Hill-Murray favored in Class AA ‘Year of the Upset’
Sixty years ago, the Minnesota state high school hockey tournament was held for the first time, so naturally the eight teams in that 1946 tournament at the old Saint Paul Auditorium were “new†to the tournament. Amazingly, there has never been a year since then when at least one of the entries wasn’t a returnee from the previous year.
Until this year. All eight of last yearÂ’s Class AA section champions failed to repeat, some because of the usual ebb and flow of graduations, but many because this truly is the “Year of the Upset.Ââ€
In Class AA, upsets, ranging from mild to wild, knocked out top-ranked Holy Angels, Bloomington Jefferson, Eden Prairie, Duluth East, Cloquet-Esko-Carlton, White Bear Lake, Centennial and Elk River – all teams ranked among the top 10. Those eight, in fact, would make a fine state tournament on their own, but they’ll need tickets to see the tournament this time. All those teams are perennial powers, but Holy Angels, Jefferson, Eden Prairie, East, Elk River and Moorhead were among dethroned section champs from last year.
Hill-Murray did not win its section last year. In fact, the Pioneers had failed to reach the state for three straight years, tying the schoolÂ’s record for futility since private schools were allowed into the public tournament 31 years ago. The Pioneers, the team most of the public-school segment of the state used to love to hate, has risen above that animosity, particularly because any accusations that it could recruit players from anywhere have been washed away in recent years by a new private power at Holy Angels, and by rampant charges of recruiting via open enrollment at many public schools.
The Pioneers won a classic, double-overtime 5-4 victory over White Bear Lake for the Section 3 title, and loom as the favorite in Class AA. Two prolific scoring lines are impressive enough that many observers arenÂ’t sure which one is No. 1, and a poised defense with solid goaltending puts the Pioneers into the favoriteÂ’s role.
Actually, even if all the favorites had made it in other sections, Hill-Murray might rank as the favorite, because they enter the competition with a glittering 26-1-1 record. The tie was 3-3 against Holy Angels in a spectacular game for the No. 1 state rating, and, in the next game, the Pioneers lost to St. Thomas Academy for their only setback.
St. Thomas Academy, however, is no slouch. The Cadets, coached by former Gopher star Tom Vannelli, are 22-5-1, and one of the lower-bracket favorites in the Class A tournament, which starts Wednesday.
The same upset plague infected Class A, where top-ranked Marshall of Duluth made it, claims the immediate favoriteÂ’s role, and could, conceivably, wind up Saturday facing a neighborhood rival in Hermantown, a suburban Duluth school and also a top-rated team all season. Warroad, the annual pick to win Class A, played the Section 8 final at home, held a solid 2-0 lead over Thief River Falls in the third period, and yet the Prowlers came back to tie the game with two goals, then beat the Warriors in the fourth overtime to reach state.
St. Thomas Academy similarly looms as heavy favorite against Orono in the first night quarterfinal, which sends its winner against the northern survivor between Hermantown and Thief River Falls. Hermantown (25-3) had to take on the resident powers of Section 7, getting past perennial power Hibbing to make state. Thief River Falls, which makes its first trip to state after 50 years of reflecting on past domination. The Prowlers –perhaps the neatest nickname in high school sports – are 21-7 after upending Warroad in the Section 8 final, but one of those losses was to Hermantown. It wasn’t just a loss. It was 9-0. That type of scoring is pretty typical of the Hawks, who beat Greenway of Coleraine 11-1 and International Falls 7-1 in other Section 7 games.
Twin Cities power focused on private schools in Class A, but the crowd in Section 5 lumped them together. In Section 5, which produced five of the last seven state champs, Totino Grace upended top seeded Breck, but then lost to Blake in the final, so Blake enters the state tournament with a a 17-8-3 record to run smack into Marshall in WednesdayÂ’s quarterfinals.
At sectional time, Marshall moved to Section 2, where it had to win the final at BlaineÂ’s Fogerty Arena against Sauk Rapids to reach state at 26-1-1. Section 2 has never been a prominent state power, but Marshall gives it that glow. The Marshall-Blake winner rates as favorite to beat the first-game winner, where Little Falls, returning to the state along with Marshall and St. Thomas Academy, stands as solid favorite to beat Mankato East in the quarterfinals.
That winner is Class A upper-bracket favorite, and the Saturday final could find an all-Duluth-area championship game between Marshall and Hermantown. Marshall beat Hermantown during the season, but the Hilltoppers only loss all season was to Class AA power Cloquet, a team Hermantown shocked with a 6-2 upset.
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Picking a team from the opposite bracket to face Hill-Murray is more challenging, but two familiar names from recent years – Roseau and Grand Rapids – collide in Thursday’s final first-round game in a battle of Northern teams that could well produce the finalist. Roseau (24-4) marched into St. Cloud State’s National Hockey Center and knocked off Moorhead 4-0 in the Section 8 championship game, surprising many Twin Cities observers, but not Moorhead coach Dave Morinville, who had projected Roseau as his team’s primary challenge weeks ago.
Grand Rapids, on the other hand, came through Section 7, the Northeast Minnesota section that has produced the most legendary teams of years ago. The Thunderhawks, who used to be the Indians in their title-winning days of decades past, went from struggling in a fairly weak section brought down by dwindling enrollment, to winning a tough section rejuvenated by several new, as well as old, rivals. Elk River, a power from the Northwest suburbs of the Twin Cities, and a team most foes donÂ’t like to face, was sent off to join Section 7, where Brainerd, a Central Minnesota team, also was having its strongest year in hockey. That expanded the power structure of Section 7, where perennial powers Duluth East and Cloquet-Esko-Carlton both had strong entries.
After Cloquet defeated Brainerd, a big crowd in Duluth watched an outstanding semifinal doubleheader. It was classic, old-time Northern Minnesota hockey, as Cloquet’s 6-foot-8 senior defenseman Taylor Vichorek moved in from the right point and scored a goal 1:44 into the second period, and goaltender Reid Ellingson made it stand up for a 1-0 victory in a nail-biter against Duluth East. The Greyhounds, who, as usual, played the toughest schedule in the state, got fantastic goaltending from Ben Leis (30 saves to Ellingson’s 22), but the Lumberjacks prevented the ‘Hounds from threatening very often and settled the rivalry for the season, after they had split regular-season games.
In the second game, Elk River completely dominated Grand Rapids, taking a 2-0 lead while outshooting the Thunderhawks 15-5 in the first period. Only brilliant goaltending from Reidar Jensen – who was named after his grandfather, the legendary Reidar Lund, a former sports columnist at the Duluth News-Tribune – prevented the Elks from running up the score more than 2-0. When Grand Rapids came storming out in the second period, it seemed like only a temporary reprieve, because a goal by Jared Smith late in the period was the only Grand Rapids reward for a 24-4 edge in period shots.
It seemed inevitable that Elk River, having weathered the onslaught, would regain the momentum in the third period, but Grand Rapids surprised the Elks and never let them have it. Trevor Hicks got loose at the crease and tied the game 2-2 with a power-play goal midway through the third period, and Zach Moore broke for the right post and jammed in a perfect feed from Hicks with 3:32 remaining, and Grand Rapids had 3-2.
While many had figured East would play Elk River in the final, both were left at home when Grand Rapids found itself in a curious position in the final. Cloquet-Esko-Carlton loomed as the favorite, based on its victory over East, even though the Lumberjacks had lost twice to Grand Rapids during the season. Grand Rapids didnÂ’t figure it that way, of course, but it had to contend with elusive junior center Tyler Johnson, who scored twice in the first period to stake Cloquet to a 2-1 lead. Robert Maher had given the Thunderhawks a 1-0 lead, but Johnson scored at 6:59 and again with a power-play breakaway six seconds before the period ended.
Just as they had done against Elk River, however, the Thunderhawks showed great poise and talent as they came back for two goals in the second period. Jared Smith and Rob Roy scored 10 minutes apart to vault Grand Rapids from a 2-1 deficit to a 3-2 lead while outshooting the Lumberjacks 11-4 in the middle period. CloquetÂ’s Steve Mlodozyniec tied it 3-3 early in the third period, converting a goal-mouth pass from the ever-dangerous Johnson, but Zach Morse broke the tie at 12:10 for Grand Rapids, and Trevor Hicks notched the clinching goal at 16:08 and Rapids rode a 5-3 victory into the state tournament at 19-8.
“Roseau beat us in the last game of the season,†said Grand Rapids coach Bruce Larocque, after the Thunderhawks gained their first state trip in 15 years. But he didn’t sound worried. After what he just went through in Section 7, of course, getting there was at least half the fun.
The Class AA tournament opens with Blaine (23-4-1) featuring a high-scoiring offense that figures to be too much for Lakeville North (14-11-3). Impressive as BlaineÂ’s record is, it started out shaky, but a 21-game unbeaten surge has swept the Bengals into state.
Cretin-Derham Hall, which made its only predvious tournament trip in 1988, have a solid 24-4 record to face Eagan in the second upper-bracket game. Eagan (18-9-1) is in its first tournament, but to get there it needed to beat Apple Valley 2-1 after Apple Valley had shocked heavily favored, top-ranked, and defending section champion Holy Angels in the Section 5 tournament.
Hill-Murray overwhelmed Mounds View 6-0 and Roseville 5-1 before its double-overtime final victory over White Bear Lake, a game in which star defenseman Derek McCallum was credited with the winning goal from the point. Actually, winger Bryant Skarda skated past the congested goal-mouth and deflected the puck artfully in. “I got it with my stick blade,†Sakrda said. “It was right on the ice, and I deflected it into the upper corner. But I donÂ’t care if I didnÂ’t get credit for it, as long as we won the game.Ââ€
Minnetonka (18-9-1) ranks as a clear underdog against Hill-Murray, but the Skippers, reaching state for the first time in 12 years, had to beat a tough Chaska team 3-2, then upset Eden Prairie with a shocking 6-0 victory, and finally upset Bloomington Jefferson 3-2 to capture Section 6. Minnetonka had to play its best in all three games, but beating Hill-Murray will be its biggest hurdle yet.
In the final game, RoseauÂ’s 24-4 record stands above Grand RapidsÂ’s 19-8, but the Thunderhawks lost only one game in its last 12. That one, however, was 5-1 to Roseau to end the regular season.
Great storylines, an Xcel Energy Center wired with its own internal electricity, all in a neatly folded package. But the state tournament will unfold quickly and surprises could loom everywhere before SaturdayÂ’s champions are crowned.
Chrysler 300 AWD, Passat 4-Motion challenge blizzard
Ah, wintertime. Having previously reviewed the Chrysler 300 in various forms, and the Volkswagen Passat, I found both of them smooth and satisfying sedans with large-car comfort and room, and current high-tech road handling manners.
Since the 300 can be obtained with a Hemi V8 and a fire-breathing SRT8 high-performance version, it also comes standard with rear-wheel drive. The Passat, on the other hand, starts out with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine – one-third the displacement size of the Hemi V8 – the difference is significantly made up with the Passat’s turbocharger, and all-season traction gains considerably from the Passat’s standard front-wheel drive.
Still, I was hoping to get the chance to drive the all-wheel-drive versions of both cars in good-olÂ’ Minnesota winter. And not JUST Minnesota winter, because the Minneapolis-St. Paul area has been no more snow-struck than Chicago this winter. But Northern Minnesota, up around Duluth and northward, has been a true winter wonderland. Because I spend part of each week up on the North Shore bluff overlooking Lake Superior from the North Shore, my timing couldnÂ’t have been better.
On the same mid-February week, I got two test-drive cars – a Chrysler 300 AWD, and a Volkswagen Passat 3.6 4-Motion.
Ideally, since I had already road-tested both cars in their other forms (you could look them up at www.jwgilbert.com), this time I could focus specifically on how they worked in the Great White North. But a lot of Upper Midwest locations havenÂ’t gotten a lot of snow this winter, and generally donÂ’t get a lot of the heavy stuff, but even when a driver faces even rare storms that can make driving treacherous, the heart-in-the-throat/white-knuckle moments make the security of good winter-drive cars priceless in their security.
Otherwise, there is always the old reliable technique of having your tires siped, an inexpensive process at many reliable tire shops of cutting tiny slits across the face of otherwise poor-traction tires and improving them measurably.
Since I’m always seeking new information for my memory bank. Checking out the patches of green – OK, brown – grass in the Twin Cities, we knew that the Duluth region had been hit with a couple of 6-inch snowfalls, so my wife, Joan, and I headed north. Admittedly I was a lot more enthusiastic about the weekend than Joan. We each drove one of the vehicles the 150 miles to the North Shore, so I got to drive both of them while we were up there, then we swapped for the return trip.
We couldnÂ’t have scripted it more perfectly, because on our first night, it started to snow. And it kept snowing, throughout the next day. Our neighbor, who is our local hero, showed up with his Polaris All-Terrain Vehicle and its sturdy plow, and did a quick job of shoving the snow aside. I asked him if I should move the cars, and he said not to bother, because, as he glanced upward into the fast-falling feathery flakes, he bypassed alliteration to say: “IÂ’ll be coming back later.Ââ€
Sure enough, it kept on snowing. Downtown Duluth got 11 inches, we got 14.5, and for parts of the day, it fell at a rate faster than 2 inches per hour. When I went out to try the cars, the snow was already back up to bumper-height in the driveway, and on our road. The cars both looked surreal, with snow piled on every flat surface, completely encasing everything, including the grilles, and the headlights, which had an eerie glow through their own personal shrouds. This was the kind of snowstorm where sane people stay home and listen to the event closings on the radio, and in which borderline sane auto-reviewers go charging out to see how the car works.
Checking out the Chrysler 300, I noted that the tires mounted were enormous, on 18-inch wheels. They were Continental tires with an “M+S†notation on the sidewalls. That means mud and snow, and it means the tires are designed for the next-best thing to severe-weather, on a scale that goes from performance, to all-season, to M+S, to severe-weather, to all-out snow tires.
So I was confident as I backed the Chrysler 300 out the long driveway, although it slithered a little through the heavy snow, before it burst through the snowplowed ridge to reach our main road. After checking to make sure nobody was coming either way, the 300 spun a little as I backed onto the road. I drove on down the road, letting the accumulated snow fly off the roof and rear deck to form a whiteout trailing the car for a hundred feet or so – a beautiful sight, through the rear-view mirror.
The steering felt OK, but a little light considering that there was a slippery base under several inches of snow on the roadway. But the car handled pretty well, and in my mind, the security of all-wheel drive gave me some confidence. More confidence than I should have had, perhaps. Going up some of DuluthÂ’s steep hills was OK, but on the snow-covered ones, the car wanted to grope for grip.
At one point on our snow-covered road, I stopped to return to the house. I backed carefully into a plowed driveway, and when I was crosswise in the road, trying to finish my turnaround, the car spun and slithered considerably before I got it around. I got back underway gingerly, but effectively, and made it up our final hill without any undue hassle.
Next it was the Passat 4-MotionÂ’s turn. I had backed it out first, so it had no advantage of previously broken trail, and parked it on the road while I had retrieved the Chrysler. The Passat stuck very well, churning through the deeper snow and the plowed pile, without spinning.
As I headed down the road, with the snow blowing off behind in similar fashion, the 4-Motion all-wheel drive elicited the same sort of confidence, but it also drove with a more secure road-holding feel as I drove to the same location, turning around at the same driveway. This time, there was no hesitation, no slipping or slithering, as I got perpendicular in the roadway and finished my turn over the crown of the roadway.
Later driving, I tried some unplowed side streets as well as slippery hills, and the Passat scaled them with ease. When I checked, I was frankly surprised to see that the car was shod with Michelin Pilot tires – but they were the new all-season Pilots, with about six letters of designation following, and they had all-season designation on 17-inch wheels. The Michelin Pilot Sport high-performance tires are basically dangerous to drive on ice and snow, but this year’s new all-season version has a stickier compound that worked very well.
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Breaking down the cars further, the 300 had ChryslerÂ’s 3.5-liter V6 instead of a Hemi V8, and has 250 horsepower and 250 foot-pounds of torque running through all four wheels. The car weighs 4,300 pounds, and it has the blunt-design exterior which has been a huge success for DaimlerChrysler. Inside, luxury touches to the leather seats, the white-backlit instruments, and the added fifth gear to the automatic transmission make it a smooth and luxurious highway cruiser. Its price is an estimated $35,000 as tested, as 300s start at $24,200 and crest at $42,695 if you load up all the top goodies, including the SRT8 power.
The Passat 4-Motion, meanwhile, is similarly luxurious inside, and has VolkswagenÂ’s new-look redesigned body, which is sleek and stylish in the manner of a new Jetta stretched at both ends. Interior room is good, and the safety characteristics are excellent. The base price of $31,900 went up to a listed $35,280 with a luxury package that includes wood trim and leather, with heated windshield and headlight washers and manual sunshades on the rear and rear-side windows. That includes the 3.6-liter direct-injection V6, meaning itÂ’s just about the same size as the Chrysler engine, but it has 280 horsepower and 265 foot-pounds of torque because of the direct-injection dosages of more controlled fuel input to each cylinder.
But thereÂ’s one aside to the Passat. I got 20 miles per gallon on one tankful, and 24 miles per gallon on a more freeway-oriented second tankful. The 20 was about the same as the Chrysler 300. However, for my personal taste, the previously tested Passat 2.0, with the exceptional 2.0-liter turbocharged direct-injection four-cylinder, had more than enough power in front-wheel-drive mode, and I have been able to get over 30 miles per gallon with that engine in the Passat and its cousin, the Audi A4. Not only that, but the Passat with the 2.0 has a base price of $23,900 and a loaded-up price tag of $31,565.
However, in this test, we return to the 300 and Passat all-wheel-drivers, and the Passat was a clear winner in secure, non-slithering traction. But the difference was clearly in the tires – which is something manufacturers don’t seem to think much about, and which consumers must think more about.
It is obvious that a tire manufacturer can put “all-season,†or “M+S†on the sidewall without stringent requirements – or at least without requirements that stress ice and snow driving. There are some exceptional tires on the market now. Pure winter tires from many tire-makers are good, led by the Bridgestone Blizzaks, which are outstanding on pure ice and heavy snow, although they also wear quickly when driven on pavement – as most days are, even in winter.
Personally, I rank the Nokian WR all-season tires as the best, because their price is not prohibitive, they stick very well in all winter conditions, and they will run 65,000 or more as well as all but the highest high-performance tires if you leave them on year-round.
It is unfair, but understandable, that consumers consider whether their cars are good-handling or poor-handling in ice and snow, often disregarding that tires can make the difference between the two. If tires, even M+S or all-season tires, don’t grip on ice and snow, there is always the old reliable siping technique, an inexpensive process at many reliable tire shops with siping machines that cut tiny slits across the face of hard-compound and otherwise poor-traction tires to improve them measurably.
As for the test cars, it would be very interesting to see how the Chrysler 300 AWD would go through snow with Nokian WRs mounted, or at least with its tires siped. The Passat 4-Motion might also be improved with more dedicated winter tires, but at least it worked capably, and clearly better with its Michelin Pilot all-season tires than the Chrysler did with its Continental M+S tires.
In most situations, drivers may not give much thought to the fact that the only thing between their cars – and their families – is that little foot-long patch where each of the four tires meets the road. But when it’s the harshest storm of winter, with ice or hard-packed snow under a foot of fluffy stuff, and you have to get somewhere, making sure your tires work is cheap security against heart-in-the-throat, white-knuckling.
UMD stars lift 7 different women’s Olympic hockey teams
Anyone watching the Winter Olympics had to come away impressed with the development of women’s hockey. They also had to be surprised when Sweden upset Team USA 3-2 in a semifinal shootout. But anyone who has watched the University of Minnesota-Duluth in the Women’s WCHA could be excused for hanging up their rampant patriotism and be totally enthralled with UMD’s impact on the women’s Olympic hockey tournament.
Canada and the U.S. had been practically granted berths in the gold medal final of the womenÂ’s tournament, because neither of the international powers had ever lost a single game to any team other than each other. Canada was a prohibitive favorite for the gold this year, but both Canada and the U.S. figured to dispatch Sweden and Finland in the semifinals, and leave those two Scandinavian rivals to fight for the bronze. SwedenÂ’s upset is the first evidence that womenÂ’s hockey might be on a faster track than anticipated in striving for some sort of healthy parity.
Back in the “real world†of the WCHA, UMD’s current Bulldogs have been struggling against the same sort of new-found parity the Women’s Olympics showed. No question the Bulldogs missed a couple good players who went off to the Olympics, and during that span, Wisconsin clinched its first WCHA title, and UMD dropped back to second, and then to a second-place tie withn Minnesota. The Bulldogs were unable to preserve a one-point edge on the Gophers during the closing weekend.
As UMD regroups for the league playoffs, Bulldogs hockey fans could have found immense satisfaction from the fact that no fewer than seven different nations had their women’s hockey teams improved by the presence of UMD players past and present. Team USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Germnany, Switzerland, and Russia all displayed their Bulldog quotient prominently. To their credit, all of those Bulldogs came through.
From the start of the womenÂ’s games in Turin, Italy, network and cable broadcasts heaped praise and publicity on the University of Minnesota-DuluthÂ’s program, and from the way the current and former Bulldogs played, it was more than just well-deserved publicity, and stands as a tribute to the UMD programÂ’s international flavor.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran continuing articles about Minnesota’s contribution to the Winter Olympics, and it listed every former Gopher women’s team player, even though they may have been in Minnesota only to play college hockey. But it named only Jenny Potter, who played for UMD, as the school’s only contribution to women’s hockey, without naming any of the others.
The Duluth News-Tribune ran a story, and a follow-up editorial-page column, proclaiming the presence of such former and current UMD players in the womenÂ’s Olympic hockey as: Potter of the U.S.; Maria Rooth and Erika Holst of Sweden; Caroline Ouellette of Canada; and Nora Tallus, Satu Kiipeli, Mari Pehkonen, and Anna-Kaisa Piironen of Finland.
Strangely, however, the Duluth paper completely overlooked current Bulldog freshman sensation Michaela Lanzl of Germany, former UMD goaltender Patricia Ellsworth-Sautter who starred for Switzerland, and RussiaÂ’s Katrina Petroskaia, who played three years ago at UMD.
These players may only be temporary Minnesotans, but no different from the Gopher “imports.” Besides, UMD has made an indelible impression on the Olympians.
“I am not looking forward to leaving, because I love it here at UMD,†said Lanzl, just before departing for the Olympics. “But I am looking forward to playing in the Olympics. It will be very good to play for Germany.Ââ€
Granted, there were a lot of standouts from U.S. womenÂ’s college teams, players such as University of MinnesotaÂ’s Krissy Wendell, Natalie Darwitz, Kelly Stephens, Lyndsay Wall and Courtney Kennedy on Team USA, and WisconsinÂ’s brilliant defenseman Carla MacLeod playing for CanadaÂ’s gold medalists, and Ohio State’s Emma Laaksonen playing for Finland, among others.
But consider the contributions of UMDÂ’s representatives.
In the opening game, Team USA won 6-0 over outmanned Switzerland, but it was only 1-0 midway through the game, and 2-0 after two periods before the Swiss skaters ran out of gas. The Swiss goaltender, known as Patricia Sautter when she backstopped UMD to the 2003 NCAA championship, never faltered. She made 50 saves against the perpetual U.S. attack and was one of the biggest stars of the first dayÂ’s games.
Potter might have been the most effective Team USA player, as coach Ben Smith curiously had his lines pretty messed up as the tournament began. Instead of playing the all-Gopher line of Darwitz, Wendell and Stephens together, he had put Stephens on a different unit, where she played well almost all season, but she never approached the productivity that would have been certain had she been with Darwitz and Wendell. Potter played with Darwitz and Wendell much of the second half of the exhibition season – which meant, in some opinions, the best three centers on Team USA were on that line. As the tournament progressed, Potter played with various combinations, always strong and effective. After the victory over Switzerland, Potter, on national tv said: “Their goalie really played well.†Could it be that Jenny was so focused she forgot that she and Sautter were teammates on an NCAA championship team at UMD?
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Another star was Ouellette, who finished her UMD career last season and will undoubtedly be the second player to have her jersey, No. 5, retired by the UMD women. Powerful as Canada has been in winning silver in 1998 and gold in 2002, no Canadian womenÂ’s player ever had scored more than one goal in a period. Ouellette scored twice on her first shift. Her versatility is such that CanadaÂ’s coaching staff uses her both up front and on defense. After her two goals, Ouellette went back to defense and promptly whistled in her third goal before the first period ended. Ouellette would prefer to let others get the glory, just as she did at UMD, and many other Canadians stepped forward to score dozens of goals. But Ouellette was as good a player as Canada had on its gold-medal roster.
Meanwhile, Germany was overmatched, but Lanzl continued to draw praise with her great, quick dashes through opposing defenses, forcing every opponent to respect the Germans. Lanzl scored a goal and set up another when Germany beat Switzerland 2-1, but her most memorable rush might have come shortly after NBC ran a huge between-periods feature on former Harvard star and Patty Kazmaier-winner Angie Ruggiero, calling her possibly the best defenseman in all of womenÂ’s hockey. Shortly thereafter, Lanzl raced down the ice and, with a head fake and a high-speed deke, darted untouched past Ruggiero for a spectacular rush and shot.
Finland opened with the familiar names of Tallus and Kiipeli in the forefront, and Piironen as a goaltender, but Finland’s most effective player might have been current Bulldog Mari Pehkonen, who scored her team’s first goal in each of Finland’s first two games. Russia, meanwhile, battled gamely, showing strong improvement in the past couple of years, yet almost escaping, except when the cameras moved in for close-ups after strong shifts, was No. 14 – Petroskaia. She was one of Russia’s best players.
Sweden, however, was the headline team of the tournament. In 2002, when Rooth and Holst were still at UMD, they were uncertain if they would be leaving to play in the Salt Lake City games. SwedenÂ’s federation was debating whether to even bother sending the team because it might not be competitive enough. They went, they were competitive enough, and Rooth and Holst were their best players.
Now, in 2006, RoothÂ’s No. 27 hangs from the rafter at the DECC in Duluth as the only womenÂ’s number ever retired, a tribute after she led the Bulldogs to the national championships in the first three years of NCAA womenÂ’s tournaments. Rooth is an emotional ambassador for how beneficial it was to attend UMD and play for coach Shannon Miller. Before Sweden’s first game, Rooth and Holst, SwedenÂ’s captain, were singled out as SwedenÂ’s top scoring threats by Cammi Granato, whose presence added class to the NBC analysis set, but who might better have been used on the ice, scoring a few goals for Team USA.
Granato, though, was cut. The less cynical among observers can only assume that it is mere irony that Team USA is living in the past, with a pronounced overload of Eastern players, even while two western schools, UMD and Minnesota, have won all five NCAA titles ever held. There would be grounds for having a decided western flair, but the last cuts included Granato, who is from Illinois, and Minnesotans Winny Brodt, a former Gopher and a speedy defenseman, and goalie Sheri Vogt, a star at Minnesota State-Mankato.
Similarly, we can assume that itÂ’s merely ironic that every Patty Kazmaier Award winner went along with the Olympic programÂ’s Eastern bias every year until Wendell finally broke through last year as the first Western Collegiate Hockey Association winner of the award. Potter, Ouellette and Rooth have been finalists, but all fell short in the final vote.
Can it be linked by coincidence or irony that the WCHA dominates college hockey, Minnesota grows as the unmatched leader in girls hockey development anywhere in the world by its high school structure, and the most impressive three players on Team USA arguably were Potter, Wendell and Darwitz — the only three Minnesota-raised players on the team — yet Team USA continues to focus on Eastern players, while results systematically have dropped from gold, to silver, to bronze?
At any rate, former UMD star Holst was her usual strong, stable and always-smart and threatening self for Sweden, and Rooth was simply the most impressive individual in the tournament.
Given no chance against Team USA, Sweden trailed 2-0 in the second period until Rooth scored, then she scored again, shorthanded, to tie the game 2-2. It ended that way, after overtime, which meant a five-player shootout. Sweden got one goal, the U.S. none, then Rooth skated in and scored her third goal of the day to clinch the shootout 2-0 with only one turn left. Goaltender Kim Martin played brilliantly with 37 saves, and then she stopped everything in the shootout, including Potter, Wendell and Darwitz. Remember that name, Kim Martin, because she will attend UMD this fall as a freshman. Sound familiar?
Team USA recovered from the shock of losing 3-2 to Sweden in the semifinals to beat Finland 4-0 in the bronze-medal game. In the gold medal final, Rooth, Holst and Martin gave it all they had, but Canada was too much for Sweden and claimed a 4-1 victory. Ouellette scored a picture goal to clinch the victory, and the chance to watch Ouellette play against Rooth was a wonderful final spectacle for UMD and WCHA hockey fans.
Back in the WCHA — sounds like a good name for a Beatles song — UMD spent the final weeks hanging on, tying and winning at Minnesota State-Mankato on the final weekend to leave room for Minnesota to climb into a tie with the Bulldogs for second. The return of Lanzl and Pehkonen should help rejuvenate the Bulldogs for the playoffs, however. Pehkonen returned directly, while Lanzl, who was expected to return home for a week to Germany, where her father recently died, came later.
Injecting Olympic heroics into UMD’s struggling lineup could make an enormous difference between struggling and finding new glory at the college level. If not, well, UMD’s Olympians have helped put the school and the WCHA on the international map.
CC surge intensifies final series with Denver
A month ago, Minnesota, Denver and Wisconsin were racing toward a three-way finish atop the WCHA, and while winning the title is paramount, all three top spots are important when it comes to league playoffs. Once the playoffs reach St. Paul for the Final Five, teams 4 and 5 must play each other, with that winner advancing to the semifinals, where Nos. 1, 2 and 3 await. So winning the playoff title means winning three games in three days for the teams that miss the top three slots.
The fact that Minnesota clinched the season title by sweeping at Alaska-Anchorage last weekend is significant, even though it seems Denver and Wisconsin might be comfortably finishing the seasons to decide which will be second. But don’t look now – Colorado College has won its way back into the picture.
While Denver came off a seven-game winning streak by losing three in a row, including last weekÂ’s split against North Dakota, Wisconsin lost twice against Minnesota State-Mankato to finish 2-7-1. While those two have faltered, Colorado College, by sweeping 5-0 and 5-2 victories at Minnesota-Duluth, has now won four in a row, and six out of seven, to climb within two points of third-place Wisconsin and three points of second-place Denver.
So Colorado College goes into its traditional closing home-and-home series with arch-rival Denver – starting on Thursday – facing the tall order of getting another sweep, but a sweep that would vault the Tigers into at least third and possibly second place.
“The most important thing to us was getting our rhythm back,†said scoring leader Brett Sterling. “We had to stick with our identity – to work hard and use our skill and our speed. We know we have great goaltending, defense and forwards, but usually we peak in January or February. Right now is the best time for us to peak.
“The best thing about it is that third place is still in reach. And we have to play Denver, and every time we play them, itÂ’s something special. Sure, we can sweep them; why not? They did it to us. TheyÂ’ve been struggling a little, and we had a stretch like that when we lost five n a row. The way we were playing, we couldnÂ’t beat a Bantam team, when we played Denver.Ââ€
In recent weeks, CC also lost the services of Aaron Slattengren, a solid and speedy forward who helped balance the offense. Slattengren ran afoul of some academic rules at Colorado College and is no longer eligible. Setbacks like that, and an injury to goaltender Matt Zaba, didn’t promise a stirring finish for the Tigers. But that’s changed.
Sterling scored the winning goal in SaturdayÂ’s 5-2 victory at UMD. He was on a power play, and he spun around and shot going down, and the puck found its way through goaltender Isaac Reichmuth for a 3-1 lead. It came three minutes after Andrew Carroll scored to pull UMD within 2-1, and stood up as CC went up 5-1 by the second intermission.
That goal was the 26th of the season for Sterling, trailing only the 29 by Minnesota’s Ryan Potulny among WCHA snipers. But the key item for CC in the stretch drive is that the Tigers have found that they can win with more than Sterling and Marty Sertich – CC’s 1-2 punch that were 1-2 in the Hobey Baker voting last year won by Sertich – getting the goals.
“WeÂ’re a dangerous team,†said coach Scott Owens, after the 5-0 first game. “But we had a huge January lull. WeÂ’re bouncing back a little, and while Sertich and Sterling get a lot of minutes, we came into this series just trying to be playing better – to get our rhythm back. If we do, I think everything else will fall into place.Ââ€
Twenty-four hours later, the rhythm was back, and things were more than falling into place.
“The good thing is we got four points,†Owens said. “And we got some other guys scoring.Ââ€
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Indeed. For the weekend, CC got 10 goals, and they came from nine different goal-scorers.
Brandon Straub, Joey Crabb, Chad Rau, Jesse Stokke and James Brannigan scored in the 5-0 first game. It was 3-0 after two periods, then Stokke scored his first goal, and, as time was running out, Brannigan scored a goal with the clock reading “0:00.†The red light, however, was on, and a quick review indicated the goal was in before time expired – just the way things have been going for the luckless Bulldogs, and for the Tigers.
In the rematch, J.P. Brunkhorst and Brandon Polich scored 49 seconds apart to stake CC to a 2-0 lead in the first period. It took an extended power play continued from the first period for UMDÂ’s Carroll to get his teamÂ’s first goal of the weekend, and then Sterling got his goal. Crabb notched his 17th as the only CC 2-goal scorer, then Jack Hillen made it 5-1. Sterling had two assists for the weekend, along with his goal, and Sertich had three assists without getting a goal.
“ThatÂ’s the best thing,†said Sterling. “WeÂ’ve changed lines again, and Marty and I get some points, but the other guys are scoring too.Ââ€
CCÂ’s offense is working again, the defense looks solid, and goaltender Matt Zaba is back in the lineup after an injury. Zaba made 25 saves for the Friday shutout, and 32 saves while giving up two goals Saturday.
“WeÂ’re fighting for home ice for the playoffs, and we want to be home for our fans,†said Owens. “We donÂ’t particularly want to go to North Dakota or St. Cloud for a playoff series.Ââ€
That could still happen, but the Tigers are looking up now, not behind them.
“It should be a great playoff,†Owens said. “ThereÂ’s really no team you WANT to play. But for us, weÂ’re only looking ahead to Denver. Our games with them have been wars. Their power-play killed us, and they may pull it together for us. But for us, itÂ’s a short week to get ready, and itÂ’s an emotional thing.Ââ€
Brodt, Curtin aim to inspire future women’s Olympians
Where were you when Team USAÂ’s womenÂ’s hockey team was upset by Sweden, 3-2 in a Winter Olympics semifinal shootout, to preclude the United State from its assumed slot in the gold medal game against Canada?
A lot of women and girls down to the youngest age of hockey interest may remember exactly where they were. Two of them, Winny Brodt and Ronda Curtin, probably wonÂ’t remember, because they had other things on their minds.
Ronda Curtin, one of the premier elite players in Minnesota’s young but proud female hockey history, was home, helping coach the St. Thomas women’s college team and trying to find time to play for the amateur Minnesota Whitecaps. Winny Brodt, who preceded the most famous sister act in Minnesota hockey annals – Ronda and Renee Curtin – at Roseville High School’s early state powers, was also home. She celebrated her 28th birthday, which came one day after Team USA’s stunning defeat, by also playing for the Whitecaps, a recently formed team that plays amateur senior women’s elite teams from all across Canada.
Both of them were among the best half-dozen players in the history of Minnesota girls high school hockey, starring at Roseville High School, and later at the University of Minnesota. Arguably – although it’s not arguable in Minnesota – both should have been on this year’s U.S. women’s Olympic team, and on the 2002 team as well. But they are not just sitting home grousing about it. They are doing something about it, trying to invent ways to help Minnesota’s burgeoning crop of new young girls at the youth and high school levels to have realistic goals in the sport.
Hockey observers from throughout the world are amazed and impressed with the development of female hockey in Minnesota, and how high school girls hockey has accelerated the development of far beyond any other area of the country, and, in fact, the world. Minnesota high school stars go on to college, and are generally among the better players on their teams. So it might seem logical that Minnesota-raised high school players might dominate the U.S. National and Olympic team, the way their male counterparts did, at least up through 1980, when amateurs played.
But the womenÂ’s U.S. Olympic team, which should be the pinnacle of girls through their development phase, has not been a realistic objective for most Minnesota girls and women. True, Krissy Wendell and Natalie Darwitz, two of the other elite players in MinnesotaÂ’s high school girls annals, and Jenny Potter, the famous mom on the team, were stars on Team USA. But thatÂ’s it. Those are the only three women who grew up playing hockey in Minnesota to make Team USA.
Winny Brodt, a swift, free-skating defenseman, who defended responsibly but was best-known for her spectacular end-to-end rushes, was the last player cut. Ronda Curtin, third on the all-time Minnesota high school girls point-scoring list, and who went on to star at the University of Minnesota as a forward, and then switched to defense where she was named All-America, didnÂ’t even bother to try out.
“I saw what was happening to Winny, and I decided – why bother?†said Ronda. The fact that Curtin was never invited to camp or encouraged to try out became more curious when this year’s team took one too few forwards and one extra defenseman, with the idea of shifting some players up to play forward.
“Considering that the three best players on Team USA are Jenny, Krissy and Natalie – all from Minnesota – doesn’t it make sense that they might have tried to find a few more from here?†Curtin asked.
Brodt shares RondaÂ’s opinion, even removing her personal involvement. “Forget all those players who are from somewhere else but might have played at Minnesota or UMD, there are only three homegrown Minnesotans on the U.S. team,†Brodt said. “Does that mean, in eight years they havenÂ’t been able to find another Minnesota player?Ââ€
Despite the easy alternative of being bitter, however, Brodt and Curtin have actively moved toward helping future players develop.
“Ronda and I are running a hockey program for girls 8 to 18 at different arenas around the Twin Cities,†said Brodt. “We started last year, at Fogerty Arena, and Bloomington, and Wakota, and we’re going to expand, maybe to Highland and other arenas. The whole purpose is to work on fundamentals in a setting where the highest level of girls of all ages can participate. We have an evaluation to make sure we get the best, qualified players. In girls hockey, with no checking, it’s a lot easier for younger girls around age 10 to play with older girls over 12 or so.
“Last year, I decided I wanted to stay as involved in hockey as I could, and I could see the numbers of youth programs for girls, while I grew up playing with boys because thatÂ’s all there was. ItÂ’s great that there are so many girls programs for younger girls, but what I notice is that in most cases the girls are treated like girls, instead of like athletes. I was treated like ‘one of the guys.Â’ At our camp, we want to treat the girls like athletes, so they can develop to the maximum of their ability.Ââ€
Ronda Curtin is the opposite of Winny Brodt when it comes to playing style. Ronda is tall and strong, a classic skater who can overpower an opponent with her size, strength or booming shot, while Brodt is a shorter bundle of energy who can fly end-to-end and beat foes with great bursts of speed. But they share the common asset of hockey sense, as well as exceptional ability.
“From coaching at St. Thomas, the thing IÂ’ve noticed most is that the girls skate well and have good ability,†said Ronda Curtin. “But they often lack the ability to see the ice. ThatÂ’s one of the things weÂ’re hoping to develop in the camps Winny and I are running.Ââ€
Seeing the ice is hockey parlance for the great and elusive skill of seeming to know where everyone on the rink is during play – of carrying the puck, but knowing where both teammates and foes are and are likely to be. It seems to be a gift of exceptional players – what separates the Wayne Gretzkys and the Neal Brotens from the average stars. It is an extention of “hockey sense,†and many think it is inborn, because gifted players have it instinctively and don’t play mechanically.
Ronda Curtin and her younger sister, Renee – who is the state’s all-time points leader but whose career tragically has been curtailed by repetitive concussions – definitely have that hockey sense, that ability to see the ice. So does Winny Brodt. And, of course, Natalie Darwitz, Krissy Wendell and Jenny Potter also share that same level of the incredible skill.
In fact, if we were going to select an all-time Minnesota women’s team – for now and possibly forever – Darwitz, Potter, Wendell, Winny Brodt, Ronda and Renee Curtin would be the elite six. If we were selecting an all-time girls high school team, the first unit would have Darwitz centering the Curtin sisters, with Brodt and Wendell on defense. If you wanted to add a goaltender, there are many, but we could pick Sheri Vogt, who went on to stardom at Minnesota State-Mankato, and, after establishing clearly the second-best statistics with Team USA, she was a last-cut along with Winny Brodt.
Potter, incidentally, doesnÂ’t make the all-time high school team for an apparently forgotten reason. Various magazine and newspaper features often credit her for being a high school record-scoring phenom at Edina High School. But Jenny Schmidgall played amateur hockey, with boys and with teams like the Minnesota Thoroughbreds, up through the time high school girls hockey was starting. She never played girls high school hockey.
At any rate, Ronda Curtin and Winny Brodt both agree that Team USA has been a great source of inspiration for young Minnesota girls interested in hockey, but so far it hasnÂ’t been a realistic objective. College hockey has been a realistic goal, and high school hockey is the perfect, and unique, stepping stone to college scholarships at the Division I level, or highly competitive play at the Division III state school level. Their objective is to give young girls a way to develop to the peak of their ability, to play the game at their highest personal levels, and to enjoy the game at its maximum.
The Brodt-Curtin connection goes back a couple of decades, when their family homes were — and still are – next door to each other in Roseville. The young women are off on their own, but they still return home frequently, where all the kids in both families grew up playing various sports, but primarily hockey. Roseville Arena and other various indoor and outdoor rinks became familiar to them, but their most prominent venue was the Curtin driveway.
Boot hockey, the perfect method for developing stickhanding skills as well as how to function in congestion, was an almost daily endeavor, all summer, and often through the winter, unless the two households of kids chose to walk over to the outdoor rink adjacent to Roseville Arena, where the John Rose Oval is now located. The driveway kept hockey alive all summer, however.
“Luke Curtin and I were the same age, and we were the two oldest, so we would be on opposite teams,†said Winny. “IÂ’d get Kurt, who is LukeÂ’s younger brother, and Luke would get Ronda on his side, and then Renee would play, too. WeÂ’d have some pretty ferocious battles.Ââ€
Ronda Curtin remembers those days, too. “My dad had street hockey nets there for us in the driveway, and a board we could shoot against,†said Ronda. “WeÂ’d play 2-on-2, or 3-on-3, or 3-on-2 – depending on who showed up. Sometimes my dad would flood the back yard in winter, so we could skate, but weÂ’d still play boot hockey in the driveway, too.Ââ€
When it came to organized hockey, there were precious few chances for girls. So Winny Brodt played on the Roseville boys A Peewee team at age 10-12, and then starred for the Roseville A Bantam team, age 12-14.
“We learned from playing with and against boys, and as the boys got older and stronger, we had to improve the same way,†Winny said. “That was the driving force behind our playing ability.Ââ€
When girls started playing high school hockey, Roseville came on board a year later, and Winny Brodt was on that team. In 1996, Winny won the first Ms. Hockey award. “Ronda was a freshman on that team, and Renee played as a seventh-grader,†Winny recalled. She also recalled being able to dominate those early high school games, often skating from her own zone, past every opponent, to score goals.
“It is really amazing to see how far high school hockey has come in such a short time,†Brodt said. “It was like skating around cones in some games back when I played. I probably had better hands then than since.Ââ€
There still could be future involvement for Brodt and Curtin with Team USA, and, they hope, for more and more Minnesotans in the future, possibly graduates of their camp. The shocking U.S. loss to Sweden in this yearÂ’s Olympic semifinals is expected to signal a major change in philosophy for USA HockeyÂ’s womenÂ’s teams.
Until now, the team has been pretty much a private club selected by coach Ben Smith, who was named coach of Team USAÂ’s women since it first participated in the Olympics and won the gold medal in 1998 at Nagano. It was logical to select an Eastern-dominated team back then, because Eastern colleges had played hockey for years and the West was just getting started at the college level, and players like the Curtins, Brodt, Darwitz and Wendell were helping with the high school upsurge.
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After the 1998 gold medal, a normally reasonable Minneapolis Star-Tribune sportswriter wrote that Team USA might have won the Olympic gold medal, but there was a question whether it could beat a Minnesota high school all-star team. I was that writer, and I absorbed a lot of criticism for it. But after that season, a game for elite players was conducted at Columbia Arena, including high school, college and Olympic players, and a line of high schoolers named Darwitz, Curtin and Curtin scored twice on the first shift and dominated the game.
Still, Smith and Team USA stayed intact, but added Darwitz and Wendell, with Darwitz leaving her final two high school years to prepare for the 2002 silver medal team. So they were part of the mix this year, with Potter, as top players on the 2006 bronze medal. The apparently downward spiral from gold to silver to bronze, culminated by the shocking loss to an improving Sweden team – which almost didn’t participate in 2002 because Swedish hockey officials weren’t sure they could be competitive – will undoubtedly signal a change.
The selection process may shift to more of the format the men used to use when amateurs manned the teams, through history, of selecting a coach for each yearÂ’s national team, and having regional tryouts, where the East vs. West rivalry led to intense competition but also to selections that were more than simply retaining personal favorites.
Harvard coach Katey Stone is a possible new coach, or Mark Johnson, the coach at Wisconsin, which won the WCHA womenÂ’s title this season. Whatever, it may bring a change in concept to USA HockeyÂ’s national team selection.
“IÂ’d love to see an all- Minnesota team play the Olympic team right now,†said Winny Brodt. “It would be great if they had actual games between the East and West to use for selection of the team.Ââ€
East-West rivalries were common to the men. In fact, when the late Herb Brooks selected 12 Minnesotans to the legendary 1980 menÂ’s Team USA, he worked so hard downplay the fact that 16 of the 20 players were from the west, that every movie, book and chronicle of that team, so far, has featured Jim Craig, Mike Eruzione and Jack OÂ’Callahan, three of the four Eastern players.
WomenÂ’s hockey is at the stage where it deserves similar treatment. The rise in the competitive level of Minnesota girls hockey is unprecedented in high school sports not only in the state, but nationwide. In other parts of the United States, girls play on youth club teams in small pockets, and the most elite of them advance to prep schools and perhaps NCAA colleges.
In Minnesota, every young girl with an interest in skating and hockey can find an outlet of rapidly expanding youth teams, or maybe playing on boys teams at younger levels. Then they can look forward to the Minnesota State High School LeagueÂ’s programs for large or small school teams that continue to reach out to every corner of the state.
ItÂ’s a worthy and realistic objective. And if college, or national team, participation follows, that would be just fine with Winny Brodt, Ronda Curtin, and all of Minnesota. Anyone seeking more information about the Brodt-Curtin girls elite training camp can find it at www.skaterslink.com.
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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