Sertie coaching again
Mike Sertich is making a return to college hockey coaching, and he is doing it at the DECC this weekend.
No, Sertich is not returning to UMD, where he coached 18 seasons until being dismissed last spring. He decided Tuesday morning to accept an offer he had received Monday night to become the new head coach at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich. The Michigan Tech Huskies play UMD at the DECC Friday and Saturday nights.
Sertich made the announcement on the sports-talk radio show he just began hosting on WDSM, 710 AM. In typical Sertich fashion, he did it with style and subtlety, first talking about “scoops.”
Long-suffering Michigan Tech upset North Dakota in the opening game of this season, but has since lost seven straight games, including a sweep last weekend against Minnesota State-Mankato. When asked if he thought Michigan Tech might be considering a coaching change, Sertich said that indeed they might be. When asked if such an opening ever came up and Tim Watters were to be fired, would he be interested in returning to the coaching life he loves, Sertich said yes he would.
Then, when asked if he thought such a turn of events could occur, Sertich said: “I would have to say it’s a done deal.”
After the blockbuster announcement had settled in, Sertich said he had discussed the situation with Tech athletic director Rick Yeo Monday night.
“When I got home, there were two phone messages from Rick Yeo,” Sertich said. “I thought he was wondering how many passes I wanted.”
Sertich meant for this weekend’s Tech-UMD games. Sertich hasn’t attended a UMD game this season, since being relieved of command and being replaced by Scott Sandelin.
“I thought about it a lot last night, but this morning, I was having coffee with my wife, Audie, at 6:30 a.m., and she asked me if I’d made a decision. I said, ‘Not really.’ I thought about it some more, and on my way into the station for the show, I decided I’d do it. I guess the fire is still burning.”
Sertich, a native of Virginia, Minn., played high school hockey there and then at UMD. He got into coaching by assisting Gus Hendrickson at Grand Rapids High School, and after turning that school into the state’s premier power of the 1970s, Hendrickson and Sertich went to UMD in 1975. Sertich served as Hendrickson’s assistant until Hendrickson was dismissed.
Sertich was hired only on an interim basis, because athletic director Ralph Romano had an ex-UMD star who was still in the NHL in mind to coach the following year. But under Sertich, the 1982-83 Bulldogs went 28-16-1 in his first season, and he was voted coach of the year. That got him a permanent contract.
In 1983-84, the ‘Dogs went 29-12-2, won the WCHA title for the first time in history, and went all the way to the NCAA championship game before losing a 5-4 quadruple-overtime classic to Bowling Green. Again, Sertich was coach of the year. And in 1984-85, UMD went 36-9-3, won the WCHA and again got to the NCAA final four before losing in overtime to RPI in the semifinals. Sertich was named WCHA coach of the year for an unprecedented third consecutive year.
The Bulldogs, under Sertich, had trouble maintaining such a high standard, as would any team, but Sertich was known throughout college hockey for his innovative and progressive style of coaching.
His term at UMD peaked again at 21-17-2 in 1997-98, when the Bulldogs capped it by beating Minnesota 5-4 in overtime in the third game of a league playoff series at the DECC, and Sertich ran across the ice in glee and slid into the goal cage in the postgame celebration.
But in 1998-99, the talent ran thin, and UMD plummeted to 7-27-4 and ninth place. The Bulldogs stood 11-11 last season before a tailspin of 4-11 in the last half of the season left them eighth, at 15-22.
Sertich resigned under pressure. His all-time UMD coaching record is above .500 for the 18 years, with 335 victories, 306 losses and 44 ties, with a 250-245-38 record in WCHA play.
Sertich had the last year of his contract worked out in legal terms during the summer, and spent most of the summer at his Island Lake home, fishing. When he got the opportunity to host the talk radio show three weeks ago, it was an immediate hit. It just had a short run, although Sertich promised to call in from Houghton.
“I’m going home after the show, loading the truck up and heading for Houghton,” Sertich said.
“It’s quite an honor to be asked, although I’m a little apprehensive. I’ll meet with the kids tomorrow, and we’ll be coming up to the DECC this weekend.”
Obviously, it will be a pressure-filled weekend for Tech and Sertich, but his usual sense of humor came through.
“I told Rick Yeo that I would do just about anything, but I won’t call season-ticket holders,” said Sertich, referring to a task he did last year at UMD.
“Now that I’ve been in the media, I guess I can be my own critic,” he added. And, as for the chance Tech wins, he said his post-game celebration will be the model of decorum. “I have a no-sliding clause,” he said.
Brooks to coach U.S. hockey team in 2002
Herb Brooks will return to the helm of the U.S. Olympic hockey team for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. You may have read that here three weeks ago, in a small notice that attracted some serious criticism from a few cynics. It will, presumably, attract less criticism after Wednesday, when it becomes official at a press conference at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
How ironic, that the best hockey coach in the world will be named in the fabulous new home of the Minnesota Wild, the new NHL team that never offered Herb a job.
Needless to say, Brooks wouldn’t talk about the Olympics yet, but in some recent conversations, it became clear that is a perfect time for him to return to the Olympic helm.
“There are a lot of variables, but the American hockey movement is something I’ve always been extremely interested in,” Brooks acknowledged. “You never get coaching out of your system, and the Olympic Games are still the top sports event in the world. From the competitive side, the ideal thing is to be able to play the game. In my situation, the next best thing is to be able to coach.”
For those born after 1980, that was the year when Brooks took a team of college selects, molded them into a tight, cohesive unit, and shocked the sports world with the single greatest athletic achievement in the history of sports — a victory over the Soviet Union and a final-game triumph over Finland to claim the gold medal at Lake Placid, N.Y.
That was the pinnacle, but it was only one of numerous bits of magic worked by Brooks. He coached the University of Minnesota for seven years and won three NCAA championships in those years — the only three titles ever won by the Gophers. That was when Gopher hockey meant something throughout the state, when college hockey was at the peak of its skill level, and Brooks in his own stubborn way established a legacy that is alternately ignored or promoted in recent, promotion-oriented years.
From there to the Olympics, where Brooks again operated his way, then back to the real world, he made a transformation in the New York Rangers that was akin to grooming plowhorses to win the Kentucky Derby, and he won 100 NHL games faster than any other coach in the Rangers’ rich history. He also had other conquests, less historic but no less sensational, such as assembling a Minnesota high school all-star team that came from several goals behind in the finals to win a national tournament. He agreed to coach France in the 1998 Olympics without being able to speak a word of French, and, in a preliminary tournament, his team upset the U.S., knocking the U.S. into a relegation round. The same French team won a few upsets at Nagano, then, with a different coach, failed to win a single game at the following World Tournament.
Brooks rejoined Craig Patrick, now the general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Brooks’ assistant in 1980, to scout for prospects for the Penguins, and last year he gave in and agreed to take over as head coach for the second half of the season. Sure enough, he brought the Penguins together for an amazing run up through the standings, and won a playoff round from Washington before falling short when star Jaromir Jagr ran out of gas in the next round.
No question, that experience rekindled the coaching embers burning inside Brooks, and was a further element which makes this the perfect time and place to accept an offer from USA Hockey and the National Hockey League with its all-powerful Players Association. In past years, the purist in Brooks might have spoken out against pros taking over the Olympics. Now he accepts it as reality.
“At least in hockey, the gold medal is highly competitive,” said Brooks. “It’s not like basketball or other sports where the U.S. pros dominate and shouldn’t lose a game. Hockey has been a real tough thing for the U.S., especially now that the pros are in it, because there are six other teams with outstanding talent — Canada, Russia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, and Slovakia. And other teams, like Germany and Switzerland, aren’t bad, and have guys who can play.”
Canadians, Russians, Czechs, Swedes and Finns all come to the United States, make a wealthy living by playing in the NHL, and get more respect than the American players from U.S. fans. Meanwhile, Brooks is undeterred whenever there is a cause in his aim, and his cause in this case is simple: To prove that the U.S. hockey players can be united into a team that can prove the United States is more than just “apprentices in this game,” he said.
The Olympics, plus American hockey — where kids can work on their own and within their teams to improve and reach the pinnacle — are enough to entice Herb Brooks, the best hockey coach on the planet, to try to work his magic one more time.
John Gilbert is a sports writer for Murphy McGinnis Newspapers. He can be reached by email at john.gilbert@mx3.com.
Herb Brooks brings magic back to Team USA for 2002 Olympics
Herb Brooks will return to the helm of the U.S. Olympic hockey team for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. You may have read that in Murphy McGinnis Newspapers three weeks ago, in a small notice that attracted some serious criticism from a few cynics. It will, presumably, attract less criticism after Wednesday, when it becomes official at a press conference at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
How ironic, that the best hockey coach in the world will be named in the fabulous new home of the Minnesota Wild, the new NHL team that never offered Herb a job.
Needless to say, Brooks wouldn’t talk about the Olympic job before the announcement, but some recent conversations made it clear that is a perfect time for him to return to the Olympic helm.
“There are a lot of variables, but the American hockey movement is something I’ve always been extremely interested in,” Brooks acknowledged. “You never get coaching out of your system, and the Olympic Games are still the top sports event in the world. From the competitive side, the ideal thing is to be able to play the game. In my situation, the next best thing is to be able to coach.”
For those born after 1980, that was the year when Brooks took a team of college selects, molded them into a tight, cohesive unit, and shocked the sports world with the single greatest athletic achievement in the history of sports — a victory over the Soviet Union and a final-game triumph over Finland to claim the gold medal at Lake Placid, N.Y.
That was the pinnacle, but it was only one of numerous bits of magic worked by Brooks. He coached the University of Minnesota for seven years and won three NCAA championships in those years — the only three titles ever won by the Gophers. That was when Gopher hockey meant something throughout the state, when college hockey was at the peak of its skill-level, and Brooks in his own stubborn way established a legacy that is alternately ignored or promoted in recent, promotion-oriented years.
From there to the Olympics, where Brooks again operated his way, then back to the real world, he made a transformation in the New York Rangers that was akin to grooming plowhorses to win the Kentucky Derby, and he won 100 NHL games faster than any other coach in the Rangers’ rich history. He also had other conquests, less historic but no less sensational, such as assembling a Minnesota high school all-star team that came from several goals behind in the finals to win a national tournament. In the fall of 1997, Brooks agreed to coach France in the 1998 Olympics and World Championships, despite being unable to speak French. His France outfit won a couple of games at the Olympics in Nagano, but the real shocker came in May of 1998, when France beat the U.S. pros 3-1 in the World Championships in Switzerland, knocking the U.S. into the relegation round to rejoin the A Pool. The next year, with the same team but without Brooks, France failed to win a single game in the World Championships.
More recently, Brooks rejoined Craig Patrick, now the general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Brooks’ assistant in 1980, to scout for prospects for the Penguins. Last year, Brooks gave in and agreed to take over as head coach for the second half of the season. Sure enough, he brought the Penguins together for an amazing run up through the standings, and won a playoff round from Washington before falling short when star Jaromir Jagr ran out of gas in the next round.
No question, that experience rekindled the coaching embers burning inside Brooks, and was a further element which makes this the perfect time and place to accept an offer from USA Hockey and the National Hockey League with its all-powerful Players Association. In past years, the purest in Brooks might have spoken out against pros taking over the Olympics. Now he accepts it as reality.
“At least in hockey, the gold medal is highly competitive,” said Brooks. “It’s not like basketball or other sports where the U.S. pros dominate and shouldn’t lose a game. Hockey has been a real tough thing for the U.S., especially now that the pros are in it, because there are six other teams with outstanding talent — Canada, Russia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, and Slovakia. And other teams, like Germany and Switzerland, aren’t bad, and have guys who can play.”
Canadians, Russians, Czechs, Swedes and Finns all come to the U.S., make a wealthy living by playing in the NHL, and get more respect than the American players from U.S. fans. Meanwhile, Brooks is undeterred whenever there is a cause in his aim, and his cause in this case is simple: To prove that the U.S. hockey players can be united into a team that can prove the U.S. is more than just “apprentices in this game,” he said.
The Olympics, plus American hockey — where kids can work on their own and within their teams to improve and reach the pinnacle — are enough to entice Herb Brooks, still the best hockey coach on the planet at age 63, to try to work his magic one more time.
New-look Wildcats with hometown flavor run over UMD 7-1
DULUTH, MINN. — When UMD and Northern Michigan meet on a hockey rink, you could say they’d battle like cats and dogs. But in Friday night’s case, score one for the cats. Northern Michigan’s program has changed dramatically in the last two years, and the new-look Wildcats buried the Bulldogs 7-1 with a five-goal third period.
It was a painful step in the restructuring process by new UMD coach Scott Sandelin, whose team was competitive for two and a half periods before a 2-1 game blew up in front of a home crowd announced at 3,635 at the DECC.
“We strive for the third period to be our best,” said Chris Gobert, a 5-foot-9, 164-pound sophomore from Marquette who scored both first-period goals for Northern and completed his hat trick to get the Wildcat rally started in the third period. He may have set some kind of team record by scoring two of his three goals shorthanded.
“We were thinking that they were a good-skating team and we knew they would come out hard in the third period, just as they had in the second,” Gobert added. “With a 2-1 lead, we figured if we could weather the storm, we could be in good position.”
Five straight goals is a pretty effective way to show you’ve weathered the storm. Nobody better embodies the change in design of the Northern Michigan program than Gobert, who was last year’s rookie of the year in the CCHA with 18 goals and 18 assists, but hadn’t scored in five games this season, until Friday.
Under Coach Rick Comley, Northern Michigan had a rich tradition of big, not quick teams that scored so effectively that teams were less than anxious to make the trip to the Upper Peninsula, where Northern was practically unbeatable at Lakeview Arena, a cozy rink which had fast-rounded corners and seemed smaller than its regulation dimensions. Now the Wildcats are in the CCHA, and last year they moved into a new arena, with larger, 200-by-85 foot Olympic rink dimensions. And the team is different, too.
Instead of being populated by large, not-necessarily-fast Canadian players, the current Wildcats are not that big, but they are extremely quick. Comley still recruits top Canadian players, but also hits the USHL and the North American junior leagues in the U.S. He has two Minnesotans — Ambrose Tappe from Maple Grove and Dan Donnette from Anoka — but the big change is that seven Wildcats are from Michigan, including four hometowners from Marquette who grew up watching the Wildcats.
“That’s pretty good from a small town the size of Marquette,” Comley said. “And we have another one coming in next year in Alan Swanson, who is one of three Marquette kids playing for Green Bay in the USHL.”
Gobert is a prize cultivated from that crop. “I was a rink-rat wen I was younger,” he said. “When I was about 9, I’d got to the Wildcat games and wait outside the locker room. It’s unreal to get to play with the kids you grow up with, then get to play with some of them again and get the opportunity to go through this experience with coach Comley.”
Gobert is left wing on the first line, and spent the game buzzing around in UMD’s zone as if he had proprietory rights on the puck. The Wildcats were penalized in the first minute of the game, but Gobert zoomed in shorthanded, only to have his shot thwarted by freshman UMD goaltender Ryan Coole. “I was in too close,” said Gobert.
Three minutes later, Northern was penalized again, and amazingly, Gobert got loose again against the UMD power play. This time Gobert beat Coole, with a deke to his backhand and a shot from the left edge at 4:10.
Northern held command of all the loose pucks, to say nothing of the flow of the game, for the rest of the first period and made it 2-0 when Gobert struck again at 11:38, after the Wildcats pelted Coole with shots on a flurry until the little sophomore put it away. “I was just in the right place at the right time, and I shot it off the post and it went in,” Gobert said.
UMD came out with some fire to open the second period, and cut the deficit to 2-1 at 0:33 when Jesse Fibiger shot from the point and freshman Nick Anderson plunked the rebound. And that, as they say, was about the end of the highlights for the home side. The ‘Dogs stayed at 2-1 until the second intermission, and through the first 10 minutes of the third. But thenÂ…it was as if the DECC roof caved in.
“It was 2-1 after two, and they’re in a fragile situation,” Comley said. “If they came out and got that second goal, it might have been completely different.”
Anything different would have been welcome by the sparse crowd, who saw the Bulldogs outshot 45-25 for the game. At the 10-minute mark of the third period, UMD defenseman Mark Carlson carried deep into the right corner on a power play and flung a wide-angle shot that Northern goaltender Craig Kowalski had no trouble stopping. It was the last shot on goal that any Bulldog managed in the game.
Before that UMD power play expired, Gobert was sprung by a Jimmy Jackson pass for yet another breakaway at 10:33, racing in solo to score again — completing a hat trick for a 3-1 lead with his second shorthanded goal. “I didn’t have any shorthanded last year,” he said.
It was difficult to tell whether UMD suffered a complete collapse at that point or whether Northern just got fired up. Probably it was a combination of both. At 12:04, Colin Young banked a pass ahead off the right side boards and threaded it perfectly to Chad Theuer, who carried to the right circle and fired a shot right through Coole to make it 4-1. At 13:09, the Wildcats scored almost an instant-replay goal, as Ambrose Tappe carried up the right side and shot from the circle, beating Coole for a 5-1 cushion.
When the ‘Cats got a power play in the closing minutes, Sean Connolly passed crisply from the point to the right circle, where Dave Bonk promptly relayed it across the slot, and Brent Robertson one-timed his shot for a 6-1 lead at 17:55. At 18:34, Mike Stutzel steered in a Connolly shot to complete the romp.
While it’s characteristic for the coaches to exchange pleasantries after a two-game series, Comley made a point to walk directly to Sandelin on the ice when the game ended. “I told him to hang in there,” said Comley. “They’ll get the job done, but it’ll take time.”
Wildcats blast Bulldogs again, 8-3, but optimism remains
It was not a pretty sight for 3,513 fans at the DECC, as UMD’s hockey team absorbed its second shellacking in as many nights, this time an 8-3 pounding at the hands of Northern Michigan. After the game, new UMD coach Scott Sandelin was upbeat, saying he noted some positive signs, but he had to cut the interview short because he was leaving town.
No, it’s far too early for Sandelin to have received any threats of being run out of town. “Recruiting trip,” he said. “I’ll drive as far as I can get tonight, then find a cheap hotel to stay in, and get to the game tomorrow night.”
That’s the way it is when you need to find goal-scorers to rebuild a program that is suffering from a serious shortage of them. The Bulldogs, who were buried 9-1 by Northern Friday night, got goals from Jon Francisco, Judd Medak and Mark Gunderson. But none of them came before the Wildcats had built a 3-0 first-period lead and expanded it to 4-0 in the second. Northern went on to spread out the UMD goals while the lead stretched from 4-0 to 6-1 to 8-2.
If you were going to be playing a team named the Wildcats this weekend, Wayne State’s football team would have been the judicious choice; just stay away from any team from Northern Michigan. UMD’s football team overran Wayne State’s Wildcats 45-13 Saturday afternoon, then the UMD volleyball team was beaten by the Northern Michigan Wildcats later Saturday afternoon. Then came Saturday night, and the Northern Michigan Wildcats completed their lopsided sweep at the DECC.
Sophomore Bryce Cockburn had a hat trick for Northern, while his linemates, Chad Theuer and Fred Mattersdorfer, each had a goal and four assists. Sophomore Terry Harrison wound up with two goals, and Sean Connolly scored for the defense. UMD outshot Northern 34-27, but the quality of Northern’s shots left Gregoire with only 19 saves. Dan Ragusett, a hometown Northern senior from Marquette, kicked out 31 UMD shots. The trouble was, the quality of UMD’s shots didn’t match the quantity listed on the shot chart.
“I’ve left our top three lines intact, and juggled players on the fourth,” said Northern coach Rick Comley. “But for a young team like ours to come in here and get two winsÂ…I don’t know how many nights I’ve had teams limp home from trips like this. I thought UMD would be tougher tonight, and I thought it was tougher. We got some early goals, but they fought through that. They were much more intense and much more physical tonight.”
Those early goals were pivotal to the outcome, of course. Cockburn opened a 3-0 Northern first period by scoring at 4:21, with two whacks at the puck near the crease after Chad Theuer’s pass out. Twenty seconds later, Tom Nelson was penalized for high-sticking, and Theuer circled the net and set up Harrison for a power-play goal and a 2-0 lead at 5:30. The Wildcats were attacking again, late in the period, when the puck popped loose and Cockburn quickly put it away at 16:50. The ‘Cats made it 4-0 at 4:10 of the second period, when Mattersdorfer converted Ryan Carrigan’s pass from behind the net with a shot that went in off the skate of UMD’s Drew Otten.
Sandelin shook up his lineup, inserting untried sophomore Jason Gregoire in goal. Eager as the former Moorhead star had to be to get in, the thrill didn’t last long. Speculation also was that Sandelin had benched regulars like captain Derek Derow and productive center Nick Anderson, but after the game, Sandelin said Derow had a strong case of the flu, and Anderson had a sore knee.
“I liked the way our lines worked tonight,” said Sandelin. “I thought we had much more effort, and more intensity and jump. We outshot ’em, and at times outplayed ’em. We made some poor plays away from the puck, and that caused us to give them some easy goals. But I got a chance to see what we’ve got. We were able to play a lot of players this weekend.”
The Bulldogs didn’t score until 5:28 of the second period, when Francisco put one off the left pipe and in. Rookie Junior Lessard relayed the puck from Beau Geisler to Franciscon on the goal. Until then, the Bulldogs had stormed the net several times, only to be unable to put the puck in the net.
Harrison countered Francisco’s goal on a turnover, when Gregoire was left alone, dropped into the splits, but had Chris Gobert neatly pass behind him to Harrison, who had an open net from five feet out on the left to make it 5-1. Theuer scored from a carom off the end boards, but then Medak scored a picture goal for the Bulldogs with eight seconds left in the middle period. Mark Carlson banked a pass off the right boards ahead to Nate Anderson, who carried in 2-on-1 and sent a perfect pass across the slot for Medak to drill behind goalie Ragusett.
At 6-2, though, the Bulldogs still needed a mighty rally to get back into it in the third period, and Connolly’s power-play goal and Cockburn’s third made it 8-2 and hopeless. Gunderson knocked in Nelson’s power-play pass from behind the net to end the scoring.
But hope remains. The Bulldogs go to Colorado College next weekend, and at 0-4, and having been outscored 27-7, the new Bulldog coach is looking optimistically toward the future. Not only in the DECC dressing room, but on the road in the USHL.
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.
For those who want to keep up with John Gilbert's view of sports, mainly hockey with a Minnesota slant, click on the following:
Click here for sports