Herbie irreplaceable as dreamer, schemer, and friend

ItÂ’s been a couple of days now, but it still hasnÂ’t sunk in. Herb Brooks canÂ’t really be gone.

Ever since that moment on Monday afternoon, when my cell phone rang during an auto-writing trip to California, and I was informed that Brooks had been killed in a one-vehicle rollover accident on Interstate 35 just south of Forest Lake, there has been a haunting, unrealistic feeling about accepting the fact that Herbie is dead.

If he hadnÂ’t become one of my best friends over the last 40 years, in a relationship where we felt mutually comfortable sharing confidences about any subject, I would still feel the emptiness of his loss. As a Minnesotan interested in hockey, there is a grief that wonÂ’t go away, because Herbie was the single icon who has taken the game to heights others canÂ’t imagine. There is not going to be another like him, who can take a player, a team, a state, a country, and a world, and lift them to a special plateau.

But he was my friend, and that makes it harder to accept. He was a unique, special person who made distinct impacts on my entire family almost as if we were part of his family. Most people wonÂ’t be able to comprehend what his loss will mean to his wife, Patti, or to his son, Danny, and daughter, Kelly, and their young families. But my family can, because the loss is almost as gripping to us, and to people everywhere who understand the sport of hockey and its impact on the emotions of Minnesota.

HerbieÂ’s funeral will be Saturday morning, at the St. Paul Cathedral. Maybe by then, IÂ’ll be able to accept it, to rise from the grief and celebrate the fantastic things this man achieved, while trying to overcome the emptiness of knowing only a few of his objectives that will now be forever undone.

I first met Herbie just after he had finished his college hockey career at the University of Minnesota, in the days when he was an assistant coach to Glen Sonmor at Minnesota and played for U.S. National teams and the Olympic teams of 1964 and Â’68. He was a fluid, smooth skater who understood the game from his proud days as an East-sider at St. Paul Johnson. But his scope of the game was different, even then.

He didn’t believe that hockey had to be played in the traditional Canadian manner which became the standard NHL style – up and down lanes, dumping the puck and chasing after it so feverishly it made you wonder why you gave it away in the first place. The European style of puck-control, played particularly by the Soviets, seemed so much more logical.

And yet, he appreciated the effect of hard-socking bodychecks and fiery spirit in place from the best elements of the North American game, which replaced the EuropeansÂ’ total devotion to skating and emotionless discipline. He dreamed of combining the two into a hybrid system that, at that time, existed only in his fertile mind.

When Brooks became head coach of the Gophers in 1972, the team was in shambles. He reassembled it, and, over seven years, raised it to heights that will remain incomprehensible to younger fans, who justifiably celebrate the current two straight NCAA championships won by the Gophers. The game was more ferocious then, played at a higher caliber in the WCHA with ageless Tier I Canadian junior hockey graduates allowed to participate freely. Against players of a caliber that college hockey wonÂ’t see again representing Denver, North Dakota, Michigan Tech, Michigan, and a dozen Eastern colleges, Brooks built homegrown teams mostly right from high school and inspired them to win the first three NCAA titles in Gopher history, in 1974, Â’76 and Â’79.

A year later, the whole country adopted Herbie when he hand-picked a gang of college players and took on the world – literally. Everyone knows he achieved the impossible with Team USA in 1980, beating a Soviet Union team that absolutely was the best ever to play the game – a team potent enough to have humiliated the best National Hockey League all-stars just one year earlier, and which had demolished Team USA 10-3 in Madison Square Garden as a stopover exhibition on their way to Lake Placid.

How could wide-eyed young men named Pavelich, Harrington, Verchota, Broten, Baker, Schneider, Christoff, Christian, McClanahan, Ramsey and the rest beat men named Tretiak, Kharlamov, Petrov, Mikhailov, Maltsev and other Soviet legends who ranked among the best men to ever play the game? Simple. It was the magic of Herb Brooks. U.S. captain Mike Eruzione has said that Brooks always believed Team USA could beat the Russians and win the gold. IÂ’m not sure of that, but he didnÂ’t have to believe it, as long as he could convince his players that he believed it, so they should.

Think about it: In a seven-year span, from 1974 through 1980, Brooks coached three NCAA hockey championship teams, one NCAA runner-up, and completed the run by directing an Olympic team to the greatest sports upset and sports accomplishment in competitive athletic history.

It is winning that will define Herbie historically, including his successful NHL terms with the New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils, Minnesota North Stars, and part of an interim season with the Pittsburgh Penguins. But winning is an unfortunate measuring stick. A better one was how those teams played, how they were inspired, pushed, conned, coaxed and driven to personal peaks by Brooks, proving that success is best measured when athletes contribute their individual best to a teamÂ’s collective success.

Some of his best players, even Olympians, didn’t see the Brooks magic. He drove them too hard, to achieve something that ultimately seemed within their grasp all along. “All he did,” some of them said back then, “was let us play.” They didn’t learn until later the value of playing for a coach who selected them for their talent, pushed them to expand their abilities beyond their own perceived limits, then blended it all in a web of improvisational tactics that repeatedly brought spectacular results. He called it, simply, “sophisticated pond hockey.”

He was at his best building, creating and then demanding more, always more, from the elements he started with toward what only he perceived. If his projections were higher than his observers, or even his players, too bad – Herbie’s teams were always Herbie’s Teams, and they did it his way.

He was just as tough off the ice, sometimes almost blindly pursuing his objectives. Herbie was the most critical voice in American hockey, and he challenged the USA Hockey organization many times. USA Hockey could often just ignore, or blackball, a critic here or there, but they couldnÂ’t do that to Brooks. Most recently, Herbie battled USA Hockey to forget about selecting a few elite players at great expense with two Ann Arbor development teams, and to instead invest that same money to develop a broad base of excellence among hundreds of young prospects.

He had visions of paving the way to make U.S. hockey development rise to the level of the worldÂ’s best, ranging from structure to conditioning to practice regimens to game tactics. While his favorite style is the opposite of the dump-and-chase, chip-it-off-the-plexiglass game that now reigns at the top of North American hockey schemes, he was pragmatic enough to know that dumping the puck into the opposing zone could be excellent as a tactic, even if it was repulsive as a style.

Often at odds with USA Hockey, they joined forces again in 2002, and Brooks returned to coach Team USA. It was fascinating to watch Brett Hull, Jeremy Roenick, Mike Modano and other brilliant NHLers respond willingly, almost gleefully, to Brooks and become the best team all through the Olympic Games at Salt Lake City – undefeated until the Gold Medal game, when an awesome but underachieving Canadian team rose up to beat the U.S.

Most people celebrate that Silver Medal, but Herbie never did. He knew his team fell short. Just barely short, but short, nonetheless.
Herbie was 66, but he never showed signs of slowing down as director of player development for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and as an icon for Minnesota and U.S. hockey excellence.

But to our family, he was just Herbie. His effect on my whole family was indelible. When my wife, Joan, worked at a physical therapy clinic, Herb came to her for treatment of his occasional aches and pains, and he always insisted that she was the only one who could relieve his agony.

His phone and ours were identical except for the last digit, and since we called each other frequently, every few weeks the phone would ring, Joan would answer, and the voice would say, “…Patti?” Then Herb would realize he had dialed our number instead of his own, and they’d talk for a half-hour. When I called, it was usually for a specific purpose, but if Patti answered, we’d invariably end up with a lengthy conversation, whether Herb was there or not.

When my older son, Jack, was a youngster, Herbie asked him to be his teamÂ’s stick boy. He was excited to haul sticks and stand on the bench with a Minnesota jerseyÂ’s sleeves hanging well below his fingertips at old Williams Arena, watching some memorable performances as the first two Gopher championship teams came together.

When my younger son, Jeff, was a 7-year-old Mite, Herb, knowing he had learned something about the game from scrapping with his older brother, let him into his hockey school for 9-10-year-olds. Herb came and sat with me in the Roseville Arena seats to watch for a few minutes, just as a goalie who was at least a foot taller got behind Jeff in line for drills. The goalie pushed the little kid, then pushed again. After being shoved several times, suddenly Jeff whirled around and socked the big kid, right on the goalie mask. Herbie erupted in laughter. He loved to repeat that story over and over in my presence. Even in that instance, you could tell he enjoyed the little guy smacking the big one.

Jeff was out in Bellingham, Wash., Joan and Jack were in the Twin Cities, and I was on a work-related trip to California’s Napa Valley on Monday, August 11, when the hockey world stopped spinning. Jeff happened to have the TV in his apartment that afternoon and the Xtreme Sports, or whatever, that was on was underscored by a crawling line that read, tersely: “US Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks killed in car crash.”

It was only minutes before we all talked to each other by phone. We all choked back tears, some of us better than others.

Everybody, not just hockey zealots, can take inspiration from Herb Brooks and his inner drive to succeed – every day and in any endeavor. But from now on, it’s going to be a lot tougher, because Herbie is gone, incomprehensible as that may be. And there is no one who can ever take his place.

Gophers ride early blitz to shock Ferris State 7-4

MINNEAPOLIS, MN. — MinnesotaÂ’s hockey players insisted after Friday nightÂ’s 9-2 romp over Mercyhurst that they had to refocus for a much stiffer test from CCHA champ Ferris State, which had eliminated North Dakota 5-2 in the semifinals. They said they knew they couldnÂ’t expect to gain a 3-0 lead in the first 15 minutes, the way they had against Mercyhurst.

No, the Gophers needed only 6 minutes and 9 seconds to score three goals, and the quick start left Ferris State reeling and a crowd of 9,622 at the first regional held at Mariucci Arena in a frenzy as
Minnesota’s five-goal first-period barrage Saturday afternoon led to a 7-4 victory in the West Region championship game.

The victory sends the Gophers (26-8-9) on a return trip to the NCAA Frozen Four, where they will get a chance to defend their NCAA title in a semifinal matchup against Michigan, April 10 in Buffalo, N.Y.

The Bulldogs did respond for two goals by Chris Kunitz to trail only 5-2 at the first intermission, but after Kunitz went out with an injury, the Gophers offset two later Bulldog goals with goals of their own in the second and third periods.

So deep is MinnesotaÂ’s talent that Gino Guyer, who set an NCAA Regional record with five assists against Mercyhurst, didnÂ’t even register a point and his wingers, Grant Potulny — who had a hat trick against Mercyhurst — and Barry Tallackson also failed to score a goal.

The other three lines eagerly jumped into the spotlight, led by freshman Thomas Vanek’s two goals. Minnesota was never threatened, outshooting the Bulldogs 49-20, and along with Vanek’s two sensational goals, Matt Koalska, Keith Ballard, Jake Fleming, Matt DeMarchi and Jon Waibel added one each.

“The growth of this team is as good as any team I’ve ever had,” said Minnesota coach Don Lucia. “Losing the players we did from last season, and having such a young team, with only one senior, and then having all the injuries we did, I think we developed some mental toughness. We never lost two in a row all season.”

Quick starts have not been a weapon in the Gopher arsenal this season, as more often they have had to rally after getting off to sluggish starts. LuciaÂ’s message must have gotten through. They scored three goals in the first 5:25 to beat Colorado College last weekend in the WCHA playoff final, and Friday they scored at 1:15 and 4:33 of the first period in blowing out Mercyhurst.

But Saturday they outdid those accomplishments, scoring in an NCAA regional record 13 seconds after the opening faceoff. Ferris State star forward Kunitz – who left the game in the second period after a knee-to-thigh collision with Ballard – threw an errant clearing pass up the middle shortly after the opening faceoff. DeMarchi held the puck in at the blue line and flipped the puck back in. It passed the goal on the right and hit the end boards, where Vanek backhanded a pass right back out front, and Koalska slammed it past goalie Mike Brown at 0:13.

On the next shift, Potulny got the puck to Ballard, who cut to the slot and scored at 1:38 for a 2-0 jump. Fleming curled to the slot out of the right corner while exchanging passes with Garrett Smaagaard, and snapped in another at 6:09.

Kunitz got the first of his two goals for the Bulldogs when he flipped a 55-foot wrist shot that eluded Justin Johnson at 12:02. Vanek came back at 12:41, intercepting a bad cross-ice breakout try and waltzing in alone on the left side to pick the upper right corner of the net.

At 4-1, the Gopher crowd rose in a standing ovation at a television time-out with 3:58 to go in the first period – possibly another NCAA regional record, for earliest standing ovation – but Kunitz scored another shorthanded goal at 17:48 when he flung one from deep in the left corner that glanced in off Johnson.

Even then, the Gophers wouldnÂ’t allow the Bulldogs any life. DeMarchi came right back at 18:54 to cap the period with a power-play blast from center-point for the 5-2 lead at the first intermission.

“My hat’s off to Minnesota,” said Ferris defenseman Troy Milam. “There was nothing they could do wrong in that first period, and everything they touched was either on net or in.”

The Gophers outshot Ferris State 25-5 in that opening period, but Ferris State didnÂ’t fold. Travis Weber replaced Johnson in goal for Minnesota, and was solid until the Bulldogs closed the gap when Derek Nesbitt scored his teamÂ’s second shorthanded goal midway through the second period. Vanek followed that with a last-minute tally, slipping the puck through defenseman Matt YorkÂ’s skates, picking it up on the other side in the left circle, and shooting past BrownÂ’s glove to the upper right corner.

It was the 29th goal of the season for the Gopher freshman from Austria, who was later voted tournament most valuable player for his flashy moves.

At 6-3, the third period saw Ferris close in again, when Phil Lewandowski scored on a rebound at 2:04, but the Gophers, in cruise control, finished when Jon Waibel converted FlemingÂ’s pass from behind the net at 10:31.

“I had to collect myself after the first period,” said Ferris State coach Bob Daniels, still shaken by the sudden end for a team that went 31-10-1. “Minnesota scored so quickly, it put us back on our heels. And as the goals mounted, we started losing our composure.

“Minnesota deserves a lot of credit. TheyÂ’ve got a terrific team, and theyÂ’re very deep and talented. I thought we did a good job of getting it back together, and we wanted to get within two goals, because if you can be within two in the last few minutes, youÂ’re still in the game.”

Asked about Minnesota’s home-ice advantage, something Michigan also enjoys as a regional host, Daniels said: “I don’t know how you can avoid it at this point. It would be ideal to have neutral sites, but I don’t know if I’d want to replace the atmosphere we had in here. It was an awesome environment for college hockey.”

Seawolves already surpass coach’s bold ‘prediction’

When it comes to making predictions, Alaska-Anchorage hockey coach John Hill is pretty careful. “I said before the start of this season that I would go out on a limb and predict we’d double our win total,” said Hill.

That would have required two victories, and the Seawolves already have gone far beyond that, to jump up among the biggest surprises in a surprise-filled WCHA first half. Among the most startling surprises, in no particular order, are WisconsinÂ’s fantastic school-record 14-game unbeaten streak; MinnesotaÂ’s unexpected inability to win consistently; North DakotaÂ’s single defeat and whopping games-in-hand advantage; and St. Cloud StateÂ’s surge to the top of the league in a rebuilding year.

Of those, perhaps the biggest surprises are to see Wisconsin near the top and Minnesota near the bottom of the WCHA, because Minnesota was the consensus preseason pick to win the WCHA, and after all the powerful Badger teams in history, this Wisconsin team was not expected to be a contender.

But there is one other surprise of the first half, which might rank as the biggest, although it is far more subtle: Alaska-Anchorage has won three straight WCHA games, boosting the Seawolves to a 4-6-2 league record, and 7-7-2 overall.

True, that achievement doesnÂ’t have the panache of a record unbeaten streak or a drive for contention, but it does put the Seawolves in the heady atmosphere of being ahead of preseason favorite Minnesota, which is one point behind, at 4-7-1, with a 7-8-1 overall slate. But consider where the Seawolves were coming from.

The significance of this season in Alaska requires going back to last season, when Alaska-Anchorage opened the season by beating arch-rival Alaska-Fairbanks, indicating some promise for coach Hill. But that, as they say, was it for victories by the Seawolves. Anchorage doesnÂ’t see much sun in the long winter months, but things became considerably bleaker when A-A finished 0-22-6 in the WCHA, and 1-28-7 overall.

Back at the start of the season, when Hill facetiously predicted doubling their one-victory record, the Seawolves were struggling, but Hill saw a silver lining. “We have a young team, but we’ve enjoyed going to the rink this year,” he said. The fans in Anchorage also seem to be enjoying it, nearing 4,000 the last couple of weekends, as the program redefines itself.

This season started out with an eerie sameness – another victory over Alaska-Fairbanks, followed by a loss. After losing twice at Minnesota-Duluth, and dropping the first game at Minnesota State-Mankato, the Seawolves captured their first WCHA triumph in two seasons, 2-1 in the rematch at Mankato. There followed a loss and tie against Denver, and a loss and a tie against St. Cloud, then the Seawolves returned home and lost the first game 4-0 to Minnesota.

The turnaround officially happened in a 6-4 victory in the second Gopher game. That led directly to last weekend, when defending WCHA season champion Colorado College came to Anchorage. That made it a big couple of weeks for Hill, who was initiated into the WCHA coaching realm as Don LuciaÂ’s assistant, both at Colorado College and Minnesota, before taking the Anchorage job two seasons ago.

Colorado College was ranked fourth in the country, but Anchorage rose from a 2-0 deficit to sting the Tigers 5-2, thanks to a productive night for the first line. Sophomore Curtis Glencross scored a pure hat trick, while sophomore Chris Fournier had a goal and two assists, and junior John Hopson added three assists. Outshot 33-24, the Seawolves got stout goaltending from Chris King, whose 31 saves anchored the triumph. The next night, Kevin Reiter stepped into the nets and kicked out 40 saves, and Anchorage beat Colorado College again, 3-1.

It is a credit to Hill’s consistency that before victories stopped being impossible to achieve, he never tried to rationalize away losses, and he said – and maybe demanded – that the players weren’t looking at this season as a continuation of a seemingly endless winless streak, overlapping since the end of the 2001-02 season.

After playing hard, but faltering both nights in Duluth, Hill said: “We make some mental mistakes, and when we turn the puck over against good teams, they score. But we had seven guys who played their first WCHA games [at Duluth]. Our defensive corps is especially young.

“This year, we were coming close to clicking on some 2-on-1s. Last year, we weren’t close.”

Amazingly, the Seawolves are suddenly winning, mostly with younger players. Glencross leads the team in scoring with 9-9—18, while Fournier, an Alaska native who transferred home from North Dakota, is second (6-9—15). Third is freshman defenseman Mark Smith (3-8—11).
Still, the Seawolves are the best evidence that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

Consider that Anchorage goal-scoring is second-lowest among WCHA teams, with 39 goals representing a feeble average of 2.44 goals per game. And their special teams have hardly been special, ranking the worst in the league. Anchorage has scored 10 power-play goals, which ranks eighth at a 16.4 percent clip, while allowing 18 to opposing power plays, for a 76.9 percent rate. But the Seawolves have yet to score a short-handed goal, while allowing four of them. On top of that, the Seawolves are taking the second-most penalties in the league – not a good idea, when you’re giving up a lot of power-play goals.

But all the bad numbers have been flushed from the Anchorage system like the tide rushing out of Cook Inlet. During the last three games, when the Seawolves have outscored opponents 7-1 during the third periods of the three victories.

The Seawolves arenÂ’t all freshmen and sophomores, either. In fact, one of the most predictable moves Hill might be expected to make is the next time an opponent pulls its goaltender, look for Hill to dispatch senior Dallas Steward. Against Colorado College, Steward scored an empty-net goal both nights.

Despite the turnaround, Hill isnÂ’t ready to predict that the Seawolves will gain home-ice for a first-round playoff slot, but obviously, heÂ’s pretty conservative when it comes to predictions.

Coole, as Husky, proves you CAN go home again

DULUTH, MN. — Part of Minnesota-DuluthÂ’s “home rink advantage” is to strategically locate the student section behind the visiting goal for the first and third periods. With St. Cloud State in town for an early WCHA showdown between unbeaten co-leaders, the student fans did their best, chanting “Bulldog rejectÂ…Bulldog reject…” over and over, in an attempt to rattle goaltender Adam Coole. They had no more success than the Bulldog skaters down below, who peppered Coole with shots throughout both games, but wound up watching the Huskies surround Coole in a dance of jubilation.

If Coole had a different personality, he might have exorcised an irrefutable license to gloat, after returning in triumph from being unceremoniously dumped after two years of toil for his hometown UMD outfit. Instead, displaying an overload of class and character, the highly emotional Coole thanked St. Cloud coach Craig Dahl for providing him a second chance, and tried to keep in perspective the most amazing storybook-quality story in years in the WCHA.

“I always thought about what would be going through my mind if this situation ever came up – what I’d be feeling, what I’d be saying,” said Coole. “I knew coming back here, there would be all the things that I know so well, like the smell of this rink, the color of those jerseys, the faces I was going to see. There’s so much history for me here. I respect them all so much as hockey players, and even more as people. It was so hard not to be part of that team, and all the rituals.

“But I’m so fortunate to get a second chance. A lot of those guys (UMD) mean a lot to me, and my new teammates mean the world to me. I’m so happy to be a Husky.”

Coole had grown up tending goal for Duluth East, where he was named the Mr. Hockey goaltender of the year award as the top high school goalie in Minnesota. He set a couple of records playing for Rochester in the USHL before accepting an offer to come home and tend goal for UMD. It was only natural, because Ryan Coole, his older brother, was a captain and defenseman for the Bulldogs, and his dad, Clark Coole, is the universally liked head of DuluthÂ’s amateur hockey organization.

When UMD hired Scott Sandelin to coach, he gave Adam Coole equal opportunity as a freshman with veteran Rob Anderson, and as the Bulldogs started building from the bottom, their goaltending seemed secure. The next season, with Anderson as a junior and Coole as a sophomore, the light-scoring Bulldogs still couldn’t win, and after a rare weekend where both goalies played poorly, the coaching staff decided to make a move for the future, and recruited two new goalies – Isaac Reichmuth from British Columbia and Josh Johnson from Cloquet.

As luck would have it, Sandelin started alternating Anderson and Coole during the second half of the season, and both played well, as the Bulldogs finished showing great promise. That left a unique impasse. College teams, with 18 scholarships, canÂ’t spend four of them on goaltenders, so something had to give. Anderson was going to be a senior, Coole a junior, and Sandelin convinced Johnson to go to Green Bay for a year of junior hockey in the USHL, but Reichmuth, who had used up his eligibility in junior, had to come in as a freshman.

Possibly impatient for the improvement he was striving for, Sandelin pulled Coole’s scholarship. He was done. And he was devastated. The possibilities were to transfer, or go to a Division III college, or even try his hand at the lowest minor league pro level. At his lowest point, Coole told his dad he was going to quit playing hockey, and just go to college. His brother, Ryan, gave him a boost. “Ryan told me, ‘You’ve got to believe in yourself, because if you don’t, nobody else will,’ ” said Adam.

About then, when he was at the lowest emotional ebb, Adam Coole got contacted by Dahl. He invited Coole to transfer to St. Cloud, sit out a year, during which he could practice, and that all he would guarantee him this season was a chance.

A chance is all Adam Coole ever wanted. He practiced, long and hard, endearing himself to the Huskies with his work ethic, even though he couldnÂ’t play, all last season. He also watched his old teammates, with Rob Anderson as a little-used senior behind flashy freshman Reichmuth, rise to midpack contention in the WCHA.

This season, Dahl told his team he would spend the first few weeks of the season deciding on a No. 1 goaltender by rotating all three goaltenders – returning sophomore Jason Montgomery, freshman Tim Boron, and Coole, the transfer from UMD, who is now a junior. The way the rotation worked out, the Huskies swept Wisconsin, then tied and beat Michigan Tech, then swept two from Princeton to bring a 5-0-1 overall record, 3-0-1 in the WCHA, to face the Bulldogs, who had roared off the upper reaches of the WCHA by sweeping Minnesota and Alaska-Anchorage and led the Huskies by one point for first place.

On Friday, it was CooleÂ’s homecoming night. The last time he had played in the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center was when he beat Anchorage in his last appearance for UMD at the end of the 2001-02 season. The first period was tense, but scoreless, only because Coole dived out from his net to artfully poke-check the puck off Evan SchwabeÂ’s stick on a breakaway. Freshman Brent Hill gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead early in the second period, but Luke Stauffacher and Schwabe came back with close-order goals to lift UMD to a 2-1 lead.

But Mike Doyle tied it midway through the second period, and Konrad Reeder scored early in the third, and then it was up to Coole – who was cool. The Bulldogs fired 35 shots at Coole, 13 in the third period. It was the most shots St. Cloud had yielded all season, but Coole stopped 33 of them, and the Huskies mobbed him when he held on until the final horn for a 3-2 victory.

“Adam did a great job, especially in the last couple of minutes,” said Dahl, after that first game. “You’ve got to have good goaltending, or you’re not going to win. UMD is absolutely the best team we’ve faced, and after what we lost from last year, the fact we’re undefeated after seven games is shocking.”

Dahl was upset about the way his goalie rotation had to end. Montgomery was not on the trip, and Boron, the freshman, told the trainer he didnÂ’t feel well, and it turned out he had a 101-degree fever.

“I’m probably going to have to play Adam again,” said Dahl. “Let’s hope Cooley wants to play again.”

Now, there was an unnecessary concern.

“All of that – the building, the other jerseys, the guys I know so well – weren’t factors,” said Coole, after the first game. “I’m just glad I could just play hockey; if I’d got caught up in it all, I might not have been able to do it. I had always wanted to play at UMD growing up, then I had so many heartbreaking losses in this building that when I got cut, I thought maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. It’s one thing to be sharp, but my team coming out and getting an early goal made it easier.

“When we finally got ahead 3-2, I looked at the clock and saw there was 18 minutes left,” said Coole. “I decided not to look at the clock again…and I made it until 17:30. They had one shift in the third period where we couldn’t get out of our end. That one shift made me know why I run two miles every other day. Now I hope I can come down from all this in time to get a good night’s sleep, and play again.”

The 33 shots UMD had fired Friday were the most St. Cloud State had given up this year, and they couldnÂ’t prevent UMD from firing 43 more on Saturday. It seemed beyond even storybook dimensions to expect Coole to repeat his performance. Especially after UMD got an early goal from Tim Stapleton, at 3:12. But Doyle tied it 1-1 in the last minute of the period, and Dave IanozzoÂ’s power-play goal early in the second gave the Huskies a 2-1 lead on a carryover 5-minute penalty on Marco Peluso, for whacking Coole upside the helmet with his stick in pursuit of a rebound at the side of the cage.

At 11:58 of the middle period, Reichmuth lost a shot by Gary Houseman, whirled and dived toward the net, but couldnÂ’t prevent it from trickling over the goal line. That made it 3-1 St. Cloud, and Sandelin pulled Reichmuth for freshman Johnson. In the third period, UMD took the game over, firing 22 shots and penetrating St. CloudÂ’s defense for goals by Peluso and Stapleton, to gain a 3-3 tie. The fans were chanting, the Bulldogs were flying, and the Huskies appeared to be coming unglued. But Coole remainedÂ…uhÂ…cool, and again held firm.

At 12:11, Doyle was sprung free and scored to restore the Huskies to a 4-3 lead. Coole again held the fort, and with 54 seconds remaining, and Johnson pulled for a sixth attacker, Matt Gens fired a 90-footer into the open-net.

“We may have less stars than in the last 10 years,” said Dahl, “but we’re closer. This team is closer.”

They were particularly close after the final buzzer, when the entire team crowded onto a 10-square-foot piece of ice, crowding Coole up against the glass, almost right below the section where the UMD students had stopped chanting, and walked out unfulfilled.

“There was so much pressure last night, that it was a luxury to just play tonight,” said Coole, who stopped 71 of 76 UMD shots in the two games. “We’ve found ways to win games like this, and you’ve got to give tremendous credit to the leadership of guys like Colin Peters, Matt Hendricks and Ryan LaMere.”

Dahl said he might add Coole, who is 4-0, to the list of those deserving credit, and his hot hand may cause him to alter his rotation. But he wanted no credit for psyching Coole up for the return to Duluth. “I didn’t say a word to Cooley all week,” said Dahl. “You’ve got to have a Ph.D if you want to start talking to goaltenders.”

When Adam Coole talks, he says all the right things. But actions speak louder than his words, and no words were required when Coole took a circuitous route to the bus after SaturdayÂ’s game to walk out to the lower lobby area. A large promotional photo that has adorned the wall for two years is still in place, showing bigger than life-sized UMD goaltender, in full battle dress, poised and ready for action. The goaltender in the picture is Adam Coole, who not only had come home again, but left town with two victories and the realization that the Bulldog jersey doesnÂ’t fit him as well as his Huskies jersey. In fact, it doesnÂ’t fit him at all.

Caig, Reichmuth lead UMD to sweep of Gophers

MINNEAPOLIS, MN. — Goal-scorers see the world differently than normal people, such as less-productive teammates, or fans, or observers from the press boxes around the WCHA. The question seemed like a logical one, to see what T.J. Caig saw on his decisive shot in sudden-death overtime in the league-opening game at Mariucci Arena, against arch-rival Minnesota, which was bolstered by a weekend-full of ceremonies.

CaigÂ’s two goals helped the Bulldogs top Minnesota 4-3 in overtime, and he tipped in the eventual game-winner midway through SaturdayÂ’s 4-2 series sweeper, and he was named the No. 1 star both nights. Not bad for the 5-11, 200-pounder who came to Minnesota-Duluth as a goal-scorer out of British ColumbiaÂ’s junior league. He became eligible at midseason last year, and his 9 goals, 16 assists were worth 25 points and fifth-best on the Bulldogs, even though he played only half the season.

Caig had scored the opening goal of the game on a power-play bullet, but while teammate Tyler Brosz and Brett Hammond also scored for UMD, those three goals had been offset by Minnesota’s three veteran snipers – Grant Potulny, Thomas Vanek and Troy Riddle.

So the game went to sudden-death overtime, and the puck was loose on the left boards in Minnesota’s zone. Caig gained control as he skated toward the blue line, then he turned left, 90 degrees, as if there was a corner he could follow to keep the puck in the zone. He skated toward the slot, just inside the blue line, and held onto the puck until he was almost straight on, about 45 feet out. There were several bodies between Caig and the goal – enough so goaltender Justin Johnson couldn’t get a glimpse of the puck – but he didn’t even seem to look.

He just held the puck until the right moment, then ripped a shot that glanced off the left pipe, eluding goaltender Justin Johnson and finding the net at 2:55 of the 5-minute session. UMD had a startling 4-3 victory over the two-time defending NCAA champion Gophers, and Caig was asked how much of an opening he saw, or if he saw an opening at all, or if he even looked for an opening.

“I just shot for the short side,” said Caig, with a shrug. “An opening? I don’t know. All I know is when I came around the corner, I knew I was scoring.”

UMD coach Scott Sandelin noted how non-goal-scorers would find a shinpad to hit on a shot like that, but goal-scorers find a way to score. “Caig made a big-time shot,” said Sandelin. “His first goal got there in a hurry, too.”

The 9,639 fans attending the game were there early enough to watch a brief pre-game ceremony with the Gophers raising their 2003 NCAA championship banner, their second in a row. “It’s always nice to win when you’re raising a banner,” said Minnesota goaltender Johnson. “I never saw Caig’s shot, but it went in clean, right off the post.”

A threat every shift, Caig had seven shots for the night and earned the No. 1 star, with Vanek second and UMD goaltender Isaac Reichmuth third. Reichmuth made 35 stops in the face of a Minnesota attack that built a 38-27 edge in shots, and came up with a huge save on Jon Waibel’s breakaway in the second period, and also made a big stop on Vanek. He had no chance on Vanek’s goal, scored after he deked around a defenseman, came in alone and sniped the top right corner. “You never want to give a goal-scorer anyplace to put the puck,” said Reichmuth. “Because he’ll put it there.”

The next night, 10,159 showed up at Mariucci to pay tribute between the first and second periods to former Gopher coach Herb Brooks, who died in a traffic accident on Aug. 11. The Gophers announced an endowed scholarship in Brooks’s name, and unveiled a huge, panoramic mural of Brooks, who led Minnesota to its first three NCAA titles, in 1974, 1976 and 1979. In addition, a circle of some of the players who played on Brooks’s seven Gopher teams ringed center ice and raised sticks in salute to Brooks. Former Gopher and NHL defenseman Bill Butters said Brooks had “made us all men of character.”

But even unveiling the initials “HB” on the Gopher jerseys as well as on the ice behind both nets, the Gophers seemed to lack spark, and the Bulldogs were quick to attack, as Hammond and Tim Stapleton scored to stake UMD to a first-period lead. Minnesota’s only counter was when Gino Guyer scored shorthanded to trim it to 2-1.

Midway through the second period, it was time for another example of the view, according to Caig. Hammond rushed up the left side and dropped a pass for Caig, who couldnÂ’t quite reach it, but lunged to poke it across to defenseman Ryan Geris at center point. As Geris teed up his shot, Caig cruised onward, toward the slot. Geris cut loose with a big slapshot, and Caig deflected it with his stick. It wasnÂ’t necessarily on goal, but it just didnÂ’t matter. The puck glanced off at least one defender and past freshman goalie Kellen Briggs for a 3-1 UMD lead.

Minnesota seemed to snap out of its fog and outshot UMD 17-4 in the third period, but trailing 3-1, the only goal they got past Reichmuth came when Andy Sertich broke in and scored at 9:19. UMD countered that one with 10 seconds left, when Luke Stauffacher hit an empty net to secure a 4-2 victory and an unlikely series sweep.

Again Minnesota outshot UMD, this time 41-24. But Reichmuth’s 39 saves – giving him 74 stops for the weekend – gave him the defensive player of the week award, and No. 2 star of the game. The No. 1 star, of course, was T.J. Caig, who proved once again that goal-scorers may not see openings when they shoot, they just know the puck is going in.

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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.