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When Glen Sonmor replaced John Mariucci as coach at the University of Minnesota in 1966, it was the official start of an uplifting era in Minnesota hockey, and it didn’t officially end until last Sunday, when Sonmor died at age 86 in Toronto.
For me, Sonmor was an incredibly entertaining mentor for all things hockey, because I had just started a journalism career at the Minneapolis Tribune, and covering Gopher hockey was one of my responsibilities that were ever-expanding to also include the Saints and North Stars, along with high school hockey. It is somewhat amusing to listen to media types who never went near hockey rinks when Sonmor was coaching the Gophers, or the Fighting Saints, and who now enjoy relaying the colorful stories Sonmor would spin without provocation. It’s amusing for me, because I was there when most of those wild stories were happening.
My whole family was jolted by the news Monday morning that the hockey world had lost Glen Sonmor. I went back to my cache of old, saved notebooks and one of the first ones I pulled out was the collected game notes I had made from the 1978-79 season. I flipped it open, and came to a November 5, 1978 game in Buffalo, shortly after Sonmor had been hired by Lou Nanne to coach the North Stars. One note from that game says Sonmor had written “Polich-Young-Sharpley-Smith” on his wrist, just so he could remember the rotation of lines he wanted to use -- naming centers Mike Polich, Tim Young, Glen Sharpley, and Bobby Smith. In that game, Craig Ramsey scored in the second period for Buffalo, and Bill Hajt scored shorthanded in the third. After pressing hard, the North Stars finally scored when Sharpley knocked the puck in after Tom Younghans had jammed it to the crease with 15 seconds left, and the Stars went down 2-1.
After the game, the always-enthusiastic Sonmor said, “I don’t like losing very much, but I found out that a lot of our guys don’t like to lose either. I was generally quite pleased -- as pleased as I’ll ever be while losing.”
Then Sonmor changed the subject in his scattergun style, recounting an incident from 1958 – 20 years earlier – in his last visit to the Buffalo Auditorium as coach of the American League Springfield team. “The last time I was in here, we were down 3-1 and three hecklers jumped me between periods,” Sonmor said. Asked how that came out, Sonmor shrugged and said: “About a draw. Springfield came back and won the game.”
That was perhaps Sonmor’s greatest gift as a coach. He would ask his players to go all out for the team, but it was never a greater task than he was willing to carry out himself.
In those same notes, Sonmor interrupted himself, remembering he was upset at referee Bryan Lewis for some calls Sonmor thought favored the Sabres. “...By the way, what are the rules in this league about saying things about the referee?”
Told there were fines, for the sort of rude comments Sonmor sometimes fired off at Bill Friday in the old WHA, Sonmor said he would have to go back to his favorite description of officials: 
“I think that I shall never see, a satisfactory referee. One who calls them as they are, and not as I would have, by far. A gent who bends not either way, but lets the kids decide the play. Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can referee.”
   Sonmor blazed a wild and raucous trail through the state as coach of the Gophers, architect of the Minnesota Fighting Saints in the World Hockey Association, and later as coach for a couple of sessions with the Minnesota North Stars of the National Hockey League. He also was general manager of the Saints, and an NHL scout, and he gained a new following as the desperate homer turned color commentator for his beloved Gophers.
Glen was always willing to the point of being eager to heckle himself when he fouled something up, and in his later years, whenever he would forget something, he would joke that he had “Parts-heimers” disease, which he quickly pointed out was similar to Alzheimer’s, just part-time. The irony became jolting when Sonmor started suffering from dimentia that later shut him down as a broadcaster, and ultimately led to him moving to Toronto where he could live in an assisted living facility near his sister, Jean.
Sonmor’s playing career ended when he was struck in the eye by a teammate’s shot from the blue line, while trying to screen in front of the net. John Mariucci, the always colorful coach of the Gophers and the architect who demanded that Minnesota high schools would develop until they could provide the players with whom the Gophers could take on the Canadian-dominated WCHA, brought Sonmor in as assistant coach. Sonmor, in turn, carried out Mariucci’s ideals.
While Mariucci understandably gets credit as the Godfather of Minnesota hockey, and Herb Brooks gets deserved credit for taking the all-Minnesota theme to the heights of NCAA championships, Sonmor is more of an unsung hero for his role between those two icons. He brought in Brooks as his assistant with the Gophers almost immediately, and said later he was quick to recognize the intelligence Brooks had as a student of the game.
In Sonmor’s fourth season with the Gophers, a chance to win the school’s first NCAA title was enticing. The Gophers had a swift and entertaining team, anchored by senior goaltender Murray McLachlan and inspired by a darting freshman center named Mike Antonovich, recruited from Greenway of Coleraine. UMD had a powerhouse, too, and whipped Minnesota 7-3 in the season opener. In the second game of the series, after Sonmor had spent two nights being annoyed by a UMD season-ticket holder whose seats were in prime heckling range next to the visiting bench.
It was a tough and hard-fought game, tied 2-2 when a UMD player slammed the small but wiry Antonovich into the sideboards next to the visitor’s bench. Without plexiglass in those days, Antonovich was draped over the boards and his stick flailed above the boards on impact. The annoying fan reached out to grab the stick to protect himself. “All I needed to see was him grab Antone’s stick,” said Sonmor. “I had no idea what he intended to do, but I wasn’t going to wait to find out.”
 In one bound, Sonmor was out of his bench and into the folding-chair seats, starting a brawl that put him right into his favorite take-charge element. Police and security rushed to the area and cleared out all the fans. Sonmor said: “I knew the guy wasn’t much of a fighter, because he grabbed my shirt and held on, and I just kept punching him.”
When order was restored, the Gophers scored an overtime goal to win the game 3-2. In the visiting dressing room, there was Sonmor, his sport coat and necktie still in place, and his white shirt torn to shreds, standing on a table in the middle of the room, his fist in the air, surrounded by his cheering players. The Gophers went on to win the WCHA title that season, but they were knocked out in, of all places, the Duluth Arena. The Gophers beat UMD in the semifinals of the WCHA tournament, 3-2 in three overtimes, but they had nothing left the next night and fell to Michigan Tech 6-5.
The next season, with McLachlan graduated, the Gophers started out struggling to win. The Gophers were 2-7 when Sonmor confided to me: “I don’t think we’re good enough to win the WCHA title again, but I do think this team will come together and improve enough that we might make a run at the NCAA tournament.”
It was a magical run, with Dennis Erickson from Duluth East and Brad Shelstad from Minneapolis Southwest alternating in goal. The Gophers finished fifth at 9-12-1 and went off to the WCHA playoffs in Madison, where they had been swept two weeks earlier by the hated Badgers of Badger Bob Johnson. The Gophers had rallied repeatedly for third-period goal flurries to turn deficits into victories, and the magic continued when they stunned Wisconsin 4-3, and then whipped North Dakota 5-2 to advance to the NCAA tournament in Syracuse, N.Y.
With Erickson in goal, the Gophers had fallen hopelessly behind, 5-2, against Harvard. But nothing was hopeless, and the Gophers rallied, with John Matschke scoring with something like 5 seconds remaining to tie the game, before winning 6-5 in overtime. In the final, against Boston University, Erickson went down with a  wrenched knee, but stayed in the game. BU scored a couple to the other side, and won 4-2. The morning after, as we trooped down the airport corridor to fly back to Minneapolis, Glen and I were walking together. Ahead, Erickson was limping along.
“Look at that phony,” Sonmor said. “We’ve lost, so he’s limping just to get some sympathy from his teammates.”
When we got home, Erickson went to the hospital for x-rays that showed he had played the championship game on a fractured kneecap! Sonmor, typically, sought me out to say how wrong he was to accuse such a courageous young man of “faking” a fractured kneecap. Sonmor was responsible for recruiting Mariucci’s dream roster of Minnesota heroes like Antonovich, Dean Blais, Bill Butters, and even Henry Boucha, the Warroad star whose entrance scores didn’t work out and he went off to play Canadian junior. The success and popularity of Sonmor’s Gophers was perhaps the greatest inspiration for the development of Minnesota high school hockey, which had its basis from Mariucci, but blossomed into the enormous attraction it is today because of Sonmor.
Sonmor left the university in December of 1971, for the chance to start the Minnesota Fighting Saints in the new World Hockey Association, with Antonovich injured and the team suffering a 1-8 start. Ken Yackel took over as interim coach for the rest of the season, and then Herb Brooks came in for his legendary seven-year run highlighted by the Gophers first three NCAA championships. Sonmor ran a rowdy and colorful ship with the Fighting Saints, bringing in his longtime buddy Harry Neale as assistant coach. He signed an amazing mix of NHL superstars, like Mike (Shakey) Walton, Dave Keon, and John McKenzie, blended with solid North Stars such as Ted Hampson and Wayne Connelly, and sprinkled with novices like Antonovich, Len Lilyholm and Keith (Huffer) Christiansen. Between those groups he gathered some of the most ferocious hitters the game has ever seen -- Bill Butters, Gord Gallant, Bill (Goldy) Goldthorpe, Curt Brackenbury, Pat Westrum, and soon Jack Carlson.
He loved McKenzie’s ability to stir up rivals, then step back and let Gallant or Carlson pound his adversary. “Johnny’s the master of ‘Let’s you and him fight,’ ” Sonmor would say. He also learned a new level of tact in dealing with hecklers. He used to occasionally jump up into the stands and run up to confront an obnoxious fan, just because he knew the fan would lose his courage. Once a woman had been screaming at Sonmor throughout the game, and afterwards, Glen confronted her and said: “Pardon me, ma-am, but how much do you charge to haunt a three-bedroom house?”
After running the Fighting Saints through some legendary victories and brawls, Sonmor went to Birmingham to organize the WHA Bulls. About then, Lou Nanne had taken control of the North Stars as general manager. Louie and I had many long conversations, and while he was seeking the right man as coach, I recommended Sonmor. We agreed that Glen had a major problem with alcohol. He didn’t drink much, but was out of control after consuming just a little. My thought was that if Louie could hire Glen, get him cured of the alcoholism, he would have a prize inspirational force as coach.
Nanne did hire Sonmor, and he was a major influence in saving Glen’s life. After he went through alcohol treatment, Sonmor was a tireless advocate of helping others conquer chemical dependences. Glen was never a tactical wizard, but more of a pragmatist about getting things done on the ice, and when he was through coaching, he remained a valuable assistant to Nanne with the North Stars, and later endeared himself to Minnesotans as color commentator with Wally Shaver on Gopher radio.
His trait was that with the Gopher won, he would name three Gophers as the three starts, and when the Gophers lost, and even if they played awful, Sonmor would name three Gophers as the game’s three stars. He readily admitted to being a homer, and had no qualms about his selections. And as his enthusiasm spilled over into the microphone, the Minnesota hockey fan doesn’t exist who would dare question his choices.
We’ll miss you, Glen. And whether they know it or not, every high school hockey player and fan will also miss you.  If they disagree, they could find out if, indeed, only God can referee.

If you call ’em the Hawks, they’ll fly high

Apparently, the University of North Dakota hockey team has started a new tradition. Under coach Dave Hakstol, the Fighting Sioux routinely started slowly, struggling to find their rhythm through the first half of the season, and then taking off on an upward trajectory through the second half to hit their stride at playoff time.
But Hakstol is gone now, taking flight himself to try his hand at NHL coaching with the Philadelphia Flyers. In his place, Brad Berry has stepped in and started a new tradition -- taking off from the start, the way the new nickname Fighting Hawks might imply.
UND came to AMSOIL Arena and dealt UMD a tough blow by sweeping a pair of 3-0 shutouts to sail into the holiday break at 9-1 atop the NCHC and 16-2-2 overall. It also sent the Bulldogs reeling into what appears, at Christmas break, like a feast-of-famine season. At 4-5-1 in league games (7-7-3 overall), the Bulldogs have 14 NCHC points, but their current plunge leaves them trailing UND by 13 points.
The only thing preventing North Dakota from a pure runaway is the presence of St. Cloud State, which, at 8-2, is hot on the Hawks heels. The Huskies are 14-4 overall.
This is not to suggest that North Dakota outclassed UMD. Far from it. In fact, UMD had the upper hand on most shifts throughout both games. When the Bulldogs outshot North Dakota 40-22 in the first game, it matched the most shots UND had yielded and was the fewest shots UND had recorded. In the second game, UMD outshot UND 38-20, making it the most shots UND had given up for a weekend and the fewest shots they had registered. UMD had won five straight, three of them by consecutive shutouts, making the two losses without a single goal the flip side of feast or famine.
“Those 3-0 scores were not indicative of the difference between the two teams,” said Berry, a former Fighting Sioux who is making his coaching debut with the Hawks. “Duluth is one of the toughest, if not the toughest, team we’ve seen. They have a very skilled team, deep at every position. I think they compare very well with St. Cloud in terms of depth. Denver is another team with that kind of depth.”
And so, of course, is North Dakota. Cam Johnson is a sophomore goaltender who seemed to be struggling Friday. When he went down, he appeared to have trouble getting back up. Not that it mattered, because he stopped all 40 UMD shots, while Brock Boeser and Shane Gersich scored first-period goals, and Joel Janatuinen scored midway through the second for the 3-0 count.
On Saturday, Cam Johnson showed no problems, stopping all 38 shots UMD flung at him, while the outcome hinged on a 5-minute major boarding penalty on captain Andy Welinski midway through the second period. On the extended power play, Tucker Poolman broke the scoreless tie with a goal at 10:39, and 31 seconds later Boeser scored for a 2-0 lead.
UMD appeared to score late in the second period, but a video review showed that Cal Decowski had knocked a high puck down before Parker Mackay shot it in, and it was disallowed.
UMD coach Scott Sandelin called time out late in the game and pulled goaltender Kasimir Kaskisuo with 3:40 to go, and the desperate bid to make up three goals was enhanced when the Fighting Hawks took a penalty with 1:20 left. However, Luke Johnson calmly fired a 140-foot shot into the empty net with 1:13 left for the 3-0 finish. So three lines scored goals in the first game, while two lines and a defenseman scored in the second.
“We have a good bunch of players and people,” Berry said. “The biggest thing I tried to make sure of was their compete level, and we wanted to try to get out of the gate quicker. In the NCHC, if you don’t start fast, you leave it to chance and that makes it tough to make up ground.
“I had played for Dean Blais at North Dakota, and he is very, very competitive -- even if you’re playing pinochle. I think that influenced me when I started coaching. We’ve got 11 freshmen on this team, so we had to get focused right away.”
Boeser, from Burnsville, Janatuinen, who is from Finland, and Gersich, who is from Chaska, are three of the five freshmen forwards, and Christian Wolanin is a freshman on defense. The other side of that coin comes up UND too, because the Fighting Hawks have only two seniors in the lineup, in Drake Caggiula and Bryn Chyzyk, both forwards.
 UMD coach Sandelin was frustrated because his Bulldogs had played so hard and more than traded rushes with UND. “But against teams like that, you can’t make mistakes,” Sandelin said. “We made about three mistakes, and they put three pucks in the net.”
The frustration level rose because two victories would have sent North Dakota home 7-3, instead of 9-1, and UMD would have risen to 6-3-1, instead of 4-5-1. And it would have been a much nicer Christmas break.

Greyhounds Sputter Too

 One of the most entertaining games of the season came last week when Cloquet-Esko-Carlton stunned Duluth East 4-3 up at Cloquet. It was a tough battle from start to finish, with Cloquet getting a 3-1 jump in the first period. After Ryan Bourgeault’s opening goal for the Lumberjacks was offset by Luke Dow’s East tally, the Lumberjacks closed out the first period with power-play goals by Trevor Inman and Dylan Johnson.
Garret Worth, who seemed to have chances every shift, got one past goaltender Eric Newman in the second period to cut it to 3-2, but East opened the third period by taking another penalty, and Inman scored a power-play goal at 2:58 for a 4-2 lead.
East’s Luke LeMaster scored at 7:43 to close it to 4-3, setting the stage for Newman and a gutty, character-filled performance by the Lumberjack defenders to cling to the lead to the finish. For the Lumberjacks, it was recovering from a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Grand Rapids earlier in the week.
For East, the setback seemed to put the Greyhounds into a tailspin -- they lost 2-1 at St. Michael-Albertville Saturday afternoon, then returned to Heritage Center and lost Tuesday 5-3 on an open net goal by Centennial. Nobody could remember when the Greyhounds last lost three straight games, but it was not the proper way to prepare for Wednesday night’s long-awaited game against Marshall.