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As you watch climactic games for the Minnesota Wild, or the men’s Frozen Four this weekend, think back to the highlights you’ve seen during the year, such as Iowa’s spectacular Women’s NCAA semifinal upset over undefeated defending champion South Carolina, or a great UMD or Hermantown hockey finish, or one of the stirring Bulldogs women’s basketball triumphs on their way to their first NCAA championship game. How do those game rank among your all-time favorites?

My all-time favorite game I ever saw goes back a few years, back to the DeLisle’s Demons in-house Bantam team in Shoreview, in the Mounds View school district. It was a bold experiment, and it unfolds as my first attempt to coach a youth hockey team.

I had coached my older son, Jack, through the first years of baseball, and while my job as a journalist was focused almost entirely on hockey, I was still learning the game at the high school and college levels, with a few ventures into covering the Minnesota North Stars in their first seasons. Having grown up with baseball, basketball and football, but living in a rural area of Duluth too far from any outdoor rinks where I could learn to play hockey, so I was determined to learn all I could about the game — having noticed that I didn’t read any newspaper articles that explained what really happened out there, let alone why.

My boundless enthusiasm prompted the Minneapolis Tribune to send me off to some big-time events, one of which was the 1976 Canada Cup hockey tournament that put the six top hockey-playing countries into a barnstorming tournament that went from Montreal to Toronto to Winnipeg to Vancouver with the best selected players from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Sweden, Canada and the United States. Canada and the USSR were heavy favorites through a preliminary round-robin.

This, remember, was before Herb Brooks had spun his Lake Placid magic in the 1980 Olympics, and while Herbie was directing the Gophers, he and I had often discussed the futuristic hockey styles of the Europeans compared to the highly restrictive, up-and-down North American game.

After covering opening games in Montreal, I boarded the airliner for Toronto. It turned out, the Swedish team — including superstars Borje Salming, Anders Hedberg, and Elf Nilsson, was on that plane, and by sheer chance, I had an aisle seat next to a stocky and skilled forward named Mats Ahlberg. He not only had been drafted by the North Stars, he also spoke perfect english.

He said he played forward, and I asked him if he played center or wing. That’s when the fun began. Ahlberg explained that in their current system, Sweden didn’t use centers and wings, but attack forwards and defensive forwards. I quizzed him about that. He said every team has players better suited to aggressive forechecking, and each line had two of those as attack forwards, free to roam side to side and play off each other. Each team also had cautious players, better suited for backchecking coverage than for attacking. “Attack forwards are a dime a dozen,” he said, “but defensive forwards never miss a shift.”

In Noth American, NHL, college and high school hockey, coaches might call for an aggressive two-forechecker style or a curious one-forechecker plan, but invariably a weak forechecker ends up being first man in and forechecking, while an irresponsible back checker winds up being third forward in and being forced to backcheck.

The Swedish team always had the best forecheckers attacking and the most astute backcheckers dropping back. He explained to me how the Swedes played the Soviets, and had great success, vowing that Sweden would beat the Russians when they met. Turns out they played a superb 3-3 tie against the Soviets.

After the tournament ended, and Canada — with Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Bobby Clarke, Phil Esposito, Bob Gainey, Larry Robinson, Marcel Dionne, and Gerry Cheevers —defeated Czechoslovakia two straight in the best-of-three playoff, I came back home eager to bounce my new-found ideas off Brooks.

Meanwhile, at Mounds View, the school district had selected traveling teams for both Mounds View and Irondale, which were, I later learned, were greatly political, and the rest of the kids were scattered around on neighborhood “in-house” rink teams.

My son, Jack, wasn’t in the political whirl and would be on the team in our neighborhood. Nobody had signed up to coach, so I volunteered. Once assigned to a team, there was some adjustment. We had three kids who had said on their application they had played goaltender, and the next area south of us had none, so I agreed to swap our most experienced goalie for a kid named Billy Kneale, who was a good friend of Jack.

We also had a lanky player was Joe DeLisle, whose older brother played hockey, and whose parents owned DeLisle Realty, which would be our sponsor. They were neat people, always supportive. Another kid named Jim Armagost, a muscular bundle of energy who was the fastest kid around, whether on land or rink excelled in all sports, and played on the youth baseball team I coached. When he ran, or skated, it looked like the camera was sped up on him.

Two other big, strong athletes who played baseball for me had never played hockey and rarely even skated. I talked them and their parents into signing up and they were assigned to my team.. One was Pat Childs, a powerful left-handed thrower who once gained a fingers-crossed chance from me to start a game as pitcher. He threw 12 straight balls, most of them borderline wild pitches, to load the bases. Then he threw three more balls. I made the decision that if he walked in a run, my patience and his day on the mound would end. Instead, he threw nine straight strikes to strike out the side. You can’t make up stuff like that.

The other kid was Mike Thompson, who had great power and speed as a sprinter in track and a football player. He had a hulking demeanor, though thin, and the kids called him “Lurch,” after the Addams Family television character.

Another young fellow I hadn’t known was Jim Bobrycki, and other coaches warned me about him, saying he had a violent temper and terrible attitude. I treated him like all the others, but kept an eye on him — and never had even an ounce of difficulty plugging him into an and all circumstances.

Each kid had his own background, and the Bad News Bears couldn’t approach our collection of characters and personalities. We had quiet, steady kids, bold and aggressive types, sneaky but clever kids, and creative playmaker types who would just as soon pass as shoot.

I had several experiments I wanted to try with this team, and the in-house league was the perfect forum. First, I always was troubled by youth hockey coaches who put their best players on the first line, then over-play them, with the weakest players on the third line, often short-shifted. My theory is that we’re trying to develop players, so let’s balance the lines and play them evenly.

I also had a theory that kids at age 13 should get a chance to play all positions, instead of becoming a left wing for life. So I took the fastest three kids and put one on each unit, then I took the slowest three and put one on each line. Then I blended the rest for my version of chemistry.

Mainly, though, I was going to install the “Swedish System” I had learned on the plane from Mats Ahlberg. I had one alteration: While each line’s two attack forwards flew into the offensive zone and had no restrictions except to playoff each other, and the defensive forward, who I designated as “Sentries,” stayed high in the slot, I wanted our two defensemen to be very aggressive pinching in from the points. As the other team tried to make a breakout pass  up the boards, our points were to arrive at the same time as the puck and turn the puck over with a solid bodycheck.

In rotating, I settled on big Pat and Lurch as Sentries, to lessen their shortcomings of inexperience and capitalize on the strength of their shots. I also had the whole team line up on the blue line and fire repeated wrist shots, then slap shots. Only a few had slap shots both strong and accurate, but nobody on the team had a wrist shot like Armo’s — harder and more accurate than any of the slapshots. I spent a lot of time convincing him that the quick release of his wrist shot made it the preferable weapon, and I forbade him, alone, from shooting slapshots. He scored almost a goal per game from the point, snapping that wrist shot and hearing the clang as the puck hit the upper corner of the goal before the goaltender saw it coming.

Despite my frequent rotation, it was immediately apparent that Jack and Joe DeLisle had amazing chemistry, feeding each other with brilliant passes and triggering our offense. We scored goals from the start, and we won. Then we won again, and again.

The scores weren’t always lopsided, but there were a lot of rink teams scattered around the district, and everybody played everybody else. When the game was lopsided, I moved the top forwards back to defense and gave the defensemen the chance to attack.

Our goalie, Chris, was called “Crease” by his teammates, and he was not outstanding. The players knew it, and some grumbled about his inability to make simple saves, while others grumbled to him. I called a meeting, skaters only. I said we have a really good team here, but we’re only going to go as far as Crease can take us, so from now on, I want everybody to only offer encouragement to him. Anybody who complains about him, will get to play goalie the next game. Armo exerted his gravelly personality into complaining about him, so I got him into the pads and sent him out on our home rink at Wilson Park for the next game. He was excited about it — for about the time it took for three or four shots to hit him. Then he sped to the bench and said, “I can’t do it!” We made a hasty change and got Crease dressed in time to start the game, but that was the last complaint heard about his goaltending.

The rivalry between Mounds View and Irondale prevailed in all the interlocking games, and led to our only distasteful game of our Cinderella season. We had to play at an Irondale rink against a team sponsored by B & R Liquors, which I thought was distasteful as a kid sports sponsor, but not as distasteful as the attitude we faced.

Close game, we were behind, and it started snowing heavily in the first period. I asked the opposing coach if they would have a crew shovel off their rink, and he refused. After the second period, we still trailed so I rallied our dads to go out and shovel off the end we would be attacking in the third period.

That done, the B & R dads hustled out to do the other end. While we were trying to rally, a kid flattened Joe DeLisle with a cheap shot, and Jack roared into the scene and blew the kid away. The kids who were reffing prevented a brawl, but they threw Jack out of the rest of the game, and we lost 3-2. That turned out to be our only loss of the entire season, and as we got everything back together, our system worked better and better, and we got strong scoring from every line, as well as our free-roaming defense, who learned if they pinched in from the point and turned the puck over, they could stay in there and attack, while the Sentry dropped back to cover their point.

The outdoor season was ending fast, and the playoffs were great fun, moving inside Columbia Arena on Central Avenue. We won our first game, and we were leading in the semifinal when a scuffle erupted along the boards. Lurch was scuffling for the puck and when his adversary tried to push him back, he exerted his super-human strength and shoved the kid up the boards three or four strides. The kid retaliated by throwing a punch, and Lurch obliterated him. He was ejected and would not be able to play in the championship game. I tried to reverse it, because it’s rare for a kid to get to play for a championship, but we had to give in because it was a fight, and it was some form of badge that there was no question who won the fight.

We also had been very careful not to ever call Lurch “Lurch” in front of his family, because his parents, brother and sisters were so nice and they might not appreciate teenage boy humor. We didn’t have to worry. When we came back for the championship playoff game, we were facing none other than B & R Liquors, and sitting in the top row of the bleachers was the whole Thompson family, with a large sign taped to the wall behind them that read “Win it for Lurch!”

We hit the ice flying, and B & R never had a chance. We clicked on our passes, made play after play, cleared our zone and scored some goals.  Jack got a penalty, and Joe DeLisle scored two shorthanded goals while killing the penalty. We were leading 9-3, and everybody on our bench was on an adrenaline overload. Nonetheless, we kept glancing to our left, looking at the scoreboard above B % R’s goal at the scoreboard clock, as it ran down into the final minute.

It was a neat scoreboard, and Lake Region had neatly placed signs below the scores, B & R Liquors on one, and DeLisle’s Demons on the other. We had time for one last attack, and the puck came back to Armo at the left point. You could see all his strength and focus amping up as he coiled for his now-legendary wrist shot. He fired, and the adrenaline overload sent the puck too high. Over the goal, over the glass behind the goal, and it made a loud, distinct “crash” as it hit the B & R Liquors sign and knocked it off the scoreboard. Again, you can’t make that stuff up, and if a movie had accurately depicted our season, nobody could possibly have scripted that we would win 9-3 and punctuate the victory by knocking our opponent’s nameplate off the scoreboard.

We had a fantastic post-season party, and you can’t find a tighter, more cohesive group than that team had. I made up little rhymes that told something about each kid, and read them off as I introduced each one.

Afterward, nobody had any idea that Joe DeLisle would go off to Torino Grace, and then to UMD, where he was captain. Some of the kids were second-year Bantams and would be moving up to high school the next year, I asked them their plans. Jim Bobrycki told me he was never going to play hockey again. I was shocked. He had played so well, and developed so much, I was totally disappointed. Then he explained that he had never had so much fun playing on such a great team, and he had never played for a championship, and that it was such a great experience he didn’t ever want to play on another team that might detract from his memory of this team.

Later, I was still disappointed, but I realized we’re all different, and most of us never get enough of playing sports, so getting to the point where he could decide he’d had enough wasn’t such a bad thing.