UMD women’s hockey team has international flair
UMD women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller isn’t ready to announce her first team’s roster yet, but with more players close to committing, the team has taken on a distinct international flavor.
Duluth Dynamite teammates Tresa Lamphier and Leah Wrazidlo are the top Up North recruits, and prospects from this past season’s UMD club team include defensemen Jessica Smith and Angella Harvieux, and forward Jessi Flink.
Otherwise, prospects include goaltender Amanda Tapp, defensemen Pamela Pachal and Nevada Russell, and forwards Michelle McAteer and Joanne Eustache, all from Canada; goaltender Amanda Tapp of Switzerland; forward Maria Roth of Sweden; and defenseman Breana Berry from Wayzata, and forward Alexa Gollinger of St. Paul Academy.
Miller said that some other top prospects are set, pending finalizing of scholarship papers, but wouldn’t comment on the list of prospects. She said she still intends to conduct open tryouts in the fall before the team’s inaugural season.
UMD FOOTBALL COACHING
LIST NEARING FINAL STAGE
The UMD football coaching selection committee met again Tuesday with the intention of paring down the list of candidates from 16, in hopes of having a half-dozen finalists by next week. Vince Repesh and Jim Malosky Jr., the two assistants under just-retired Jim Malosky and the co-coaches of last falls Bulldogs, both remain in the field of candidates. And both are assured of being retained as assistant coaches if another candidate is chosen.
Among the rumored front-running candidates is Randy Hedberg, the offensive coordinator at the University of North Dakota, and several head coaches from the Wisconsin State University Conference, have reportedly applied, including Bob Nielson of Eau Claire, John Miech of Stevens Point, and Ed Meierkort of Stout. Lloyd Danzeisen of Fergus Falls Community College is rumored to be another candidate.
“We’re sort of in a vacuum right now, but the last 16 candidates give us a good cross-section of different perspectives,” said Jonathan Conant, chairman of the search committee.
Laaksonen, Bottems lead Minnesota to title
So far, the concept of not taking any scholarship hockey players to the Chicago Showcase high school hockey all-star tournament seems to be working just fine for Minnesota. Bolstered by the goaltending of Cloquet’s Adam Laaksonen, and two goals from Hibbing’s O.J. Bottoms, Minnesota whipped Pittsburgh 6-2 in Sunday’s championship game to complete a clean sweep of the nationwide tournament in Chicago.
Minnesota won all three games in its four-team preliminary bracket, then beat the Missouri all-stars in the quarterfinals, Buffalo, N.Y., in the semifinals, and Pittsburgh in the title match. It was the third consecutive Chicago Showcase championship for Minnesota.
“We were as good as we’ve ever been,” said Ted Brill of Grand Rapids, the organizer and co-coach with Dave Hendrickson of Virginia. “I didn’t notice any letoff of the other teams, but we had a good group. Everybody we had knew we all had to work together, and we had all ‘We’ and no ‘Me’ on the team.”
After competing well in the tournament for several years with the top players chosen from the annual post-season Maroon and Gold all-star series, it was Brill’s idea to select the team but to exclude those players who already had Division I scholarship commitments. The plan was to give maximum exposure to some very good players that had so far been overlooked, and even though Minnesota is the only team in the nationwide tournament to exclude its top players, this was its third straight championship.
“Everyone involved with Minnesota hockey can be very proud of the way these kids performed,” said Brill. “We had outstanding goaltending, our defense dominated play in our own end, and our forwards were flying everywhere. Our lines were balanced, and we rotated straight through.”
In fact, Brill added, he told goalies Laaksonen and Adam Berkhuel from Stillwater to split up the games anyway they chose, and they agreed to split each game, alternating which one started. Brill said he also told each line to rotate who sat out penalty kills, and everything went smoothly.
With all players selected from the recent Great Eight statewide tournament, Minnesota opened the tournament last week with a rousing 11-4 victory over Buffalo, then beat Northern New England 10-2, before completing its preliminary-round sweep with a 5-0 victory over Wisconsin. Critics could suggest that Minnesota had the easier bracket, with traditional co-favorites Massachusetts and Michigan both in another bracket, but the playoff round suggested Minnesota’s bracket was the toughest.
Up North players made major impacts on Minnesota’s success. When Minnesota beat Missouri 7-3 in the quarterfinals, Roseau’s Mike Klema scored two goals. In the semifinal 10-5 romp over Buffalo, Roseville’s Brett Hammond and Hill-Murray’s Dan Miller scored twice each.
Pittsburgh eliminated Michigan 5-4 in the other semifinal, but in the title game, Bottoms scored for a 1-0 lead, but Pittsburgh came back to gain a 2-2 tie after one period. Hill-Murray linemates Dan Miller and Matt Koalska scored for a 4-2 second-period lead, as Laaksonen allowed only one goal in the first half of the game. Minnesota put it away in the third period, clinching the victory when Bottoms scored into an open net at the finish.
NCAA hockey tournament needs an overhaul
The curious regional setup of the NCAA hockey tournament has outgrown what once was a novel idea. It needs an overhaul, and the sooner the better.
The NCAA continues to look upon the hockey tournament as sort of a nuisance child in the family of NCAA tournaments. The ruling committee selects 12 teams to play at two sites. This year’s sites were Madison, Wis., and Worcester, Mass. Madison should be fun, you figure, recalling all those nights of sellout crowds screaming and chanting.
Kohl Center has been built in Madison now, and the Badgers have to share it between their hockey and basketball teams. It is large, with over 15,000 or 16,000 possible. But Dane County Coliseum bid for the tournament, and got it with more like 8,500 capacity.
The Badgers weren’t in the tournament, and neither was Minnesota. Without two such noted draws, the first-round games drew 2,414 fans to see Boston College edge Northern Michigan, while Colorado College whipped St. Lawrence 5-2. The next day, 2,910 poured into the place. Where are those Badger fans? On spring break. But consider this: In the plush new Kohl Center, neither the Badger hockey team nor the basketball team sold out its 14,000-plus seats for even one game.
However, that total of 5,324 fans would have fit nicely into Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, or even at the new facility in Colorado Springs, although it is certain that holding the tournament at any campus rink where its team is involved would easily outsell the paltry showing in Madison, where the question was answered once and for all that the crowds are Badger fans, regardless of the sport.
The current setup has a couple of glaring problems. First, it needs to be presold to fans more enthusiastically than this one was, with only 2,400 sold before the tournament began. Second, I don’t like a tournament where one team has a bye while its opponent is decided in a rugged game the night before.
My suggestion is to go to 16 teams, something the NCAA steadfastly has refused to consider. Then we do away with the ridiculous power-rating setup and simply advise the four leagues that they each can come up with four teams. Let the leagues decide who will be seeded 1, 2, 3, and 4. Submit them to the NCAA, then they can put the tournament together by the following formula:
* Pick four sites, one for each league. Hockey East could be in Boston, ECAC in Lake Placid, CCHA in Detroit, and the WCHA could rotate among the various capable buildings, or, better still, be held until the final week before being decided, based on the No. 1 seed.
* At each of the four sites, the host team is seeded No. 1, while a No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 — all from different leagues — will also be seeded in. Then you play 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 in the semis, with the winners going the next night for a spot in the final four.
Local fans would probably be more tempted to go watch the other teams play, in addition to their own, in this setup. And they play off to one winner. At Madison, there were a couple buses from North Dakota, but they left before dawn on Sunday, got in to see the game, then headed home after the game. While it’s tough for a team to have to play a good team for the right to play a rested, better team, it’s also unfair to the team seeded with a bye. And why should that team, or its fans, show up and spend money for games a day early when their team is scheduled to play just one game, the next day?
I envison the Lake Placid site having Clarkson, Michigan, Denver, and Boston College; the Boston site would have New Hampshire, St. Lawrence, St. Cloud State and Ohio State; the Detroit site would have Michigan State, Colorado College, Maine and RPI; and Grand Forks could host North Dakota, Northern Michigan, Providence and Colgate.
Next year, the WCHA host could be Denver, or CC, or St. Cloud, or Wisconsin, depending on who is No. 1 seed. If some arena is too small, think about last weekend, and how easy it would be to get more than 6,000 for each session.
Whatever, this formula would leave room so that if one conference is better — or luckier — in a given year, it would gain more than one berth in the final four. But it would be determined on the ice, not in a boardroom. This year, the committee weighed all the criteria carefully, and decided the CCHA was deserving of four places while the ECAC got two, and, since those two weren’t seeded very high, both were whipped quickly. But if the CCHA got four teams, only one made it, in Michigan State. The WCHA got blanked, while Hockey East got three teams — and all three made it to Anaheim. Does that mean the computer was bunk? Should it have given four spots to Hockey East and cut down the CCHA and WCHA?
Forget the politics, or even the computer. Let each league have four teams, and let those leagues decide how they want to seed and submit their four. Regular season? Fine. Playoff? OK. Just submit your own league’s 1-2-3-4 teams, by preconceived formula or by league vote.
Bulldogs thrive on hectic baseball schedule
It was a bright, fairly clear and fairly mild spring day in Duluth, but it would turn into typical Duluth spring weather soon.
By the time the UMD baseball team had whipped Bemidji State 11-4 and the second game of Tuesday’s Northern Sun doubleheader had begun, the clouds had swept in, the temperature plunged about 15 degrees, and the handful of fans who remained zipped their jackets up to the top and wished they had worn heavier ones.
It was a critical doubleheader for the Bulldogs, who had gone into last weekend with a 2-3 league record, and stood 6-8 overall. But they swept Minnesota-Morris 10-4 and 7-1 on Saturday, and took Morris again, 7-2 and 10-0, on Sunday. A rescheduled doubleheader at Carleton was played on Monday, with UMD winning 3-1 and 12-4.
So the Bemidji State doubleheader meant doubleheaders on four consecutive days — eight games in four days. Winning the opener was huge, as ace pitcher Chris Swiatkiewicz, who set a school record for career strikeouts on Saturday, struck out 11 more.
“Chris is a great pitcher, he’s something like 15-1 now,” said coach Scott Hanna. “The Dukes are looking at him, and the White Sox have scouted him.”
Robert Rothe hit a home run in that first game, while Dave Tafelski, Bryan Spaeth and Jed Meyer had two hits each.
The second game, the team’s eighth game in four days, became enormously important to the Bulldogs in the league picture, and Hanna started Jamie Swenson, a sophomore from Woodbury, on the mound. “He worked his way up from pitching relief to become one of our four starters,” said Hanna, who is in his 21st year as UMD coach.
Swenson had good stuff, chilly weather or not, as the second game stood 2-2 in the last of the fourth. With two out and a runner on third, Kiel Kreidermacher attempted a squeeze bunt that went foul. But two pitches later, Kreidermacher, a senior from Mendota Heights, lined a single to right-center to break the tie.
Matt Joesting, the team’s top hitter at .390, socked his fourth home run of the season in the fifth to make it 4-2, and Andy Dooley, a junior from Albert Lea, and another reliever who has earned a starting slot, relieved Swenson and finished off the last two innings of a 5-2 victory.
The back-breaking task of eight games in four days had resulted in eight straight UMD victories. The Bulldogs, once 1-3 in the Northern Sun, vaulted to 9-3, and from 6-8 to 14-8 overall.
It’s been a team effort, with Joesting (.393), Tefelski (.388), Kreidermache (.357), Ryan Skubic (.349); Steve Battaglia (.333), Rothe (.306), Bryan Spaeth (.302), and Marty Spanish (.300) leading the way offensively. As for pitching, Chris Swiatkiewic is 5-0, Swenson 3-1 and Dooley 3-0, seeing double-duty between staff rotations.
“It’s a stretch on the pitching staff, and it wears me out, but the players seem to thrive on it,” Hanna added. “It was tough, because we played at Carleton last night, then bused home late, and had to play Bemidji today. But it’s the same for everybody.
“Besides, next week we’ve got 10 games in six days. We play Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.”
Monday’s game is against Wisconsin-Superior at 1 p.m. at UMD; Tuesday is a return trip to Bemidji State; Wednesday, Mount Senario comes to Duluth for a 1 p.m. doubleheader; and Southwest State visits UMD for Friday and Saturday doubleheaders. Before that, though, UMD hit the road on Thursday to play doubleheaders at Northern State in Aberdeen, this Friday and Saturday.
As for the jammed-up schedule, Hanna described it best.
“It’s kind of like a fight with a muskie,” said Hanna. “It’s a short, violent fight.”
]That was one of the equalizers in playing Bemidji State, which is possibly the only school on the schedule with a shorter, less-predictable baseball season than the springtime in Duluth.
Laaksonen, Bottoms lead state team to Chicago
Those of us who are stubbornly proud of the caliber of Minnesota high school hockey might be so bold as to proclaim “We could whip any other state’s top players with one arm tied behind our back.” Well, the equivalent of tying one hand behind their collective backs is what makes Minnesota’s entry in the 24-team Chicago Showcase tournament such a fantastic endeavor.
The tournament, which is in its 15th year, will be held in two weeks and it brings together teams from different cities, states and combined states. There are teams from Colorado, Missouri, Alaska, Ohio, Illinois, California, Colorado, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Buffalo, New Jersey, and, of course, the mainstays from Massachusetts, New England, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota.
But there is a difference. While those other states send their top prep players, Minnesota organizers and co-coaches Ted Brill and Dave Hendrickson take Minnesota’s top high school prospects — EXCEPT: no players who already have a Division I commitment, or who prefer to play spring sports.
Obviously, that cuts down dramatically on candidates. But Minnesota is overflowing with players, and even when you skim off those elite players who decline for the above reasons, the selected team is proof of the depth of skill in Minnesota.
“We won the tournament last year and the year before,” said Brill, from his home in Grand Rapids. “The year before that, we lost 2-1 to Massachusetts, and they went on and won the tournament. We had quite a few boys turn us down, and that’s great, because it means they’ve got something solid to look forward to.
“The players we take are sort of the unsung heroes. They’re really good, but maybe they’ve been overlooked. We tell them, when they’re sitting at home with their parents at the dining room table, they know how good they are, and we know how good they are, but maybe by playing in this tournament somebody else will find out how good they are.”
Up North players selected for the Minnesota team include Cloquet goaltender Adam Laaksonen, Hibbing forward O.J. Bottoms, and Roseau’s forward tandem of Mike Klema and Jesse Modahl. Several others that Brill said they would have liked to have had to decline. Players such as Jon Francisco of Hermantown, Josh Miskovich and Beau Geisler of Greenway of Coleraine, Andy Sacchetti of Eveleth-Gilbert, Jay Dardis of Proctor decllined because they are committed.
Minnesota will play in the elite level pool against Buffalo on Wednesday, April 14; against Northern New England on Thursday the 15th; and against Wisconsin on Friday the 16th. Teams are paired by their records in pool play against the other brackets for a game on Saturday the 17th, with the semifinals at 9 a.m. and the championship game at 4 p.m. on Sunday the 18th.
The full Minnesota team: Goaltenders–Laaksonen and Adam Berkhoel of Stillwater; Defensemen–Brian Skrypek of Roseville, Greg Zemple of Blaine, Joe Martin of Buffalo, Josh Singer of Holy Angels, John Dubel of Maple Grove and Bryan Schmidt of Bloomington Jefferson; Forwards–Bottoms, Modahl, Klema, David DuBord and Brett Hammond of Roseville, Matt Koalska and Dan Miller of Hill-Murray, Gabe Hilmoe of Anoka, Dustin Lick of Eagan, Dave Ianozzo of Maple Grove, and Josh Bertelson of Wayzata.
WCHA NOTES:
* The hot rumor circulating around the WCHA all week was that University of Minnesota coach Doug Woog had already been fired and replaced by Colorado College coach Don Lucia. There were even details, such as a five-year deal, eliminating the whole Gopher staff to start anew, and complete recruiting freedom. The rumor, if anything, is certainly premature. Preliminary contacts had been made several weeks ago to North Dakota coach Dean Blais, who is from International Falls, and to Lucia, who is from Grand Rapids. Secondary contacts also have been made more recently with both, but nothing official, such as asking official permission from those colleges to discuss job details. The whole thing has just been a scouting mission, in case Minnesota decides to remove Woog as coach. Those coaches logically did some preliminary scouting on their own, which may have caused the assumption it was done, and led to the rumors. Until Minnesota administrators meet with Woog to discuss options — which might be anticipated in the next few days — all such rumors are premature, if not unfounded.
* Indications are that the Nashville NHL franchise might offer UMD freshman Kent Sauer a contract to turn him pro after only one year of WCHA hockey. Sauer said he hasn’t heard anything concrete and, unless an outstanding offer presents itself, he intends to stay in school. Sauer, only one year out of high school, had to battle to become comfortable at the WCHA pace. Nashville, a new team, may be looking for a young tough guy as a fighter, and Sauer’s size (6-2, 225) make him a worthy candidate. He probably would have a better chance to develop as a complete player by staying at UMD, but it could come down to how much money is offered to him.
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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