Bulldogs fall to Huskies 6-3
The St. Cloud State Huskies don’t need a team bus, they need an ambulance. Held together with knee-braces, adhesive tape and recruits from the student body, the Huskies may never be more vulnerable than they were on Friday night. Ah, but this is the season where the UMD Bulldogs keep inventing new ways to lose, and last night they committed enough lapses for St. Cloud to skate off with a 6-3 victory.
Tyler Arnason scored two goals and Lee Brooks had a goal and set up another to pace the Huskies, who came into the series in reach of the last-place Bulldogs, and left for home, and tonight’s rematch in St. Cloud, having climbed past the University of Minnesota into seventh place.
“It was a really big game for us mentally,” said St. Cloud coach Craig Dahl. “We played so well and lost both games at Michigan Tech last week, that we needed to win to get some confidence back.”
From the outset, this series included the undercurrent of whether either team could fill out a full roster. The Bulldogs were without freshman center Tommy Nelson, who has been playing well and scored his first goal last weekend, because of the lingering after-effects of a concussion. Sophomore Mark Gunderson also missed practice the last two days with the flu, and kept the coaches guessing until game time, then scored two goals with booming slapshots — to open the game and one to give the Bulldogs hope at 4-3 in the third period.
The Huskies, meantime, were without star forwards Jason Goulet and Peter Torsson, both with torn knee ligaments; Chris Zaleski, with post-concussion syndrome; and John Cullen has been out all season with shoulder surgery. In addition, Nick Ouimet transfered, and Mike Rucinski quit the team in midseason.
“We’re one player away from not being able to dress a full roster,” said Dahl., before the game. Then the game started, and the Huskies lost Matt Bailey with a first-period knee injury. when Curtis Bois took him down, then went down on top of him.
“He blew out his anterior-cruciate ligament,” said Dahl. “He’s done for the season. You hate to see it happen, especially to a real good kid.”
The Bulldogs won the battle of the infirmaries, because of Gunderson. The sophomore center skated up the right side to gather in Richie Anderson’s drop pass, and rifled a 45-footer in off the right post and at 2:07 of the first period. The sudden start may have surprised the 4,342 fans, and the Bulldogs played a strong, up-tempo, puck-control style through the first nine minutes. But it seemed as though they used up all their passes in that span, considering how their offense sputtered after that.
The Huskies forced Brant Nicklin to make several good saves before finally getting a pair of goals later in the opening period. Freshman center Arnason gained a 1-1 tie on a weird sequence while the Huskies were shorthanded at 9:47. Arnason carried up the right, 2-on-1, and passed across the slot. The puck hit George Awada’s skate and the ricochet went right at the net. Nicklin, moving over in anticipation of a 1-timer, had to do the splits to block the puck, but Arnason was at the crease to tap it in.
Oddly, had Nicklin not stopped the carom-shot, it probably would have been disallowed for being kicked. Whatever, the Huskies took a 2-1 lead at 16:27 when Keith Anderson blocked Richie Anderson’s outlet try and fired a quick shot, wide to the left. Lee Brooks, a freshman from Bloomington Jefferson, crossing right to left, tipped it out of the air and into the left side of the net.
The Bulldogs got a 2-2 tie at 3:40 of the second period when junior Jeremy Zahn, who hadn’t played since the first dozen games of the season but was pressed into duty by Nelson’s injury, made a clever backhand pass from the end boards to Eric Ness, and the freshman winger put it away from the edge of the crease.
“It was such a great pass, Zahn deserves all the credit,” said Ness. “I had the easy part.”
But the Huskies broke the tie with a pair of goals before the middle period ended. Brad Goulet converted a 2-on-1 feed from Nate DiCasmirro at 12:21, and Arnason outmuscled the UMD defense for position in the slot, and when Brandon Sampair fed out from the left corner, Arnason drilled his second of the game and 10th of the season.
Again, however, the retreating Bulldogs outnumbered the Huskies but failed to cover adequately. Brooks carried up the right and passed to the slot, where Keith Anderson cut through two or three Bulldogs and shot it into the lower right. That was at 8:11, and the Huskies withstood intermittent UMD attempts until Matt Noga scored into an empty net with 33 seconds remaining.
St. Cloud State 2 2 2 — 6
UMD 1 1 1 — 3
First Period: 1. UMD–Gunderson 3 (R. Anderson) 2:07. 1. StC–Arnason 9 (Awada) 9:47, short-handed. 2. StC–Brooks 2 (K. Anderson) 16:27. Penalties–Bailey, StC (roughing) and Medak, UMD (roughing) 2:07; Forbes, StC (cross-checking) 4:48; DiCasmirro, StC (roughing) 8:41; Coole, UMD (interference) 16:52; Parrish, StC (hooking) 17:35.
Second Period: 2. UMD–Ness 2 (Zahn, N. Anderson) 3:40. 3. StC–B. Goulet 4 (DiCasmirro) 12:21. 4. StC–Arnason 10 (Sampair) 18:37. Penalty–Pudluck, StC (holding) 14:05.
Third Period: 3. UMD–Gunderson 4 (Sauer) 5:10. 5. StC–K. Anderson 2 (Brooks, Parrish) 8:11. 6. StC– Noga 6 (Sampair) 19:27, Empty net. Penalties–Forbes, StC (roughing) and Coole, UMD (roughing) 5:24; Noga, StC (hooking) 9:18; Pudluck, StC (roughing) and Coole, UMD (roughing) 15:59; Homstol, UMD (roughing) 19:27.
Saves: Weasler, StC 11 14 10–35; Nicklin, UMD 14 8 8–30. Power plays: St. Cloud 0-2; UMD 0-5. Referee: Seidel; assistant referees: Wohlers, Elvy. Attendance– 4,342.
Bulldogs swept by Huskies
ST. CLOUD, MINN.—
With 10 games remaining in the regular season, there is no certainty that the UMD Bulldogs are assured of finishing last in the 9-team WCHA. No certainty, but a pretty secure probability, after losing both games of last weekend’s series with St. Cloud State.
At 3-13-2, the ‘Dogs have 8 points, and, for the first time, officially are excluded from winning the WCHA. North Dakota, the No. 1 ranked team in the country, swept Minnesota to stand 14-1-1 for 29 points. The Bulldogs, by sweeping their last 10 games, would earn 20 more points to end up with 28 — one shy of North Dakota’s current total, with the Fighting Sioux coming to the DECC to face UMD this weekend.
The race itself is so tight that great movement can occur on a given weekend. Take St. Cloud State, for example. The Huskies were only four points ahead of UMD’s cellar a week ago, and while the double losses left the Bulldogs behind, the double victories vaulted the Huskies from eighth to fifth place, passing Minnesota, Michigan Tech and Wisconsin in a single bound.
“We got tired,” said Huskies coach Craig Dahl, who has had to dip into the student body to replace five players who have been injured and two more who left the club. “Our guys didn’t have much left, but it was a big weekend for us.”
For the Bulldogs, last weekend showed the possibility of the first signs of despair. All season, UMD has played well enough to win, but found different ways to fall just barely short. On Friday, however, they lost 6-3 to St. Cloud State, including an empty-net goal. In that one, even though Mark Gunderson scored two goals with booming shots and Eric Ness converted a perfect feed from little-used Jeremy Zahn, the Bulldogs did NOT play well enough to win. At least some of the players showed an apparent tendency to be satisfied if observers thought they had put out an effort.
After that Friday game, while the coaches may have used up all their optimistic, positive phrases about good-effort-bad-result, the entire coaching staff stayed behind closed doors. Mike Sertich and assistants Jim Knapp, Glenn Kulyk and goalie coach John Hyduke were barricaded in Sertich’s office, where voices frequently rose to high decible levels as the players quietly showered, dressed and departed.
The ‘Dogs snapped back to form on Saturday in St. Cloud, falling behind 2-0 before Jeff Scissons scored a power-play goal on a double-deflection with three seconds left in the first period, then tying it 2-2 when Shawn Pogreba scored a shorthanded breakaway goal early in the second.
St. Cloud State regained the lead at 4-2 on goals by Mike Pudlick and George Awada, before Pogreba and Colin Anderson set up Mark Carlson for a goal that cut the deficit to 5-3 with 4:41 remaining. Again, an open-net goal, this one when Brandon Sampair finished off Tyler Arnason’s long try with 12 seconds to go, ended the 5-3 game.
So it was back to normal, as the Bulldogs played well enough to get close enough to make the almost inevitable loss heartbreaking. There were, however, more signs that the normal post-game stuff was getting old, too old to be rehashed again. “We got close enough so that it came down to us making a play, and we didn’t do it,” said Sertich.
That comment came after Sertich had taken a brief side-trip on his way from the ice to the visiting dressing room at the National Hockey Center. A fan had been taunting Sertich, and got too personal for the coach’s liking. When he got to the corridor, instead of turning left to the dressing room, Sertich made an abrupt right, sprinted down the corridor and climbed one level, where he confronted the surprised fan.
“I asked him if he had anything else he wanted to say to me,” said Sertich. “He apologized.”
Maybe a little flare of temper and some stunning emotion could have an impact on the players, as well.
“We have to look at ourselves, it’s our team,” said Pogreba. “As the coaches said, it comes down to us making the plays; they can’t do anything once we’re out there and the game is going on.”
There were a couple of distinct differences between the two teams, despite their proximity in the standings, at least before the weekend. The Bulldogs were without Tommy Nelson, the freshman center who had played so well before being knocked out of the lineup with a concussion against Denver that still bothered him enough to miss the Huskies series.
The Huskies, meanwhile, lost speedy forward Matt Bailey to a knee injury when Curtis Bois knocked him down, then delivered a squashing additional hit, forcing him back after he was down on his knees. “I heard the knee pop,” said Bailey, a former linemate of Bulldog Richie Anderson at Elk River. He joins Jason Goulet and Peter Torsson, other top Huskie forwards lost to torn knee ligaments.
But to the 6,114 at the National Hockey Center, there was another clear difference Saturday night. The three UMD goals came on Scissons double-deflection from shooter Jesse Fibiger and first tipped by Ryan Homstol, on Pogreba’s well-aimed breakaway shot, and on Carlson’s quick shot from the slot.
All six St. Cloud State goals — except for the open-net finale — came on big, explosive slapshots. Geno Parrish blasted a screened shot past Brant Nicklin from left point; Sampair bombed a 25-foot slapshot; Mike Pudlick ripped a power-play shot from center point; and George Awada stepped in to intercept a careless breakout try and blasted a 30-footer.
“It was surprising that we were able to score on so many long shots,” said Parrish. “Especially considering how much trouble we’ve had scoring against Nicklin in the past.”
Somehow, it shouldn’t be surprising that high-velocity shots went into the UMD net. Just as it shouldn’t be surprising that the Bulldogs have trouble scoring, while rarely shooting the puck with anything resembling force.
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.
Hibbing, Greenway, East seeded 2-3-4
In the end, the actual numerical seeding of the Section 7AA hockey playoff didn’t matter. At this point, the pairings are all that count, because records won’t mean a thing when the shooting — and scoring — starts next Friday.
In one bracket, Elk River is heavily favored, and knows it, against St. Francis, while Duluth East faces Cloquet-Esko-Carlton. In the other bracket, Hibbing takes on Grand Rapids and Greenway of Coleraine meets Forest Lake. Winners play in what promises to be a memorable semifinal doubleheader at the DECC on Tuesday, Feb. 23, with the championship being decided on Thursday, Feb. 25, at Hibbing.
But setting up the pairings required an intrigue-filled night. Considering the potential for disagreement, the Section 7AA seeding meeting could have been staged in a gymnasium, on a wrestling pad, instead of at Southgate Bowl in Cloquet, where the eight coaching staffs sat in a room and talked above the backdrop of clattering pins from the adjacent bowling lanes.
Across the state, the only teams whose caliber, schedule and performance in Class AA matches East, Greenway, Hibbing and Elk River are Hastings, Hill-Murray, Roseville and Roseau. That means that the fabulous foursome in 7AA represent four of the top eight AA hockey teams in the state. Eagan’s record is as good, but despite two upsets of Hastings, their schedule and caliber remain a notch below.
Going into the meeting, the different coaches had to examine what would happen if they should win a round or two in the sectional.
Hibbing (17-4) and Greenway of Coleraine (17-4) tied for the Iron Range Conference hockey championship and split two games against each other this season. Both of them respect Duluth East (16-5), which, quite amazingly, has won five consecutive Section 7AA hockey titles and is equipped to run for a sixth. Greenway and Hibbing both would prefer not to wind up facing the Greyhounds in the semifinals, which will be in the DECC on the section’s alternating concept of semifinal and final sites.
Then there’s Elk River (19-1), which is ranked No. 1 in the Up North state rankings. The Elks play on a new, larger, Olympic-size ice sheet at home, so Greenway, Hibbing and East would all prefer to play Elk River on the undersized rink at the DECC, rather than on the larger, near-Olympic size rink at Hibbing. Except for Hibbing, which wouldn’t mind playing anybody on their home-ice.
But East coach Mike Randolph, Hibbing coach Mark DeCenzo and Greenway coach Pat Guyer all were quick to interrupt any such speculation about the likely prospect of a sectional semifinal that would pair up those four powers, because they totally respect underdogs such as Cloquet and Grand Rapids, and even Forest Lake and St. Francis. In particular, East, Greenway and Hibbing would just as soon avoid Cloquet and Grand Rapids in the first round, considering both to be sleeping giants who could awaken at a painful time.
Duluth East athletic director Mike Miernicki called the assembled coaches to order and conducted the seeding meeting. After updating all records, he issued ballots which each team filled out and submitted, excluding themselves and ranking the rest 1-7. He counted the ballots, counting the position voted and listing them with the fewest vote-points at the top. It came out: 1. Elk River (7, obviously with seven first-place picks); 2. tie between Greenway and Hibbing aith 18; 4. Duluth East (21); 5. Cloquet (31); 6. Forest Lake (39); 7. Grand Rapids (42); and 8. St. Francis (48).
It was fitting that Greenway and Hibbing tied, and a case could be made for both, with Hibbing having beaten East, while Greenway lost to East; Greenway having inflicted the only loss of Roseau’s season in a 6-3 game, while Hibbing lost to Roseau; Greenway beat both Eden Prairie and Burnsville, while Hibbing lost to both; Greenway lost to Rochester Mayo while Hibbing beat Mayo. Meanwhile, East had a strong case, because while the ‘Hounds were upset 4-3 by Hermantown, one of the state’s best Class A teams, their other losses were to Elk River, Hill-Murray, Hastings and Hibbing — all among those top eight in the state.
How to break the tie? Guyer had a suggestion: “Paper, rock, scissors,” he said.
“I told our team at practice that we’d probably be fourth and play Cloquet,” said Randolph.
“So did I,” said Guyer.
Next, each coach got a couple minutes to state his team’s season and lobby for a higher place. Finally, new ballots were issued for a revote. There was only one change, of one vote on the secret ballots: East gained one vote, which didn’t change their fourth seed; that point came at Greenway’s expense, dropping the Raiders one point behind Hibbing and into third.
Greenway coach Guyer acknowledged that while he knows Forest Lake is dangerous, he was relieved to have avoided meeting Grand Rapids, in what would have been a neighborhood battle superceding the team’s strength; while “winning” the tie-breaking procedure, Hibbing now gets to face Grand Rapids.
East is locked into facing Cloquet, a team the ‘Hounds just whipped 7-1. That makes Randolph more concerned than usual, because, by luck of the draw and the changed dates for the sectional from recent years, the first round is on Friday at the site of the higher seed, but the DECC is booked for that night. So the teams play at Cloquet. Which, in effect, means that Cloquet gets the benefit of the fourth seed and East gets the road trip of a fifth-seed.
While coaches can’t afford to look ahead, we can envision a scenario with the top four seeds winning their opening games, which would mean a DECC semifinal doubleheader a week from Tuesday with Elk River facing East at 6 p.m., and the third of the season’s Greenway-Hibbing battles at 8.
Guyer, DeCenzo and Randolph all said it all really didn’t matter, because the winner will have to win three tough games. Cloquet coach Tom MacFarlane said: “We had beaten Grand Rapids and Forest Lake, so I figured we’d end up seeded ahead of them in fifth. That meant we’d have to play East, Greenway or Hibbing, and they’re all so strong, what does it matter? We end up at home against East. We’ve struggled this season, and we couldn’t have hoped for anything better.”
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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