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Jubilant Grand Rapids players took their Section 7AA trophy to celebrate with their fans at AMSOIL Arena. Photo credit: John Gilbert

Back in 1963, a young and eager journalism student at the University of Minnesota was taking a really beneficial course in shooting and editing video. We got the use of a camera and film to shoot any project we chose, and then come back and edit it into something resembling a made-for-television news item.

It was early March, and as that naive student, I knew exactly what I wanted to shoot. I had heard a lot about the state hockey tournament growing up in Duluth, and here was my chance to attend it. I got credentials, took my movie camera, and set out for the St. Paul Auditorium. After years of the flashy Civic Center, and now Xcel Energy Center, the old St. Paul Auditorium was positively dingy. But back then, it was magical.

My determination to video a part of the tournament hinged a lot on Duluth East playing in the tournament, because my cousin, John McKay, played defense for the Greyhounds. I remember vividly walking into the old Auditorium and being astonished at the old horseshoe-shaped stands, filled with people, and with smoke. Cigarets were in vogue, and legal, even in such a dank, confined place, and the upper section of seats were pretty much obscured by the thick, low-hanging blue cloud. I shot much of the game, as much as I had film for, and I was really excited to turn it into a video masterpiece.

One problem, though, was that when I put the  film on the editing machine, I didn’t want to cut any parts that I thought were good. And I thought all of it was good – exciting and dramatic. I figured my professor would understand, so I turned the whole thing in. As I recall, I got a pretty poor grade on the editing part, even though I had captured a lot of great action. And when it came to a choice, I couldn’t make myself destroy any recapturing of hockey action, just to get a better grade.

East lost in that tournament, but another Northern team, from International Falls, came out on the ice wearing old, faded purple jerseys, but there was something captivating about that team. The old, worn uniforms fit too tightly, but they had a certain class, just because of the way those Broncos players wore them, as they hit the St. Paul Auditorium ice and skated in rapid warm-up circles.

Who were these kids, who didn’t care how worn out their jerseys were – in fact they were downright proud to wear them, as if they were putting a large slice of history on display. As a kid, I always admired neat, new uniforms in any and every sport, but that day, I learned that the uniform doesn’t matter a whit compared to what was inside them.

Because I had a pass for that tournament, I went back for the Friday to watch International Falls again, and then I went back for the championship game, when International Falls played St. Paul Johnson. It was an absolute classic game, in that old, smoke-filled arena. I moved around to different vantage points in the sold-out place. Falls had great players, with magical names, such as Peter Fichuk, Gary Wood, Jim Amidon, and a ninth-grader centering the third line, named Tim Sheehy.

They played to near-exhaustion, through three periods. Johnson had a fantastic first line, Greg Hughes, Mike Crupi and Rob Shattuck. They were relentless, and as the game raged back and forth, they would score for the Governors, and then Amidon would take off on a meandering venture, stickhandling end to end, to score for Falls.

One of the Falls defensemen was Dick Haugland, and he was so tired by the end of regulation that he was bent over to rest at each whistle. Falls wound up losing that game in overtime, and I was disappointed at what seemed like the Big City sullying the magic of Northern Minnesota. But watching that tournament hooked me for life, convincing me that the Minnesota state high school hockey tournament was the greatest sports event on the face of the earth.

A day or so later, I learned that when the Falls team was herded onto their school bus by coach Larry Ross they learned that Haugland was in serious pain, and they took him to a hospital where it was divulged that he played the entire championship game while suffering with acute appendicitis.

The game has changed a lot, and the Big City powers have lost everything to the bigger suburbs, who now dominate high school hockey, if they can fight off the private schools.

But Northern Minnesota yields nothing, except numbers. Duluth East has held high the torch of Northern Minnesota, and this year, Grand Rapids takes that same torch, burning with pride, to the glittering Xcel Energy Center. Unfortunately, the Indians...Oops! I mean Thunderhawks, must open the tournament with a Thursday  night game against Bemidji. The Lumberjacks are from Section 8, and they are a strong team that shoots the puck well enough to beat anybody. We just hate to see the only two Northern schools have to beat up on each other.

Of course, we now have Class A as well, presumably for smaller schools and those without the numbers to compete with the larger schools of Class AA.  Strong teams, regardless of size, dominate Class A, and going into the tournament’s Wednesday opening for Single A teams, it seems more than a safe bet that when the Class A championship game is held, it will be between Hermantown and Breck. Both are powerhouse teams, and both should bow to the great and historical legacy of the sport and move up to Class AA. Not only could they compete very well in AA, but they would no longer block good-but-thin small-school teams from ever having a chance to reach the state tournament.

How good is Hermantown? Well, in Section 7, Denfeld, North Shore, International Falls, Eveleth, Virginia, Greenway and Hibbing were the best of a strong crop. In the 7A semifinals, Hermantown beat Greenway 8-0, while Hibbing beat Denfeld 5-1. Then in the final, Hermantown beat Hibbing 9-0. That doesn’t mean Greenway and Hibbing are lousy teams. They had very good teams. But the powerful Hawks routed both of them by a combined 17-0. My hope is that the Hawks win the state title, and then coach Bruce Plante encourages the school to make the move and go 7AA. It’s time.

Hermantown players piled out to celebrate 8-0 Section 7A victory over Hibbing-Chisholm at AMSOIL Arena. Photo credit: John Gilbert

Gavin Hain (8) celebrates after setting up Alex Adams (9) for a goal with 0:06 left to give Grand Rapids a 6-5 victory over Duluth East in the 7AA final. Photo Credit: John Gilbert

Gavin Hain (8) leaps for the rafters after setting up the 7AA championship goal for Grand Rapids over Duluth East. Photo Credit: John Gilbert

Hermantown’s Jesse Jacques (8) celebrates after scoring three goals and three assists in the 8-0 rout of Hibbing in the 7A final. Photo Credit: John Gilbert

Xcel, AMSOIL, or Ridder  – Take your pick

It was as if the UMD men’s and women’s hockey teams decided to make a stand and right there, on the same weekend when the high school sectional finals were capturing the imagination of the entire state, both of them had their finest hours.

While Grand Rapids squeezed past Duluth East in a 6-5 classic AA final at AMSOIL, a day after Hermantown had blown out Hibbing 9-0, the two college teams went to work.

First, on Friday afternoon the UMD women took their lowly sixth-place record to Bemidji to face a Beavers team that finished third in the WCHA and had swept UMD both in Bemidji and in Duluth. UMD stunned the Beavers 5-1, and battled the next day through a 1-1 game to get to overtime. And there, Lara Stalder scored and UMD won a 2-1 shocker to sweep Bemidji State out of the league playoffs. While there is a slim chance the Beavers could still sneak into the eight-team NCAA field, UMD for certain heads for Ridder Arena for the WCHA Frozen Faceoff, where the Bulldogs face powerful Wisconsin in a Saturday semifinal, opposite the Minnesota-North Dakota game.

On the men’s side, the Bulldogs have been struggling to score, and struggling more just to win. Hanging onto part of a tie with Miami and Nebraska-Omaha for the fourth and final home playoff slot, UMD had to go to North Dakota, where it lost a pair of 2-1 games, and then go to St. Cloud, where the high-flying Huskies awaited, still tied with North Dakota for first place

Incredibly, the Bulldogs played perhaps their best game of the season and beat the Huskies 4-1 the first night, then they beat them again 2-1 in the rematch Saturday night. That shocking sweep effectively knocked St. Cloud State out of a chance for the title, because North Dakota swept at Omaha to gain a six-point lead on the Huskies, and knocking Omaha out of the three-way tie for fourth. If St. Cloud State had a claim on being the best team in the league and the nation, UMD indeed proved it could play with, and beat, the best.

Miami, which swept Colorado College, is still tied with UMD, and the teams play each other Friday and Saturday at AMSOIL in what should be an outstanding series. Chances are, the winner finishes fourth and the loser finishes fifth, and fifth will play at fourth next week in the first round of NCHC playoffs. A victory there would allow the UMD men to follow the women to the Twin Cities for the NCHC Frozen Four at Target Center.
 
EXTENDED PENALTY

Anybody who watched Grand Rapids beat East 6-5 in the 7AA final could only bow to the Thunderhawks, and to the thrill of watching such a classic game.


A lot of the capacity crowd of over 6,000 might have missed a couple of disturbing things at the end of that game. East coach Mike Randolph only gave plaudits to Grand Rapids, and didn’t make a complaint, but after three periods of fast-paced, end-to-end action, Jonah Bischoll whistled in a pair of goals less than a minute apart to forge a 5-5 tie. Overtime was a virtual certainty with only three minutes remaining.
Then a whistle blew. The refs waved East junior defenseman Reid Hill to the penalty box for hooking. In the press box, I didn’t see it, and asked several others. Nobody saw an infraction, and I muttered that in a 5-5 game to go to the state tournament, a penalty should be far more flagrant than a phantom hooking call with 2:12 remaining.

East did a pretty good job of killing the penalty. Then Gavin Hain rushed the puck up the left boards for Grand Rapids, zooming past the penalty boxes and continuing up the left side of a 2-on-2 rush. He got deep before flipping a pass across the goal-mouth, where Alex Adams gained a step on the backchecker and swatted it in. Rapids had gained a 6-5 lead and when I looked at the scoreboard, only 6 seconds remained.

I looked down at my season-long notebook and wrote “PP” after the goal, for power play. Then I noticed that the penalty should have expired at 16:48, with 12 seconds left, and the goal was scored at 16:54, with 6 seconds left.  We’ve all seen games when a penalty expires and the penalized player jumps onto the ice and makes an immediate play, for a breakaway, to grab a loose puck, or to make a defensive play. Curious, I pressed Randolph about the time disparity, wondering why Hill didn’t return to action.

The answer is disturbing. As his time expired, Hill got up and got ready to go onto the ice. The penalty box attendant opened the door, with the onrushing Hain still 20 feet away and closing fast. The attendant apparently thought there might be a dangerous collision, so he quickly closed the door, before Hill could exit! When Hain passed by, the door was opened and Hill could exit, just in time to be too late. Had he come out on time, without question he could have stopped Hain, bodychecked him, or otherwise ended the Thunderhawks rush.

Just another example that no matter how much hockey you watch, there could still be something in the next game that you’ve never seen before. All that was riding on that 2:05 penalty was a chance to go to the state tournament. Nobody can say Grand Rapids didn’t deserve to win, but East didn’t deserve to have its last chance to extend the game to overtime snatched away.