield under his Christmas tree, because he has stopped 189 of 196 shots in his last five games, which also includes a 6-2 victory over Notre Dame at Green Bay, on the way to Minneapolis. So Tech goes home 4-1 for January.

“The biggest difference in our team?” said captain Colin Murphy, who was offensive player of the week. “Goaltending. We’ve had a lot of close games, and we know we can play with anybody.”

Tech coach Jamie Russell said: “I’m proud of Ellsworth the way he’s turned his game around. The first half was frustrating for our whole team, but everybody kept working. There are still some areas where we need to improve, but we want to be playing our best hockey at the end.”

Consider that through the 2004 half of the schedule, Tech was 1-13 in WCHA games, and that 5-1 victory against Alaska-Anchorage seemed a long time ago – because it was, coming back on October 29. After that came a couple of losses at St. Cloud State, a couple of losses at Colorado College, a couple of losses against North Dakota, and a couple of losses against Denver. December ended with a couple of tough losses at the Great Lakes Invitational Tournament in Detroit, 4-2 to Michigan and 4-3 against New Hampshire.

The outlook for January was pretty bleak, with a return series on the road at No. 5 ranked Denver, then a series at No. 3 rated Minnesota, before returning home against No. 1 Colorado College, then a trip to Duluth to face preseason favorite UMD. “We’re ALWAYS playing top teams,” said Ellsworth.

At Minnesota, Tech also was running into a determined foe. Getting past Minnesota State-Mankato twice had hardly healed the sting the Gophers felt from losing twice at home to Colorado College. Those were the first home losses after a two-year streak of Mariucci invincibility for Minnesota. Besides, the Golden Gophers had beaten Tech 16 straight times, nine of them at Mariucci.

But Tech struck first in the Friday game, on a goal by defenseman Lars Helminen, and silenced the crowd of 10,147 in the second period when Taggart Desmet converted MurphyÂ’s feed for a 2-0 lead, and made it 3-0 when Murphy rapped in a 2-on-1 pass across the goal-mouth from Chris Conner.

The big crowd got fired up when Gino Guyer countered with a goal for Minnesota, and Even Kaufmann cut the deficit to 3-2 before the middle period ended. But Jimmy Kerr skated in to play the ricochet as the puck caromed off the corner boards to the right circle, and golfed a one-timer high and to the short side against Kellen Briggs for a 4-1 Tech lead early in the third period.

A Gopher goal was disallowed because of a dislodged net later, and Ellsworth and the Huskies weathered a furious Gopher attack, then most of a power play, during which frustrated Gophers winger Ryan Potulny crashed right over Ellsworth, knocking him out of the crease. When freshman defenseman Alex Goligoski scored from the point before that power play ended, it was 4-3, and a Gopher comeback seemed inevitable.

Conner, the 5-7 dynamo who had worked hard for minimal rewards all season, wouldn’t let the Huskies falter. “It was tough scoring early on, but I was still getting chances,” said Conner. “That’s something we’ve had to work on. We used to let down when things didn’t go our way, but we’re starting to learn that you’ve got to keep working.”

Conner kept working, retaliating 54 seconds after GoligoskiÂ’s goal with a rush up the left side. He battled defenseman Chris Harrington all the way to the net for a shot, then when Briggs left the rebound in the crease, Conner hopped over the sprawling Harrington and Briggs to score. Conner said he thought Harrington, who was sprawled, might have knocked it in with his hand, and Harrington said he had no idea what happened in the tangle. What did happen was TechÂ’s lead expanded to 5-3, and it ended 6-3 when, on a last-minute penalty kill, Ryan Markham rifled a 150-footer into the empty net with 14 seconds to go.

Tech started the second game with the same resolve, but Minnesota wound up with a two-man power play for a 1:15 span when Schwartz went off for slashing at 11:00, and Scott was whistled for cross-checking at 11:45. Minnesota scored when Tyler Hirsch’s shot from the left circle glanced off teammate Danny Irmen’s skate and then Tech defenseman Jake Wilkens’s skate, finding the net at 12:17. A two-man power play double deflection goal, and it turned out to be the only puck to elude Ellsworth all night. The crowd of 9,677 continued to chant “Ellsworth sucks,” however, meaning their script prevented them from paying attention to what was happening. If Ellsworth sucked, as they say, what does that say for the Gopher shooters?

Justin Johnson was in goal for Minnesota, making it the second weekend in a row he got the second game. Before that, Briggs had started 21 straight, but had yielded 20 goals in his last four starts. Trailing 1-0, Tech played an amazing second period, outshooting Minnesota 18-14 even while killing three penalties, and the Huskies scored twice, as Scott and Conner connected in a 1:05 span.

Scott, a junior at age 22 who has somehow been missed in the NHL draft, played a mighty game on defense, and moved in forcefully from the point after great forechecking by Nick Anderson and Murphy, and drilled his shot at 16:37. It may have looked routine, but it was only the second goal of the season for the big blueliner. “Whenever you get a chance like that, you’ve got to put it in,” said Scott, who laughed about the infrequency of his goals. “My other one was a one-timer from the point against Alaska – it was a pretty good goal, actually.”

A minute later, Conner was in deep, pestering the defense as usual, when defenseman Clay Wilson shot from center point. The shot deflected off the end boards to the right of the net and came right back out, where Conner bunted it in at the right post. “That one barely made it, too,” said Conner, who leads the Huskies with 10 goals.

Murphy had passed to Wilson, so he got an assist on ConnerÂ’s goal, his nation-leading 30th assist of the season. It ended a productive week for Murphy, who had four assists against Notre Dame, and his seventh goal along with three assists in the first Minnesota game. Murphy plays right wing on a line with Desmet at center and Conner at left wing, and is a superb player and strong captain.

But the Huskies know that their chances of success increase greatly if Conner keeps scoring. “Chris is a big-time player,” said Ellsworth. “He’s fast, he has all the moves, and he’s probably the strongest player in the league. He’s also a special type of person.”

Scott attests to Conner’s strength. “Conner is impossible to check in practice,” said Scott. “He practices just like he plays, going all-out. He’s the most laid-back guy off the ice, but in practice, he’s so strong I have trouble knocking him down.”

The Gophers won’t question the strength of Scott, the giant among some jockeys. A pretty lively scrap erupted during the second game, and everybody but the goaltenders were involved. Scott and Minnesota’s Hirsch were paired up, “I had 23 (Hirsch),” said Scott. “Then I saw 15 (Mike Vannelli) jump on one of our guys.” So Scott grabbed Vannelli as well, and for the last half-minute before order was restored, the 6-7 Scott casually held Hirsch harmlessly at bay in one hand and Vannelli in the other.

Harrington, outside the Minnesota dressing room, said, “We’ve got to remember how we won all those games early. Tech won the way you’re supposed to – with hard work. They did all the little things you have to do to win.”

Which, as the Yoopers like to say, is better than doing the things you do to lose.

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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.
  
  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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• 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.