Hibbing claims top regional puck rank
There were a lot of elements riding on the outcome when Duluth East went to Hibbing last week — beyond the outcome of the game. Hibbing beat the Greyhounds 3-2, and the Bluejackets supplant the Greyhounds as the No. 1 ranked team in the Up North Regional high school hockey ratings.
There were all the usual things riding on the Silver Bay-Hermantown hockey game on the same night last week, particularly since both teams went into the game 10-3-1, and the Hermantown arena was filled to see the Hawks prevail 3-1.
The difference was in the undertone of seeding possibilities for sectional playoffs.
At Hermantown, Hermantown’s big first line of Jon Francisco centering Andy Corran and Chris Baron clicked as Corran scored first, then set up defenseman Jesse Stokke for a 2-1 lead midway through the first period. The Hawks appear much stronger since the return of defenseman J.R. Bradley from a long bout with mononucleosis.
But the Mariners, led by defenseman John Conboy — who has a scholarship to play hockey at UMD next season — got spirited play from their first line of Nic Johnson centering Sean Buckley and Andy Martinson and challenged the Hawks even after Clint VanIseghem scored the clincher in the third period.
“John Conboy plays a lot for us, and he’s unbelievably fast, although he sat back a little against Francisco’s line,” said Silver Bay coach Mike Guzzo. “This is his fifth year playing for us, so he knows what he has to do. We knew this would be tough, because we beat Hermantown 3-1 up here last year.”
Both teams added a victory later last week, but the two are in separate sections, so seedings weren’t a factor. Hermantown, which made it all the way to the state Class A final last year, will be heavily favored in Section 2A next month. Silver Bay, which was whipped in the semifinals by eventual state champ Eveleth last February, will be a tough contender for the Golden Bears in 7A.
Meanwhile, East outshot Hibbing but the Bluejackets have great balance, solid defense and outstanding goaltending from sophomore Travis Weber, and won the game. Unlike Hermantown and Silver Bay, both East and Hibbing will go into the Section 7AA pressure-cooker, which might be the toughest section in the state.
“We played very well,” said Hibbing coach Mark DeCenzo. “If I was a fan watching that game, I think I would have really enjoyed it, because both teams played well. Travis is a good goaltender. He was ranked No. 1 among goaltenders in his age group.”
That could mean that the young but impressive Bluejackets will have to fight USA Hockey for Weber a year from now, when the Ann Arbor development program will probably try to lure him away. But there is no time to worry about that now, not with a Tuesday night Iron Range Conference showdown against Greenway of Coleraine to prepare for.
The state ratings had a bit of upheaval, because undefeated Hill-Murray was upset 3-2 by unranked Maple Grove, when Dave Iannozzo scored his second goal of the game, shorthanded, with 1:06 left. The Pioneers (14-1) bounced back to knock off No. 2 Roseville 12-3) in a 5-4 overtime thriller on Saturday. All that boosts Elk River back to No. 1.
The Elks (14-1) lost only to the same Maple Grove bunch, incidentally, and, in the least-logical of sectional pairings, the Elks make their second appearance from the northwestern Twin Cities suburbs all the way up to 7AA. It seemed likely Elk River would be seeded No. 1 in 7AA because the Elks beat Duluth East the first week of the season. That’s why Hibbing’s victory over East could have a strong bearing on the seedings. Whoever is seeded No. 2 will get into the opposite bracket from No. 1.
“With Elk River, us, East and Greenway, I don’t think any other section has four teams of that caliber,” said DeCenzo. “The scary thing is that No. 5, 6 or 7 could knock off somebody in the first round, too. I don’t think anybody will have an easy game against Grand Rapids or Cloquet, and Forest Lake could snipe somebody.”
St. Francis, sure to be the No. 8 seed, is the only soft touch among 7AA entries, which makes the No. 1 seed so lucrative. Elk River has a couple of tough games left, particularly the one against Hill-Murray, which could open the door for Hibbing to even achieve No. 1 seed. “It’s a long shot, but if we can beat Greenway, Grand Rapids and Eveleth, and win out down the stretch, it could happen,” said DeCenzo.
East coach Mike Randolph is trying to figure out how to get more scoring from his team, but also looks ahead to the sectional. “There are so many good teams,” he said. “But if it comes down to Elk River, Hibbing, us and Greenway in the semifinals, that will be quite a doubleheader at the DECC.”
The girls teams are in their final week of regular-season play, and with all the northern Minnesota teams lumped into Section 8, that also could be extremely competitive. The Duluth Dynamite, dominant through most of the season, has struggled recently, following up the tie against improving Hibbing with narrow victories over the Duluth Mirage and St. Cloud’s collective team.
That could make Section 8 wide open, with defending sectional champ and state runner-up Hibbing joined by Bemidji and St. Cloud as top challenger to the Dynamite, which is predominately East players supplemented by Denfeld and Central. The Mirage, comprised of Marshall, Hermantown and Proctor, get to travel down to Section 4, in which perennial girls power Roseville is overwhelming favorite, and Forest Lake and Stillwater also are contenders.
Up North Hockey Ratings
BOYS STATE
1. Elk River, 14-1
2. HillMurray, 14-1
3. Roseau, 15-1
4. Roseville, 12-3
5. Eagan, 15-1
6. Hastings, 12-4
7. Hibbing, 13-3
8. Duluth East, 13-4
9. Greenway of Coleraine, 12-4
10. Eveleth-Gilbert, 15-2
BOYS REGIONAL
1. Hibbing, 13-3
2. Duluth East, 13-4
3. Greenway of Coleraine, 12-4
4. Eveleth-Gilbert, 15-2
5. Duluth Marshall, 10-4-1
6. Hermantown, 12-3-1
7. Silver Bay, 11-4-1
8. Hayward (Wis.), 12-1-1
9. Proctor, 7-7-2
10. Cloquet, 8-8
GIRLS STATE
1. Park Center, 19-0
2. Roseville, 18-0-1
3. Eagan, 20-1
4. South St. Paul, 19-1
5. Bloomington Jefferson, 14-3-3
6. Rosemount, 14-4
7. Duluth, 15-3-1
8. Hibbing, 10-9-2
9. Burnsville, 13-3-4
10. Bemidji, 13-7-1
Blais brings No. 1 Sioux ‘home’
When No. 1 ranked North Dakota comes to the DECC to face UMD this weekend, it will be something of a homecoming for coach Dean Blais.
Blais was top-line center for International Falls in the late 1960s, the same years that Mike Antonovich was the star center at Greenway of Coleraine. Blais and the Broncos didn’t make it to the state tournament, because Antonovich’s Greenway teams won state championships in his sophomore and junior years, and made it to state his senior year only to have a record-setting 61-save performance by St. Paul Johnson goaltender Doug Long prevent the Raiders from a third straight title.
Blais and Antonovich joined forces in 1970 at the University of Minnesota under coach Glen Sonmor. The differences were striking. Antonovich was a quick, darting playmaker who cared nothing about style points as he hurtled through the air, inventing ways to score, and to win. Blais was taller, a fluid skater who was always classy and stylish in his movements, but every bit as competitive and tenacious. They won a WCHA title together, and got to the NCAA final game once.
Both played some pro hockey. Antonovich is currently an NHL scout, while Blais went into coaching. He did well as assistant at North Dakota, and better when he coached Roseau to the 1990 Minnesota state championship. But his true coaching wizardry didn’t blossom until North Dakota came a-calling.
Blais took over for the legendary Gino Gasparini, no small challenge in itself, five years ago, just when hockey was in the midst of an enormous change. The best young players in Western Canada had, for years, decided at about age 16 whether to go Major Junior or play a notch lower, in Tier II junior, to maintain their eligibility for U.S. colleges. North Dakota, Denver, Northern Michigan and UMD were among those schools that fought it out for the best of the Tier II crop each year.
But the Tier I guys got smart, and started offering scholarships to those prospects whose families wanted them to pursue educations. So a large percentage of the Tier II elite players went Tier I, but the colleges like North Dakota, Denver, UMD and North Dakota, who continued to recruit primarily Western Canada talent, nosedived.
Nowadays, there are still some nuggets out there, like a Jeff Scissons or Brant Nicklin, but they are fewer, and top recruiters have to work harder to find them. Percentagewise, there are a lot more prospects in the USHL, and in Minnesota high school hockey, and the days of finding a half-dozen blue-chippers for each school out of Western Canada are past.
It was right about then that Blais took the North Dakota job. He worked hard, as usual, and he noticed that another young coach, Don Lucia from Grand Rapids, had pulled a hockey version of a rabbit out of a hat at Colorado College. Lucia came down from Alaska-Fairbanks, took over a CC team that had not only finished last in Brad Buetow’s final season, but was predicted to finish last again by all the WCHA coaches, and took them from worst to first. The next year, Blais’s first at North Dakota, CC won the title again. The year after that, Colorado College became the first team ever to win three straight WCHA championships.
Lucia decided his college didn’t need to develop strictly NHL players, and reasoned that recruiting the quicker, creative 5-10 type of player — the kind who win scoring titles, and who tend to stay in college for four years — could lead CC to success. Blais saw how Lucia did it, and went for the same mold.
A year later, in the 1996-97 season, the Fighting Sioux beat out the Tigers for the WCHA title, and went on to win the NCAA championship in Milwaukee.
“We tried to recruit the Wyatt Smiths, the Mike Andersons, and the Matt Cullens, but we didn’t get them,” said Blais. “So instead of going after the big, impressive pro-style players, we went after the quick, little guys, like Jesse Bull, Jay and Jeff Panzer, and David Hoogsteen — little guys who were quick and clever, like ‘Anton’ used to be. We want to skate and play finesse hockey, make plays — that’s what college hockey should be, not playing a 1-2-2 forecheck with clutching, grabbing, hooking and holding.”
Last year, the Fighting Sioux mighty-mites won the WCHA title for the second time in a row, and only an injury to star goaltender Karl Goehring — himself a mere 5-7 — prevented them from a possible second straight NCAA crown. They lost by a goal to Michigan, which eventually won the title.
Along with his titles, Blais continued to hear about things rumbling around at the University of Minnesota. There was no question, he was interested in going back to lead his alma mater out of the wilderness they seem to have wandered into. But despite NCAA violations alleged and proven, Minnesota’s administration chose not to make a change, which left Blais with the quite pleasant alternative of staying in Grand Forks.
He should send the Gophers a large thank-you note, because their failure to call the most logical successor this side of Herb Brooks will cause Dean Blais to become the highest-paid hockey coach in college hockey.
Blais is guiding another Sioux team toward a third-straight WCHA title, with a 14-1-1 record in a league where no other team has fewer than six losses. Jason Blake, a threat for the league scoring championship, and an exceptional supporting cast, has led the Sioux to the No. 1 rank in the nation.
Unrelated to that, UND benefactor Ralph Engelstad made a midseason gift to UND. Engelstad, who went from the University of North Dakota to become a hotel and casino owner in Las Vegas, and whose previous donations placed his name on the wonderful Sioux hockey arena, donated $100-million to UND, $50-million of which is for a new arena (over and beyond the “old” new arena).
“We’re taking the best things from all different arenas,” Blais said. “We’re going to have 25 luxury boxes, a club room, a steam room for the players — everything you can think of. But I still don’t know if you can spend $50-million on an arena.”
The rest of the money is earmarked for other campus improvements, but one of the conditions is that the school must check out all the hockey-playing colleges in the country, and make sure that the UND coach’s salary matches the highest paid coach in the land.
Dean Blais is getting paid a reported $83,000 a year. That’s real good for a hockey coach, especially one who is not a mercenary, who is at the top of his game, and who is living in Grand Forks. I like Grand Forks, where the people are friendly, the hockey fans zealous, and you can get the best homemade candy, including light or dark chocolate-covered potato chips, at Widman’s shop right downtown, to say nothing of a great breakfast at the Westward Ho.
But you’d have to work hard in Grand Forks to spend the kind of money you’d have to earn in order to live less comfortably in the Twin Cities.
In the nether reaches of Dean Blais’s consciousness, there still might flicker an ember that could make him want to coach at Minnesota, someday. But when this season ends, North Dakota administrators will sit down with Blais and tell him how much he’ll get paid next season. The published speculation that it might be somewhere near $125,000 is, in a word, chicken feed. Consider that Boston University’s Jack Parker passed up an NHL job with the Bruins for a contract to stay at BU that pays him $200,000 a year, with a $1-million bonus after 10 years.
That’s real good in Boston. It’s enough to bribe the Red River not to flood anymore in Grand Forks. Or at least enough to convince a brilliant young coach that there’s no need to go anywhere.
Bulldogs face smallest — and best — Fighting Sioux
If the UMD Bulldogs could go back to the start of the WCHA season, the reason for optimism was obvious. In the second weekend of the season, UMD lost 3-0 on an empty-net goal at North Dakota, and battled the Fighting Sioux 1-1 until five minuts remained, when the Sioux scored a goal and added two power-play goals for a 4-1 decision.
Hard to imagine that after those two intense, highly competitive games, the season would unfold to this point, with North Dakota 14-1-1, and UMD ninth and last at 3-13-2.
With the Fighting Sioux at the DECC this weekend for a return match, UMD coach Mike Sertich can be excused for looking back to the opening weekends.
“If we’d won just one of those games the first two weekends, you have to wonder what kind of a difference it could make,” said Sertich.
The first weekend, the Bulldogs tied one game at Minnesota and lost the second on a video-proven bad call that disallowed a goal that clearly was in and would have tied the game.
“You never know how important a little thing like that could be,” said Sertich. “That’s why I have a poster in my office that says: ‘It’s not the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.’ ”
Sertich said the ‘Dogs should be bolstered by the return of freshman center Tommy Nelson of Superior, who missed last weekend’s 6-3, 5-3 losses to St. Cloud State with the after-effects of a concussion suffered in the second game of a split with Denver.
That split with St. Cloud State displayed an unusually uncompetitive first game, at the DECC, followed by a strong game at St. Cloud. Sertich admitted the first game had him worried.
“I had some concerns in that first game that some of our players — maybe as many as half the roster — seemed satisfied that if they could make it look like they were working hard, they could settle for losing,” said Sertich. “There is no question we can’t afford that. The answer is to hike up the intensity.”
North Dakota’s command of the league, in quest of a third straight WCHA title, is not strictly due to superstar personnel.
“What Dean Blais has done is take some kids nobody else wanted, and some kids that everybody wanted, with some of them being older kids. The demands he puts on them are high; it’s Dean’s way or the highway.
“But as I see it, they have depth, speed, goaltending and no apparent weaknesses anywhere. Plus, they’ve got 100-million in the bank.”
That’s the amount of Ralph Engelstad’s donation to the University of North Dakota to guarantee a new hockey arena and an unexcelled contract for Blais and his staff.
While some rivals are recruiting the biggest, fastest, strongest players possible, North Dakota was just rated the smallest team in college hockey. But small doesn’t mean the Sioux lack toughness. They are extremely quick, and clever at setting up goal-scoring plays while uncompromising in putting them away. The Sioux lead the WCHA with 78 goals in 16 games; UMD has scored 40 goals in 18 games.
“I hope that our guys will rist up to play their best against North Dakota because they’re No. 1,” said Sertich. “Isn’t that the ultimate challenge for athletes?”
Go, Falcons!
Reader alert: This is not a cop-out.
Fortunately, when I predicted the Vikings would win by three touchdowns, I offered the cop-out that the only way the Falcons could beat the Vikings in the NFC title game was if some big-time player seized up, big time.
It appears that offensive coordinator Brian Billick made the call for Randall Cunningham — the suddenly erratic Randall Cunningham — to kneel down and kill the last 30 seconds of regulation, meaning the Vikings bypassed the opportunity to win in order to get to overtime. And lose.
So that satisfies my theory. This weekend, at the Super Bowl, I am abandoning that theory. If my theory held up, Denver would win the Super Bowl, but the Atlanta Falcons were so tenacious, so opportunistic, so resilient, and so unwilling to fold when they had plenty of chances against the Vikings, that I have decided they — the Falcons — will win the Super Bowl.
Of course, my theory could still function if the Broncos are in position to win and John Elway or Terrell Davis seizes up the same way Cunningham/Billick did.
But Dan Reeves is on a mission, and quarterback Chris Chandler has nothing to lose. If he loses, he remains a no-name; if he wins, Chandler will be a no-name no more.
Jamal Anderson, Atlanta’s prize running back, is the antidote to Davis. The difference is that Anderson looked mediocre against the Viking defense, which would have rendered Davis mediocre as well. Now we get to see whether Denver’s defense can stop Anderson as effectively as did the Vikings.
And Chandler outperformed Cunningham in the clutch, probing with those little dart-like bullets to Terance Mathis and others, although Cunningham ended the game 1-for-6 passing, spraying the ball around as if his eyes had glazed over and he thought he was back in Philadelphia playing for last place. Now we get to see whether Denver’s defense can solve Chandler when the Vikings could not.
Then there’s Reeves. He stirred up all sorts of controversy about his disgust for the coup that caused him to lose his job at Denver. Maybe he did it to distract the Broncos and the media from describing the still-overlooked Falcons excellence, or maybe he just did it because he was expressing honest emotion, and, after heart bypass surgey, what does he have to lose?
Reeves came up with the crafty plan for the center to elicit a signal that the down linemen could read to prepare for the snap, assuring they would not be bothered by the Viking noise-making-on-cue fans. They won’t have that problem in the open-air stadium in Miami, which means Reeves has had two weeks to figure out some other little tricks with which to bedevil the Broncos.
Those are the keys: Chandler will outperform, or at least equal, Elway; Jamal Anderson will outrush, and for sure will outcatch, Davis; Mathis and the rest of the Falcons receivers will outplay the Broncos receivers; and Reeves will pull a couple of coaching rabbits out of his hat.
And if all those factors don’t decide the game, there is that special little team-of-destiny stuff that we all say we doubt, but deep down we all would like to believe. Randall Cunningham and Cris Carter went out of their way to thank God for every pass, every touchdown and every victory all season, then when the Vikings lost to Atlanta, Dan Reeves came in and, first off, thanked God. It hit me that Bob Dylan’s implication was right. We don’t have to believe that God spends his time deciding the outcome of football games, but if it were true, what happens if, as Dylan wrote, the other side had God on their side?
Face it, the outcome of the Super Bowl is a cleansing operation for Vikings fans. This was the Vikings year, from the first play of exhibition season to the last minute of the fourth quarter, this was the Vikings year. Then they handed it over to the Falcons. Go, Falcons.
Besides, by picking the Falcons, the worst-case scenario is that if the Broncos win…my ol’ theory might have been right after all.
Archer is ‘Super Bowl sleeper’ at Daytona race
Super Bowl weekend may have caused a lot of people to hurry to Florida this weekend, but no other Minnesotan is hurrying quite like Tommy Archer.
Archer, Duluth’s most prominent auto racer, won’t get near Miami, and wouldn’t be thinking football even if the Vikings had reached the Super Bowl. He’ll be zooming along the high-banked turns at Daytona, driving a Dodge Viper at 190 miles per hour in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona — the premier endurance race in the U.S., and this country’s answer to the fabled LeMans 24-Hour race.
The race starts at high noon, with the start on ESPN 2, as well as live coverage of the final six hours, starting at 6 a.m. Sunday. Perfect timing, as a sports-fan’s appetizer leading up to the Super Bowl.
The so-called stars of the show are the exotic, purpose-built racers of Ferrari, Lola, Riley & Scott and others. Former CART champion Jimmy Vasser and Max Papis will team up in one Ferrari, for example, and former NASCAR Daytona 500 stock car ace Ernie Irvan will co-drive in a BMW prototype.
But the best race-within-the-race will come in the GT-2 category, where a new factory-backed team of Corvettes will challenge the twin-turbo Porsches and other front-runners. And that’s where Archer and the Viper come in.
Archer’s history of racing Dodge Daytonas, Eagle Talons and some Dodge trucks made him valuable to Chrysler Corporation, even though he has been unable to put together sufficient sponsorship to race full-time the last couple of years. While his high-performance shop near the Duluth Airport continues to do some exotic transformations on cars, Archer had the chance to test some Viper endurance cars, and it led to him racing for Team Oreca’s three-Viper team at LeMans.
Last summer, Archer qualified on the pole at LeMans and co-drove a Viper to second place, behind the class-winning Viper co-driven by David Donohue, son of the late Mark Donohue. With that 1-2 victory in hand, Chrysler apparently decided to back off and wait for LeMans. But then the all-new Corvette led to Chevrolet’s muchpublicized return to racing at Daytona, and, coincidentally, somebody at Chrysler decided it might be interesting to enter one car, just for test purposes (wink-wink).
“It was a last-minute deal,” Archer said, before heading for Florida for this week’s testing and qualifying. “As of September, my understanding was that Chrysler wasn’t going to run Daytona. Officially, and politically, we’re only at Daytona to test for LeMans, but this is a pretty well-tested car, and personally, I’d like to win.”
Archer, 44, who has led races at Daytona several times in various cars, will co-drive the car with Donohue and Olivier Beretta. For two months, Archer has been working ot to prepare his shoulders, arms and legs for the severe duty required to handle the precision necessary for maintaining incredible speeds for long stretches of time.
“LeMans has long straightaways, but Daytona has the high banking for such stretches that there is a lot of passing and maneuvering on the banking,” Archer said. “Your neck gets so sore you can hardly move. So I’ve been putting 40-pound weights around my head, and exercising four difference directions, just to strengthen my neck for the G-forces.
“Maybe it’s more important to prepare now than when I was younger. This kind of racing is fun still, but it’s work, too. When you’re young, you just drive fast; now you work to prepare yourself and your car to go fast.”
In case Archer didn’t already know enough about Vipers, this project came along as he was working on a technical makeover for a Michigan businessman who will enter a Viper in the “One Lap of America” race. This is an event of extremely high-performance cars, driven by competitors who allegedly follow the rules of the road as the circle the country following an assigned course. It is the actual event upon which numerous movies have been made, such as “Cannonball Run,” the name of the original race. But there are no Burt Reynolds or Dom DeLuise wannabes in this event.
“A fellow who does some work in the auto transportation business in Detroit called and asked what I would recommend to make a Viper better for this sort of event,” Archer said. “So I made up a legal-pad sheet of suggested ideas and gave it to him. He said, ‘Do it all.’ ”
The result is this bright red Viper, with yellow flame-trim on the sides, has undergone an incredible makeover at Archer’s shop. Most of the work is on such things as $9,000 race-quality brakes, with Koni adjustable shock absorbers that cost $900 apiece. They’ve blueprinted the transmission, taken 46 pounds off the clutch system, altered the suspension and exhaust, and smoothed out the intake manifold.
“A lot of people get a high-performance car like a Viper and all they want to do is make the engine stronger,” said Archer. “It’s already got 480 horsepower stock from the V10 engine. Because I’ve raced a lot of lower-powered cars, on a tight budget, our idea always has been to make ’em handle better enough to be competitive with higher-powered cars.”
Still, without going inside the engine itself, Archer used an extrude-hone technique to improve efficiency of the intake manifold, and probably increased the horsepower from 480 to 550. By the time the car is ready, the total modifications will probably be worth more than the car’s stock $65,000 sticker price.
Last week, Archer took the red Viper to Florida to test it on a race track near West Palm Beach and complete the set-up for the owner. A little track time could only help when he switched to the Team Oreca Viper at Daytona. He figures the three drivers will each take 2-hour shifts, with lap times of about 1 minute, 55 seconds, at top speeds of 190 mph.
His determination to win is based on his competitiveness, not on the prize money. He doesn’t even know what the purse is, in fact, now that Rolex, the maker of costly and exotic wristwatches, is the sponsor.
“Maybe the winner will get a Rolex, I don’t know,” said Archer, glancing at his wrist. “I wear a $19 Timex.”
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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