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.
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.
Conner’s 4 touchdowns help UMD celebrate Senior Day 45-13
Erik Conner scored four touchdowns on one side of the ball Saturday, while UMD linebackers Justin Hipple, Jimmy Malo and Chris Markas each nabbed an interception on the other, as the UMD Bulldogs celebrated Senior Day in the best possible fashion — by drubbing Wayne State 45-13 to thrust themselves into next weekend’s Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference championship finale.
Coach Bob Nielson drilled the Bulldogs all week on the importance of making no slips against Wayne State, knowing that if the importance of next Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. game at Winona State intruded enough to disrupt attention on the Wildcats, they were dangerous enough to knock off UMD and render the Winona game meaningless. The Bulldogs went into the high-noon game entangled in an amazing logjam. Winona State was 5-1 atop the NSIC, while UMD, Bemidji State, Concordia of St. Paul, Crookston and Northern State were in an improbable five-way tie at 4-2.
“Our focus all week was to go out and play a no-nonsense game, and take care of business against Wayne State,” said Nielson. “The only disappointing thing is that we gave up some big plays, and we hadn’t been doing that. But on the other side, we generated some turnovers, and we certainly played with consistency, running the football and controlling the clock. There were a couple of critical stretches, like that goal-line stand just before halftime. We held, then we came out and scored on our first possession of the second half, and after that we were able to stretch the lead out.”
The 12 seniors were introduced before the final game of the season at Griggs Field in the annual tribute to those who have been laboring for four years on the club. It was so clearly the seniors’ day that sophomore quarterback Ricky Fritz, a passing record-setter this year, could pretty much take the day off, completing just two of six passes for 15 yards, thanks to Nielson’s long-developed strategy.
“I’ve always believed that if they can’t stop you running the ball, why pass?” said Nielson. “If you throw incomplete, it can get you off your schedule.”
The coach may not have had Senior Day on his mind, but it worked out that way. Conner, the only senior starter on offense, was a one-man show, gaining 177 yards on 22 carries, and his four touchdowns give him 13 for the season — seven in the three straight victories that followed UMD’s two NSIC losses in succession, to Concordia and at Northern State. There are six starting seniors on defense, including right tackle Mike Tuisee, right end Dan Schilling and left cornerback Nathan Daigle, so it was fitting that Hipple, Malo and Markas — the three senior starting linebackers — each came up with an interception.
“It was our last home game, and our offense is clicking right now,” said Connor. “I can’t say more about our front five. This was a day where we made the plays, and if we make our plays, nobody in the league can stop us.”
Conner, who scored on a 1-yard run to cap UMD’s game-opening drive, added a 12-yard scoring run to lift UMD to a 14-7 lead, and his scoring runs of 22 and 5 yards in the third quarter boosted the lead to 38-7. Conner smiled widely when asked about the coach’s preference for running the ball: “Coming from a running back, I can’t complain,” he said. Asked if he would have rather kept playing instead of coming out, along with Fritz and other starters, with more than a quarter remaining, Conner smiled again and said: “I can’t be stingy.”
The only anxious moment came after that opening drive of 69 yards in 14 plays, which consumed over 6 minutes. Conner rammed into the end zone, but Chad Gerlach’s extra point kick was wide, leaving an opening at 6-0. Wildcat quarterback Justin Burhoop, chased back to his own 8 on Wayne State’s first two offensive plays, lofted a pass to Damon Ruffin up the right sideline, and Ruffin sprinted 89 yards before he was caught from behind, only momentarily preventing the touchdown that Bryce Teager got from the 2. Nate Hale — Nathan Hale? — made the point-after kick for a 7-6 lead for the visitors.
Teager made the most of his opportunity for the day, after coach Scott Hoffman benched starting running backs Elroy Brown and Dion Gaston for the game, allegedly for partying beyond disciplinary bounds. Teager, a slippery little (5-7, 170) freshman from South Sioux City, Neb., slithered through the UMD defense 25 times for 102 of Wayne State’s 105 total rushing yards. Burhoop also passed for 235 yards on a 12-25 day, while receivers Ruffin caught three for 104 yards and Tavaris Johnson caught five for 82 yards.
But the Bulldog offensive line led another march, this one using nine plays to cover the 64 yards in 4:45, with Conner sweeping left end for the final 12 and the touchdown. Fritz sprinted around left end for the 2-point conversion, making it 14-7. The Bulldogs did all the heavy work on their next drive before the first quarter ended, although they waited until the start of the second quarter for the first of two 1-yard touchdown runs by junior Nick Boland. Gerlach kicked the extra point and also connected on a 27-yard field goal to lift UMD to a 24-7 halftime lead.
It was about then that the sun came out, after a grey and blustery first half, and the Bulldogs, and their revived title hopes, warmed up too. Conner’s two third-quarter touchdowns, and Boland’s second, after an 11-play, 58-yard, drive took 6:35 off the clock to open the fourth, made it a 45-7 cushion. Burhoop’s 25-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Kuester for the Wildcats came on the final play of the game and did little to tarnish the bright finish to the afternoon.
“Everyone wanted to win this one for the seniors,” said junior safety Kevin Westbrock. “When we lost those two games, it made us forget about everything else and go one game at a time. Now Winona is going to be the biggest game of the season.”
Conner said: “We’ve got a lot of momentum now. We know Winona has a great team, but we also knew that Wayne State never dies, and if we didn’t take care of business today, next week would mean nothing.”
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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