Greenway, Hibbing pace all-Up North puck team
Viewed from the standpoint of the state tournament, the Up North hockey season may take a beating, what with no entry in the Class AA tournament, where Elk River made it, and Hibbing, Greenway of Coleraine and defending state champion Duluth East didn’t. And, while Hermantown and Silver Bay made it Class A, both lost their first, and second, games in Minneapolis.
However, viewed on the basis of the season, this might have been the best Up North hockey for balanced competitiveness, quantity, and quality.
And, viewed on the basis of the All-Up North team, it obviously was a superb season. There were some tough choices, and some obvious ones, but the beauty of the Up North Network’s all-area team, regardless of class, is that you can make the case for numerous other candidates who deserve to be on the team, but it would be impossible to bump any of the players from the three full units that make up the 18-man squad.
The team is top-heavy with 12 seniors, while three juniors, one sophomore and two freshmen round it out.
And, as long as we’re balancing the team for units, we might as well also be vicarious coaches, and put them onto units.
The first line has Andy Sacchetti, Eveleth’s mercurial centerman, with Proctor’s Jay Dardis and Hermantown’s catalyst, Jon Francisco. Not a bad line, with size, speed, quickness, and scoring punch.
The second line has two ninth-graders, who not only made their teams, but made their teams go! Gino Guyer of Greenway of Coleraine, and Nick Licari of Duluth East have equal doses of skill and great hockey sense, and they are joined by always consistent, always dependable and always threatening Josh Miskovich, another Greenway standout.
The third line has East’s junior standout Ross Carlson, Proctor’s junior scoring flash Aaron Slattengren, and Duluth Central’s Kyle Tomaich. It was Tomaich who came through with a key goal to spring Central’s Section 7A overtime victory over defending state champ Eveleth-Gilbert — the biggest upset in the state at either level — then he climaxed an otherwise unsung year with an impressive game in the CCM Range-Duluth all-star game last Tuesday.
On defense, the supply overran the number of slots, and the six picks meant leaving off some defensemen who would be first-team all-area picks in other years. John Conboy, Silver Bay’s driving force, joins the underrated but always smooth and calculating Beau Geisler of Greenway on the first tandem. Hibbing’s spectacular unit of Rico Fatticci and Steve Suihkonen man the second set. And junior Tony Tomaino, whose arrival turned Marshall into a constant threat, joins John Rodberg, Denfeld’s overlooked but always effective senior.
In goal, the best goaltender in the section, and undoubtedly in the state, is Hibbing sophomore Travis Weber, and he didn’t need the 7AA title game, in which he made 60 saves but lost 2-1 to Elk River, for proof, but that might have been the single best performance by a goalie in the state all year. Second-unit goalie is Greg Buell, who guided Silver Bay into the state tournament through 7A with consistently solid work. Third goalie is Hermantown’s bouncy Allen Knowles, who made 24 saves in a 4-2 conquest of Duluth East — which not only gave Hermantown its first victory over East, but also its first Lake Superior Conference title.
In fact, goaltending is a perfect example of how good Up North hockey was this season. Adam Laaksonen of Cloquet, a tough competitor and an exceptional athlete, deserves congratulations for receiving the Frank Brimsek award from the Mr. Hockey committee as the state’s top goaltender. However, based on consistent play that had the greatest impact on their teams’ success, Weber, Buell and Knowles had better seasons.
Forwards:
Andy Sacchetti, sr., Eveleth-Gilbert
Jay Dardis, sr., Proctor
Jon Francisco, sr., Hermantown
Gino Guyer, fr., Greenway of Coleraine
Nick Licari, fr., Duluth East
Josh Miskovich, sr., Greenway of Coleraine
Ross Carlson, jr., Duluth East
Aaron Slattengren, jr., Proctor
Kyle Tomaich, sr., Duluth Central
Defense:
John Conboy, sr., Silver Bay
Beau Geisler, sr., Greenway of Coleraine
Rico Fatticci, sr., Hibbing
Steve Suihkonen, sr., Hibbing
Tony Tomaino, jr., Duluth Marshall
John Rodberg, sr., Duluth Denfeld
Goalies:
Travis Weber, so., Hibbing
Greg Buell, sr., Silver Bay
Allen Knowles, sr., Hermantown
Roseau stays calm, holds off Mayo 4-2
Roseau’s No. 1 ranked Rams saw a 2-0 lead disappear in the third period of Thursday’s state Class AA hockey tournament quarterfinals at Target Center. But instead of panicking, the Rams struck back immediately and skated away with a 4-2 victory over Rochester Mayo.
The victory sends Roseau (25-1) into tonight’s 7:05 semifinal against Holy Angels.
The Rams, who outshot Mayo 24-16, seemed to have good command of the game, thanks to a first-period goal by Mike Klema and a second-period tally by David Klema that deflected in off a defenseman’s stick.
Even Andy Canzanello’s power-play goal, which cut the deficit to 2-1 early in the third period, didn’t seem to bother the Rams. But when Sam Everson scored with 3:03 left to give Mayo a 2-2 tie, it got Roseau’s immediate attention.
After the ensuing faceoff, Jesse Modahl tried to maneuver the puck into the slot, and when he got checked off the puck, Josh Olson drilled it into the Mayo goal. The sudden retaliation, just 19 seconds after Mayo had tied it, seemed to snap the Rams back into focus, and they regained control and padded the margin with Mike Klema’s empty-net goal with three seconds left.
“No, there was no panic,” said Roseau coach Bruce Olson. “We never have panicked. That’s just the way this team is — no complaining, no whining.”
Mayo (21-4-1) came into the tournament, as usual, with a strong, well-coached team but without any fanfare from the Twin Cities media. Sophomore Jeffrey Jakaitis, however, inscribed his name in memory with a 30-save performance that kept Roseau from ever pulling away.
“We needed our goaltender to come up big, and he did, even though he’s only a sophomore,” said Mayo coach Lorne Grosso. “I thought we had ’em on the ropes, when we scored to tie it up. But then we gave one up right away; that was not part of my plan.”
Jakaitis was put to the test immediately, and came up with sparkling saves when Josh Olson had a breakaway, then when Modahl had two great solos in a row. On the first one, Modahl shot and Jakaitis saved it. On the second, Modahl carried in deep and tried to deke him, but Jakaitis solved that move, too.
The first Roseau goal came at 11:26, when Mike Klema passed to Derrick Byfuglien at left point, then circled to come up the slot just as the long rebound from Byfuglien’s slapshot caromed out to him. Klema snapped it into the lower left.
David Klema’s goal, at 8:00 of the second, couldn’t have been a more precise deflection goal. Trouble was, Mayo sophomore center Mitch Hanson was trying to block the 45-foot shot by Klema, only to have it tick his stickblade and glance just inside the left post.
Hanson atoned for that unintentional deflection right after that, when he rushed in and fired the puck into the Roseau goal, but it came moments after a teammate had plunged headlong into the goal, so it was disallowed.
Mayo’s two goals were impressive. Canzanello’s power-play goal was a big slapshot into the short side while skating up the left side. And Everson’s equalizer came when he cruised along, just inside the blue line, until he had a defender for a screen, then he snapped a 50-foot wrist shot past Jake Brandt.
But the tie was only temporary.
Lucia admires Sertich, won’t look past UMD
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.
Colorado College coach Don Lucia accused UMD of resorting to germ warfare for their WCHA best-of-three playoff series this weekend.
Lucia was kidding, of course, but when UMD lost 4-3 and 3-2 games at CC last weekend, a half-dozen of the Bulldogs were slowed by a strain of flu that includes headaches more than stomach problems.
“So this week, what happens to us? We get four or five guys down with that same flu,” said Lucia. “We’re hoping they’ll be ready to play, but you never know.”
Lucia, whose CC Tigers now play in the fabulous new World Arena, which seats 7,343 for hockey, offered a tour of the year-old Olympic-sized facility, which has unexcelled sightlines, an exceptional press box, and a lower middle section reserved for big hitters behind the CC program, who can go on down under the stands to the richly decorated “Penrose Room,” where they can enjoy between-periods camaraderie in secluded comfort, or even go off to the smoking room, with its walk-in cigar humidor and privately owned humidor cubicles for their prized possessions.
Everything is going smoothly for Lucia and the Tigers, but he is not taking the Bulldogs lightly this weekend.
“We played well last weekend,” Lucia said. “Looking at Duluth, Brant Nicklin is as good as any goaltender in the league, maybe the best. They skate well, and Jeff Scissons is a big-time player. They are positive in their specialties [power plays and penalty kills]. And their shots on goal with their opponents is about even.
“Those aren’t the statistics of a last-place team; they are more likely proof of a team that’s been unlucky. If we started the league over tomorrow, there’s no way UMD would finish last.”
Lucia, a Grand Rapids native, is a big fan of UMD coach Mike Sertich, and he’s outspoken about it.
“You know, there are three men I really look up to for influencing my life,” said Lucia. “One is my dad, one is Sertie, and one is Tom Drazenovich, my old football coach in high school. Sertie was my JV coach at Grand Rapids, and I had him as a history teacher in junior high. We won the state championship my sophomore year at Grand Rapids, and Gus Hendrickson and Sertie left the next year to go to UMD.
“Sertie is a tremendous coach, and when he has top talent, he wins. He’s won four WCHA championships in 17 years. I think that’s pretty outstanding. His teams are always very well coached, and they do some unconventional things that other teams are afraid to try. They’ll catch you by surprise doing things like getting their defense involved in the offense, or flying a guy in the neutral zone. But he’s the type of coach who lets his guys play, and play creatively.”
Lucia has stayed in tune with the controversy swirling around the University of Minnesota, and he has heard speculation that has linked North Dakota coach Dean Blais and Lucia as possible successors, if Minnesota decides to replace Doug Woog.
He notes the recruiting debate, and how his team is accused of having older, more experienced players.
“We try to get the best players from the USHL, and we do like it if they’re older, because it costs $28,000 a year to go to CC, and we think older players are less risk when it comes to making mistakes,” Lucia said.
“But look at our roster now. We only have five Canadians. And while we have players with junior experience, we also have Toby Petersen from Bloomington Jefferson, Mike Colgan from Rochester Mayo, and Jon Austin from International Falls, all of whom came right out of high school. And we have four other players who played in the USHL, but they played there during their senior year in high school, so they aren’t any older.”
The Tigers, after a strong run, finished second to North Dakota during the regular season. They are primed to make a strong run at the WCHA playoff championship, and should already be a cinch to gain an NCAA tournament berth.
But Lucia isn’t looking for an instant beyond UMD. He knows their coach, he likes their players, and he is aware the Bulldogs are a far better team than their last-place record indicates. He also knows that while his team should be a cinch NCAA entry, UMD finally has put its back up against the wall, and it’s win or start summer vacation early.
Elk River wins one for the north
Score one for Up North.
This has been a cruel tournament season for Up North hockey teams, with this being the first year in the state tournaement’s 55-year history that no Duluth or Iron Range team made it in Class AA, and with Hermantown and Silver Bay both reaching the Class A tournament, only to be dispatched in two straight games.
But Elk River, the Twin Cities suburban power that won Section 7AA, carried the Up North colors well, whipping Hill-Murray 5-1 in Thursday night’s quarterfinal battle of heavyweights.
The Elks weathered and returned some heavy hitting, got two goals from Joey Bailey, and the usual excellence from junior defenseman Paul Martin, and whipped the Pioneers with three goals in the second period and two more in the third.
After talking to coach Tony Sarsland, who insists the Elks should be in Section 4 where they belong and leave 7 to the Up North teams, it’s obvious that a little of Section 7AA stayed with him, after Elk River beat Duluth East 4-2 in the semifinals and Hibbing in a three-overtime 2-1 final.
“It took me three days to recover from Hibbing, and I didn’t even play,” said Sarsland. He then paid heavy tribute to his first and second lines, stressing their balance, although the first line, of Bailey, center Jed Leonard and sophomore Joel Hanson, scored four goals,
with Bailey getting two, and Stewart’s empty-netter gave the second line one.
“And I could talk all day about Paul Martin,” said Sarsland, who claims his junior defenseman is the best player in the state. “I don’t have words to describe him. The best thing about him is he plays within himself so well. He saw that they were really keying on him, so he moved the puck up to other players, which is what a smart player does.”
All true. And Martin was content to outlet the puck for two-plus periods. The Elks broke the scoreless game when Bailey took Martin’s power-play pass back at the left point, moved along the blue line to find the right hole, then sent a low wrist shot that went cleanly in at 3:15 of the second period. Hill-Murray struck right back, for a power-play goal by Bobby Ammann on a perfect set up across the crease from Andy Nolan.
But Leonard scored at 8:04 and Hanson hammered in a rebound at 12:34, and the Elks had a 3-1 lead at the second intermission.
At the finish, after Trevor Stewart’s empty-net goal with 1:21 left made it 4-1, Martin shows what happens on the outer limits of playing within himself. He took a bank pass off the end boards from Jake Wood, looked up ice, and took off. He cruised across center ice, beating two and three Pioneers, then he carried up the right side to get a step on one of two retreating defensemen. Finally, he cut in sharply toward the net, and as the defender tried to muscle him off, Martin simply slid the puck across the goal mouth and Bailey cashed in with 20 seconds remaining.
Martin, a lanky 6-2 and 165, has nine goals and about 24 assists this season, which isn’t bad, considering he missed six games at the end of the season while playing with a U.S. Select team in the Czech Republic. He came back just in time for sectional play, much to the dismay of East and Hibbing, who both could only marvel at his control of the game.
Goaltender Mitch Glines came up with some big saves, but the Elks repeatedly turned back the Pioneers and then kept them pinned in their own end for much of the third period.
“I thought, in midseason, after we had played a lot of the toughest teams in the state, that this could be the best team in the state, and we might have a chance to win the state title,” said Sarsland.
And now, the Elks are one of only four teams with a shot at it.
Lucia’s Tigers see UMD in path to NCAA
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.
Colorado College coach Don Lucia accused UMD of resorting to germ warfare for their WCHA best-of-three playoff series this weekend.
Lucia was kidding, of course, but when UMD lost 4-3 and 3-2 games at CC last weekend, a half-dozen of the Bulldogs were slowed by a strain of flu that includes headaches more than stomach problems.
“So this week, what happens to us? We get four or five guys down with that same flu,” said Lucia. “We’re hoping they’ll be ready to play, but you never know.”
Among those afflicted are Brian Swanson, CC’s super-center who should be a primary candidate for the Hobey Baker Award. If he played in Boston, or Ann Arbor, or Madison, or the Twin Cities, Swanson would be a cinch, so long as he wasn’t confused with defenseman Scott Swanson, no relation, who is the WCHA’s best defenseman.
For those who only know Don Lucia as one of the elite new guard of coaching, one of the genuinely good, positive, progressive young coaches in the game, it is easy to overlook what must rank as the greatest accomplishment in college hockey coaching history. Just six years ago, Lucia came out of the cold, so to speak, when he left his first head coaching job at Alaska-Fairbanks and came to Colorado College.
That CC team, coached by Brad Buetow, had been picked to finish about third in the league, but it wound up a distant and dead last. So sad were the Tigers that season, that the WCHA coaches were unanimous in ranking CC dead last again the following year, because not only had Buetow been fired, but new coach Don Lucia was coming in too late to really do any recruiting.
So what happened? Lucia led Colorado College to the WCHA championship, and he did it with all the proper values and ethics, with that good-person look in his eye, which tells you immediately that you’re dealing with an honest man, who expects honesty in return. In his second year, Lucia led the Tigers to a second WCHA title, and in his third year, CC won the title yet again — becoming the first team in the WCHA’s long and storied history to ever win three straight WCHA titles. Those fantastic Denver, North Dakota and Michigan Tech teams of decades gone by never could string together three in a row.
He did it by recruiting the kind of players who would be great college players, not being consumed by some egotistical craze that sought future NHLers and overlooked good little players — like Darren Clark of Superior, Toby Petersen of Bloomington. CC hasn’t won the title the last three years, including this one, because North Dakota has beaten the Tigers out, with Dean Blais — another great, young, principled coach — flat out saying he admired and copied Lucia’s method, and put it to use to become the second team to ever win three straight WCHA titles.
Lucia, whose CC Tigers now play in the fabulous new World Arena, which seats 7,343 for hockey, offered a tour of the year-old Olympic-sized facility, which has unexcelled sightlines, an exceptional press box, and a lower middle section reserved for big hitters behind the CC program, who can go on down under the stands to the richly decorated “Penrose Room,” where they can enjoy between-periods camaraderie in secluded comfort, or even go off to the smoking room, with its walk-in cigar humidor and privately owned humidor cubicles for their prized possessions.
Everything is going smoothly for Lucia and the Tigers, but he is not taking the Bulldogs lightly this weekend.
“We played well last weekend,” Lucia said. “Looking at Duluth, Brant Nicklin is as good as any goaltender in the league, maybe the best. They skate well, and Jeff Scissons is a big-time player. They are positive in their specialties [power plays and penalty kills]. And their shots on goal with their opponents is about even.
“Those aren’t the statistics of a last-place team; they are more likely proof of a team that’s been unlucky. If we started the league over tomorrow, there’s no way UMD would finish last.”
Lucia, a Grand Rapids native, is a big fan of UMD coach Mike Sertich, and he’s outspoken about it.
“You know, there are three men I really look up to for influencing my life,” said Lucia. “One is my dad, one is Sertie, and one is Tom Drazenovich, my old football coach in high school. Sertie was my JV coach at Grand Rapids, and I had him as a history teacher in junior high. We won the state championship my sophomore year at Grand Rapids, and Gus Hendrickson and Sertie left the next year to go to UMD.
“Sertie is a tremendous coach, and when he has top talent, he wins. He’s won four WCHA championships in 17 years. I think that’s pretty outstanding. His teams are always very well coached, and they do some unconventional things that other teams are afraid to try. They’ll catch you by surprise doing things like getting their defense involved in the offense, or flying a guy in the neutral zone. But he’s the type of coach who lets his guys play, and play creatively.”
Lucia has stayed in tune with the controversy swirling around the University of Minnesota, and he has heard speculation that has linked North Dakota coach Dean Blais and Lucia as possible successors, if Minnesota decides to replace Doug Woog. Some people suggest Minnesota won’t make a change now, because putting out the multiple brush fires of the hockey program suddenly pale next to having its basketball house on fire right now. Should we be surprised that an athletic department that not only condones but supports what has happened in the deteriorating Minnesota hockey situation would also find a scandalous academic problem rampant in its basketball program? Funny how such problems just seem to link up. Must be coincidence.
The contrast from those problems to a program run by Lucia is amazingly stark. He, of course, is far too classy to do more than shake his head at wonderment as the latest details of Minnesota’s corruption spread nationwide in a flash on Wednesday.
He has taken note of various recruiting debates, because his team once was accused by the Gophers of having older, more experienced players, in a year when the Gophers actually were older.
“We try to get the best players from the USHL, and we do like it if they’re a little more experienced, because it costs $28,000 a year to go to CC, and we think there is less risk of making a mistake in recruiting with players who might be a year older or more experienced,” Lucia said.
“But look at our roster now. We only have five Canadians. And while we have players with junior experience, we also have Toby Petersen from Bloomington Jefferson, Mike Colgan from Rochester Mayo, and Jon Austin from International Falls, all of whom came right out of high school. And we have four other players who played in the USHL, but they played there during their senior year in high school, so they aren’t any older.”
The Tigers, after a strong run, finished second to North Dakota this season. They are primed to make a strong run at the WCHA playoff championship, and should already be a cinch to gain an NCAA tournament berth.
But Lucia isn’t looking for an instant beyond UMD. He knows their coach, he likes their players, and he is aware the Bulldogs are a far better team than their last-place record indicates. He also knows that while his team should be a cinch NCAA entry, UMD finally has put its back up against the wall, and it’s win or start summer vacation early.
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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