Sandahl reflects pride in girls tournament
Sanya Sandahl, goaltender for the Duluth Dynamite girls hockey team and a finalist for the Ms. Hockey award presented to the top senior goalie in the state, was an integral part of the Duluth team’s first venture to the state girls hockey tournament.
With the majority of the girls from Duluth East, and several from Denfeld, Sandahl was the only regular from Central, and she agreed to keep a journal for the Budgeteer News on her view of the historic tournament.
Sandahl’s exceptional play includes a 1.3 goals-against average and a 94 percent save mark during the team’s 21-6-1 season, and is more remarkable because she never played hockey until eighth grade. Born in Duluth, she and her family moved to Bemidji, then to Edmonton, Alberta, where she lived for six years, until the family moved back to a Duluth residence in the Lakewood area on the Lester River Road.
She was in the eighth grade then and was active in sports, but “hated figure skating,” she said, so she decided to try hockey. She made the first team she tried out for as goalie “because the other goalie had never played, either.” Sandahl is the perfect example of the merits of the combined-school team, because otherwise Central wouldn’t have had enough players to field a team.
Other Sandahl facts: She hopes to attend and play hockey at Princeton or Cornell; she’s quick-witted with a good but sometimes sarcastic sense of humor, a 3.86 student whose favorite subjects are math and physics; she loves animals, particularly dogs, and her family has an Alaskan malamute and a golden retriever; she used to ride horses but gave it up for hockey; her favorite food is pizza, and she prefers cheese-only, from Domino’s; her favorite color is black.
Here is a goalie-masked view of state tournament weekend:
By Sanya Sandahl
Special to the Budgeteer
(Wednesday, Feb. 17) We were all ready to leave Duluth at 8:30 a.m., but one of our captains, Leah Wrazidlo, was late. Not only that, we were held up by a presentation of awards from the city of Duluth.
We finally arrived in St. Paul, but, of course, we went to the wrong hotel. Yes, we had already unloaded and had to reload the bus. Finally, we checked into the Radisson Inn, which I must say is a very nice place. It’s even connected to the Town Square on the second floor, which resembles a small mall.
Ten minutes after checking in, we left for practice in Cottage Grove. That practice led us into the most exciting event of the day. The entire team, half in dresses and the others in sweaters and nice pants, went to the state tournament banquet, held at the Radisson Hotel to welcome the eight teams. We had spaghetti for dinner, and then all the teams were introduced by their coaches. At that point it was just an honor to be part of the experience.
We had a chance to purchase the limited-edition Minnesota Rink Rats tee-shirts. We were so excited to see our jersey on that rat; we really made it to State! I must say, that Duluth jersey sure looks a lot better than Hibbing’s.
After the banquet, we returned to teh hotel. The girls had some energy to burn after sitting for two hours, so the beds were used as trampolines, as our great role models, Tresa Lamphier and Leah, attempted flips from one bed to the next.
(Thursday, Feb. 18) In preparation for our game against Mankato at 7:15 p.m., we went to breakfast at Perkins. After stuffing ourselves, we proceeded to shop at Rosedale to satisfy the girls’ craving for Abercrombie andFitch. Again, we went to Cottage Grove for a pregame practice.
At 7:15, we stepped on the ice at the Coliseum for our first-ever state tournament appearance. We came out flying, but were slowed to Mankato’s pace for the second and third periods. All the girls played well, and we came out ahead 5-2.
After all the press and loyal fans had cleared out, we stayed to scout our next opponent. We watched Roseville romp Burnsville [5-0] to advance to the semifinal. That game was fairly late and we were getting really tired as midnight approached, so we ordered pizza from the hotel and then went to bed.
(Friday, Feb. 19) With our game against Roseville not scheduled until 9:15 p.m., coach Jack Shearer gave us free rein until practice in the early afternoon to roam the area.
We all took off in our own directions, some getting lost in downtown St. Paul, and others just being lazy in their rooms.
At practice, we went over strategies to use against Roseville. Starting with practice, our intensity began to rise, and many girls had fire in their eyes. The nerves had settled and our one team goal was to win this game.
We left the hotel early to watch the first semifinal between South St. Paul and Bloomington Jefferson. We anxiously waited in our locker room while their game went into double overtime.
In our game, we came out flying and won the first period 1-0, even though I kept awfully busy, with us being outshot 12-2. The whole team was focused and determined, but we came up short, eventually losing 3-2. Despite the loss, we played our hearts out and performed better than I’ve ever seen over our three-year history.
Being one goal away from the state championship game was both the best and worst feeling for many of us. We were all so proud of each other having reached this point and the unforgettable game played. On the other side was the disappointment of losing a game that we’d fought so hard for. After all, we gave Roseville — the eventual state champion who beat Burnsville 5-0 and Jefferson 9-2 in their other games — their biggest challenge of the tournament.
That’s pretty good considering people south of Hinckley didn’t believe we belonged in the state tournament.
(Saturday, Feb. 20) After not getting off the ice until after midnight last night, we kind of ran out of gas in the third-place game against South St. Paul. We woke up fairly listless, but gradually perked up to play a good game in the last two periods. We tried, but we had nothing left to give but we lost 3-0.
We took home the fourth-place trophy and the sportsmanship banner, which was quite an honor for most of us. Our finish of fourth out of 98 teams in Minnesota, even our birth in the state tournament, exceeded many people’s expectations.
Yes, girls hockey does exist in Northern Minnesota in places other than Hibbing. The seniors’ emotions were focused on having played our last game, but it was also the last time that the Duluth Dynamite would play. I think we accomplished a lot for a team with only a three-year history to leave behind.
Berg, Gophers outgun UMD 10-7
UMD’s intention, in the weekend hockey series against their arch-rival Minnesota, was to throw a wrench into the Gopher’s hope of finishing high enough to get home-ice in the upcoming WCHA playoffs. Instead, the Bulldogs fine-tuned the formidable Gopher offense, which scored the last four goals Saturday night to claim a 10-7 shootout victory and a sweep of UMD’s final home series.
Both teams had been scoring under 2.5 goals per game coming into the weekend, but Minnesota’s 14 goals in the two games puts them in position of reaching the top five in next weekend’s series against Wisconsin. The Bulldogs can’t finish anywhere but last, and face a trip to second-place Colorado College next weekend, where they also will undoubtedly open the playoffs in two weeks.
Reggie Berg scored four goals, a personal high for the senior from Anoka, to lead Minnesota, with defenseman Bill Kohn scoring twice. Wyatt Smith, who had the first three in Friday night’s 4-1 victory, scored the first one Saturday and added two assists, as seniors scored eight of the 10 Gopher goals.
Friday night’s 4-1 Gopher victory created three distinct challenges. The Gophers, striving for an upper-division and therefore home-ice playoff berth, had to repeat their conquest by again playing in a manner that their high-level talent warrants. The Bulldogs — both those who were embarrassed by the third-period penalty fest and those who should have been — resolved to come out and spend their energy in a more positive fashion and try, once again, to prove they are better than the last-place status they have guaranteed.
But the biggest challenge was to referee John Seidel, who was a victim of the first-game’s third-period flare-ups, when nothing in the first two indicated what was to come. Obviously, his intention was to call everything as closely as possible to keep a tight rein on the teams.
Nobody could have imagined the result.
Here’s the first period: Penalty to UMD’s Judd Medak; power-play goal by Minnesota’s Wyatt Smith at 3:03. Penalty to Minnesota’s Reggie Berg; power-play goal by UMD’s Ryan Homstol. Coincidental double-minors, 4-on-4 goal by UMD’s Judd Medak. Penalty to UMD; power-play goalby Gopher Erik Wendell. Two penalties to the Gophers, with a 2-man power-play goal by UMD’s Mark Carlson followed by a 1-man power-play goal by Shawn Pogreba. Penalty to UMD; power-play goal by Berg.
Finally, with 2:18 to go, Minnesota scored a goal without benefit of a penalty when Bill Kohn broke in from the point to score. Then Berg scored again, also at full strength. And Ryan Coole got one back for UMD before the period ended.
Whew! The two lightest-scoring teams in the WCHA wound up 5-5 in the first period, with both going 3-for-3 on the power play.
Second period, more of the same. Penalty to UMD in the first minute, power-play goal by Rico Pagel at 1:19. Penalty to Pagel at 1:46, power-play goal by Jeff Scissons at 2:35.
At 3:37 of the middle period, Shawn Pogreba was penalized for cross-checking, which became the first penalty of the game on which no goal was scored. Four seconds after it expired, Colin Anderson swiped the puck and scored unassisted, breaking a 6-all tie in UMD’s favor at 5:41.
But goaltender Brant Nicklin, who made 35 saves in the first two periods, couldn’t hold off the hustling Gophers, who came back for a 7-7 tie when Kohn scored his second, their fifth power-play tally of the game. This time they made it carry over, with Mike Anderson scoring at 15:30 and Berg completing his hat trick by converting a rebound 28 seconds later.
Minnesota skated to the dressing room for the second intermission with a 9-7 lead, and the Bulldogs, having already duplicated their season-high seven goals scored against Air Force Academy, badly in need of a field goal.
Instead, as if arm-weary, the teams quit scoring. The only goal of the third period came with 2:33 to go when Berg broke in, fought off a check, and beat Nicklin at the crease.
Mariners storybook trip more than just Cinderella
Silver Bay’s youth hockey program had to work 45 years to become an overnight sensation, but that’s exactly how the Silver Bay Mariners will be regarded when they make their first trip to the Minnesota state high school hockey tournament this week.
The Mariners (18-5-2) won’t have a lot of time to wait, because they meet East Grand Forks in the 12:05 p.m. opening game Wednesday in the Class A quarterfinals at Target Center. But that should be enough time for all the media to focus on the team from the tiny North Shore town and the smallest high school in the state to form a hockey program.
Silver Bay’s emergence as Section 7A’s state tournament hockey team took a lot longer than Silver Bay’s emergence as a North Shore town.
Back in the early 1950s, where the stoplight intersection allows you to turn north and enter Silver Bay, there wasn’t even a turnoff to interrupt travel between Two Harbors and Grand Marais. Just the normally scenic Hwy. 61 curving through the rocky land and pine trees that offered an interlude between breathtaking views of Lake Superior.
That was 1953. In December of 1994, Reserve Mining opened a taconite processing plant right there on the North Shore, where railroad cars from the Iron Range could bring their stuff to be processed and loaded onto Lake Superior freighters in one move. The town of Silver Bay sprang to life around it, virtually overnight.
When the demand for steel receded, and things tightened up on the Iron Range, Silver Bay seemed headed down a one-way road to desolation. Having grown to over 4,000 residents, the majority of them fled to find employment. Population dwindled down to near 1,000, maybe, and homes that had been built new were abandoned, sold on the market for $10,000 to folks looking for summer homes.
Things finally stabilized, with North Shore Mining now the dominant employer, and a state veteran’s nursing home adding to the economic stability, and the neat little North Shore town now numbers about 1,800 population. There are 135 students in the high school, grades 10-12. Not only is that small enough to qualify for Class A, it is the smallest-enrollment school to field its own hockey team, a source of considerable pride in the community.
“I hope people really blow up the Cinderella thing,” said coach Mike Guzzo said. “It’s a great story, and it’s awesome for hockey. It’s a pretty intense time in town, and most people will look at it as a once-in-a-lifetime thing. But we think we’ve got it going the right way, and maybe we won’t drop off.”
If the media get tired of the Cinderella smalltown angle, there’s always John Conboy to dwell on. He’ll be the one who is on the ice more than on the bench, because he plays as much as he’s able, which is plenty. He’s finishing off his fifth year as a regular, and he’s now the captain, defenseman, scoring and spiritual leader of this year’s team.
“Sometimes the more John plays, the better he plays,” says Guzzo. “We jump him up to forward on the power play. But with a big horse like that, you want him out there as much as possible.”
John Conboy has accepted a scholarship to transfer his forceful play to UMD next fall, but for now he’ll be wearing No. 11 on Silver Bay’s blue line. Well…sometimes on the blue line, and sometimes in front of or behind his own net, and just as often hurtling down the ice on skillful puck-rushes which generate a large percentage of Silver Bay’s offense.
Guzzo is amazed at Conboy’s skill, but he hopes that in focusing on the smalltown and Conboy angles, because that focus may cause foes to overlook the fact that this team has a lot of elements all hitting a peak at the right time.
Still, a trip to the state tournament was only a pipe-dream for those who watched the early days, when brothers Donny and John Dumais were the stars. Donny went on to play at the University of Minnesota in the early 1970s. In fact, maybe only a pipe-dream to those of more recent years, when two more brothers, Brian and Brad Johnson, both starred and went on to play at UMD.
But it was not a pipedream to Mike Guzzo, a lifer who grew up in Silver Bay, and played hockey on the 1974-75 team that won the Lake Superior Conference and is believed by many long-time observers to be the best Silver Bay team in the North Shore town’s history. Until this year.
Guzzo is in his 12th year as Silver Bay’s head hockey coach, and he was an assistant for two years before that, helping build and rebuild the team painstakingly in that time. He had one star come along, named Rusty Fitzgerald, but his family moved to Duluth and he wound up helping Duluth East, not Silver Bay, make it to state. Brian Johnson is the all-time Silver Bay points leader with 161, and Rusty Fitzgerald is second with 152, although he left after his junior year. Third in all-time scoring is John Conboy, whose 19 goals, 21 assists and 40 points boosts him to 148 career points from defense.
Doug Conboy was among the pilgrims to Silver Bay. He grew up playing hockey and football in Mounds View, and at Augsburg, where he got his teaching degree 25 years ago and accepted a job to teach and coach at Silver Bay. He’s still there. He stopped coaching hockey but still coaches football. Along with John, a senior, sophomore Jared, is a promising sophomore defenseman on this Mariner team.
But there is a lot more to the team’s success. The goaltender, Greg Buell, is a senior who has a2.10 goals-against and 91.3 percent saves, and may wind up playing junior hockey and advancing to a higher level. “That’s impressive, especially because of our style,” said Guzzo. “We tend to throw the kitchen sink at teams, and we’ve been known to give up a breakaway or two.”
The first forward line is centered by Nic Johnson, a gifted athlete who was quarterback for Doug Conboy’s football team, which included John Conboy as a running back and about eight other of these hockey players. Juniors Sean Buckley and Andy Martinson are wingers on Johnson’s line, and they’ve been responsible for most of the scoring. Johnson has 19-33–52 for scoring stats, Martinson 16-29–45, and Buckley 14-18–32.
But Guzzo’s sensitivity to a small-core program and patience in building has brought along the entire roster.
“Nic and Martinson play together all the time, but we often rotate two left wings on our top three lines,” said Guzzo. “Thomas Christensen (11-10–21) is the other left wing who rotates with Sean. Otherwise our second line has Christensen, who’s 6-3 and 215, with Tanner Paulseth, a sophomore, and Luke Mattila. Luke is a senior who played with Nic and Martinson last year. We broke them up for balance this year, then Luke broke his collarbone. He came back for our last regular season game and the playoffs.
“With Luke out, we were scraping along with two lines so we could keep a junior varsity going. We lost a 1-0 game to Hermantown, and I tried to match two lines with them because we were home team. But I decided, no waywere we going to go anywhere with just two lines.”
Matt Cook, a junior who was a linebacker in football, centers junior Eric Berquist on the right, and either one of the alternating left wings or senior Tracy Pearson.
“Even with a small program, I think it’s important to have a JV,” Guzzo said. “We started the JV a year ago, and we started putting our ninth graders on it. It’s really helped.”
Guzzo trusts the defense to assistant Gary Gustafson, who also is a master juggler. He basically runs five defensemen, alternating John Conboy and Jake Burns on one side. Burns had two goals and an assist in the 4-1 Section 7A victory over Mesabi East. John Conboy and Burns usually play the last shift of each period, and they two usually start each period too. Before a minute is up, Jared Conboy goes over the boards to replace Burns, who then comes back out when John Conboy needs a break, while senior Benji Klemmer and junior B.J. Larson man the other slots.
Big schools with great depth may never have to do that kind of computerized juggling, but the Mariners have made it work for a state tournament trip.
Before this, the closest they got was to be loaded up in a couple of vans for a trip to the DECC to watch the section finals at the DECC. Guzzo wanted his young players to see what could be accomplished, and now they’ve done it themselves.
The trip has consumed the town, where they can’t close the school, but many services are going to be curtailed. It’s also consumed the whole North Shore, from Two Harbors to Grand Marais, where Cook County has made a name for itself in football, but may supply some players from its own youth hockey program to Silver Bay’s hockey team in the future.
The old cliche about the last person leaving town, turn out the lights, used to be a cruel and not unrealistic joke about Silver Bay. It’s true this week, but only because the town is evacuating to watch their boys in a state tournament.
North Shore Mining has contributed to the expenses of a coach bus to take the team to the Twin Cities, and to make sure the kids have a memorable experience. That shouldn’t be a problem.
Something is missing from AA tournament
Maybe it’s just a weird year. The 55th Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament for boys will be held in Minneapolis instead of St. Paul, at Target Center instead of the torn-down-but-soon-to-be-rebuilt Civic Center, and fans will find more congestion, less parking and higher prices awaiting them.
But strangest of all will be the unprecedented absence of a Duluth or Iron Range Conference team from the Class AA field.
Hockey fans here in Up North territory can indeed be thankful for the Class A tournament, where Hermantown and Silver Bay can be counted on to carry the Up North colors in prideful fashion.
But in Class AA, Iron Range and Duluth teams, which accounted for19 of the first 36 championships and six more titles in the seven years of two-level tournaments — including both AA and A last year — will not be represented. Hibbing, Duluth East and Greenway were all powerful threats, but they yielded the Section 7AA championship to Elk River last week.
It will be the first time in tournament history that neither an Iron Range nor Duluth area team won Region or Section 7 and therefore will not be represented among the elite field of eight Class AA entries, and no less than Elk River coach Tony Sarsland thinks that’s inexcusable.
“It’s ridiculous that we have to play in Section 7,” said Sarsland, after his team beat Duluth East in the semifinals and Hibbing in a three-overtime classic final. “The Iron Range and Duluth schools are why the tournament is there. They put it on the map. We’re not a Range team, we belong in Section 4. The teams up here, this is what they live for. My heart goes out to ’em. It’s baloney.”
Roseau is about as far north as you can get, but even though the Rams from Section 8 are favored along with Hastings, Elk River and Hill-Murray for the Class AA title, their appearance won’t come close to soothing the pain in Section 7.
Often overlooked as a subsidiary event to the “big school” tournament, this year, the Class A event for smaller programs will carry at least as much entertainment value this year as their larger and more publicized AA rivals.
Hermantown (21-3-1) was state runner-up last year to Eveleth-Gilbert, and will ride into Wednesday’s opening round as one of the tournament favorites, even though folks south of Cambridge may assume that Benilde-St. Margaret’s (23-2) is the favorite. Conveniently, we’ll soon find out who is right, because Hermantown takes on Benilde in the 7:05 p.m. opening round game at Target Center.
The overwhelming choice as Cinderella team for the week is Silver Bay (18-5-2), which is the smallest school (135 students) in the state to have a hockey team, but the Mariners, from the smallest town (1,800), hope the attention on their Cinderella status may cause their skill level and forceful style to be overlooked by opponents.
The Mariners will face East Grand Forks (14-10-1) in the 12:05 p.m. first game of Wednesday’s first round. That second Class A game has ((((Blake (19-5-1)/Breck (19-6)))) meeting upstart St. Thomas Academy (15-10).
Wednesday night’s evening session has the Hermantown-Benilde clash followed by Fergus Falls (15-7-1) against Red Wing (19-4-2).
The Class A semifinals are Friday at 12:05 and 2:45 p.m., and the final is Saturday at 2 p.m.
In Class AA, Eden Prairie (18-7) opens at 12:05 p.m. Thursday against colorful Holy Angels (24-1), the Cinderella team in AA, but a private school that has become a stronghold of hockey in recent years, as Richfield’s answer to Hill-Murray.
Roseau (23-1) takes on Rochester Mayo (22-3-1) at 2:05 Thursday, with the evening session promising a pair of slugfests, with Elk River (22-3) facing Hill-Murray (21-3-1) at 7:05 and Hastings (21-4) favored against Blaine (21-4) in the 9:45 finale to the first round.
Class AA semifinals are at 7:05 and 9:45 p.m. Friday, with the championship game at 8:15 p.m. Saturday.
As usual, the hockey tournament is guaranteed to be filled with surprises and spectacular performances and plays. But if something seems missing, it will be the Duluth and Iron Range entries in Class AA. It would be a good year for a cynic to organize an NIT (Northern Invitational Tournament) at the DECC, with Duluth East, Hibbing, Greenway and Eveleth playing a round robin.
More realistically, University of Minnesota coach Doug Woog put it best, suggesting the high school league should find a way to assure Up North teams a place in the tournament.
“They’ve made some rules to protect the new programs in the southern part of the state,” said Woog. “But they should also make rules to protect the tradition and heritage of Northern Minnesota teams. They can protect the past while looking ahead to the future.”
Playoff finality comes too soon
The Section 2A hockey tournament is a Saturday semifinal and Tuesday final from completion, but Thursday night’s Hermantown-Proctor game may prove to have been the deciding game, even though it was “only” a quarterfinal.
There is no such thing as “only” when it comes to state hockey sectional playoffs. Whatever round it is, it’s the harsh reality of win-or-else. Advance, or turn in your gear for the season.
Hermantown had a first-round bye, awaiting its old neighborhood rival. Proctor already had to play a game, Tuesday night.
The Proctor ice arena is a classic old building. You enter a lobby area, where people flock between periods to warm up by the concession stand, or they go upstairs to a meeting room that provides a warm, glassed-in view from one end.
Ah, but in the arena itself, the chill of the ice slaps you in the face as you look out from behind one net. The main bleacher seats are around to the right, the player’s boxes to the left. The walls are covered with aging panels of insulation, to keep the cold IN, not OUT. And there are great, bright lights, the kind of lights that the builders of the sparkling new Cloquet arena should examine and duplicate to improve the dusk-like dimness of their state-of-the-art facility, where the seating area is brighter than the ice surface.
Walking around to the left, toward the players benches, you pass a small, corner perch where the pep band is stationed. As long as there aren’t too many in the band.
There are a couple rows of bleacher seats on that side, although when you walk along the boarded walkway between them and the boards you’re careful, because the walkway is at about a 15 percent slope.
As usual in an old, colorful arena, the ice is good, and therefore so is the speed of the game, and those watching it will enjoy it without need for sanitary, new accessories.
Hermantown and Proctor both branch off into Section 2A, which is good, because it gives Up North teams a chance for another berth in the state tournament, beyond just 7AA and 7A. Hermantown and Proctor are, probably, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in 2A, although Chisago Lakes has an impressive record, too. But Section 2A extends all the way to Mora, St. Cloud, Princeton and Monticello, and they decided to seed the section on the basis of east and west teams. Hermantown was East No. 1, Chisago Lakes East 2, Pine City East 3 and Proctor East 4. Cambridge is No. 1 in the West.
That meant Proctor — actually Proctor/AlBrook — had to play Moose Lake — actually Moose Lake/Willow River/Barnum/Cromwell — in an opening round game last Tuesday. That was unfortunate as a seeding location, particularly to Moose Lake, a good enough young team to deserve to play a team of more similar capabilities, for a chance at a memorable victory, rather than to face a team as strong as Proctor.
The trouble with such far-ranging seeding is that nobody from one end knows much about the other, and the West end could have teams with .500 records seeded high. Chisago Lakes had merit enough to be seeded high in the East, with an impressive 7-5 victory over Marshall at Pioneer Hall a couple of weeks ago.
Marshall coach Brendan Flaherty admitted afterward that the Chisago Lakes game would be the only one that was a break from conference play, so he played all of his seniors, including his backup goaltender. The 7-5 loss was meaningless, compared to the wonderful gesture of giving his seniors a night to cherish always. It turned out to be more than meaningless, perhaps, inhibiting Marshall’s seeding a bit in 7A and enhancing Chisago Lakes’ seeding in 2A.
Because of their schedule, the Proctor Rails probably should have been seeded No. 2, with the chance to meet Hermantown in the final.
As it is, though, they won’t have to give back any memories from that first-round night in the Proctor Arena, where the chill was broken by the aroma of several platters of barbecued food their parents prepared and carried to a post-game feast upstairs.
The Rails earned the celebration, however brief, because they were flying that night, out on that cold slab of ice.
Aaron Slattengren, a swift, forceful junior, scored on a wraparound after only 14 seconds had elapsed from when Jay Dardis took the opening faceoff. Slattengren then beat the defense with a great pass that sent Dardis, a lanky, creative centerman, in for a 2-0 lead exactly four minutes later.
Slattengren scored on a breakaway to start the second period, and Ryan Morgando and Richie Upton scored 11 seconds apart to make it 5-0 before Joe Danelski, a strapping 6-3, 230-pound defenseman, hammered one in for Moose Lake. In the third period, Jack Hom, Dardis and Matt Ogston added goals as the Rails sent the game into running time for an 8-1 final.
It was an impressive display, as Dardis, a senior center committed to St. Cloud State after a year in the USHL, and Slattengren each scored two goals and four assists in the game. Junior Corey Lonke had 23 saves for Proctor, but everyone knew he’d face a lot more shots against Hermantown.
Still, the Dardis-Upton-Slattengren line would be a challenge for Hermantown’s Jon Francisco-Chris Baron-Andy Corran top line. Hermantown coach Bruce Plante knew that, which is why Plante was there in the chill of Proctor Arena, checking out the proceedings.
The Proctor-Hermantown game would have been a fitting final in Section 2A. It figured to be a great game no matter when, but the quarterfinals were just too early for either one of them to be finished, and to already be savoring memories of more successful nights.
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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