Seriously - Minnesota State High School Hockey Playoffs

Its mid March folks and the NHL is starting its down hill run to the playoffs. Minor league teams are heading the same direction as are the college leagues.

Those of us that are fans are in for some great excitement. There will be no measly five minute overtimes nor any teamless shootouts. Stanley Cup Playoff games will be ended via victories requiring one team to have scored a minimum of one more goal than their opponent and that goal could come in regulation or in the third or fourth sudden death overtime period. As fans we will stay up late to see the finish and will pay for it the next day at work as we struggle to stay alert.

Those of us that are players and still in the game are emotionally moved to a new level. You’re pumped, you don’t sleep well and you become road weary. If you don’t eat and sleep right then you lose weight. You’re edgy and you’re psyched. The intensity is such that you often times can’t even remember which day of the week it is. You want to win and you want it to be over. You want to celebrate for being the best, never second best.

Minnesota originates some of the finest hockey around. I definitely don’t want to diminish the hockey of any other state but Minnesota’s High School Playoffs just stand out as something spectacular. Years ago I lived in Wazata, a suburb of the Twin Cities in the Gopher State and I remember at that time that the High School Final drew more fans then the North Stars. That is really something! Wayzata’s teams at that time were perennial losers so we never had much to look forward to ourselves. Quite a shame.

This will give you some idea of how important the Minnesota State Finals are: Herb Brooks was once asked if coaching the USA Olympic Team to the Gold Medal in 1980 was the greatest thing in his life. He reportedly answered, “No, that honor went to going to the High School Finals with St. Paul Johnson.”

I’ve never been to a Finals game. I’ve seen some on TV and I was fortunate enough a few years back to see regional playoffs in Rochester. My son-in-law, SSgt. Michael A. Johnson, is a Marine and at the time he was managing the recruiting office in Rochester, Mankato, other southern Minnesota locations. So I was back visiting him, my wife’s daughter and our grandkids. That’s some good stuff all by itself, but I found out that there was a playoff game one night and decided to go. The game was between two local Rochester teams, John Marshall and Century. The rec center was walking distance from the house and I took off on foot not knowing that the game was sold out. Luckily when I got there someone offered me a free ticket so I got in. It was standing room only and I was only able to get to a position about three back on a mezzanine walkway between each side of the ice. I loved it – even having to stand up the whole time. The intensity in that arena was extreme. Both high schools had their bands there and there was so much constant cheering that I never even heard my cell phone when my wife and oldest granddaughter called me three times (I guess they were worried because I had walked – heck its nothing compared to thirty below outdoor practices). You know, I don’t remember which school won the game but I was elated as I walked home afterwards. It had been years since I had seen a high school game and here I got to see a local playoff game. That was really something for me. My son-in-law is over in Iraq now for his second time and the family’s in North Carolina. I spend about as much time thinking about him as I do about hockey. When he retires from the Marines he wants to move the family back to Rochester. If he does, we’ll visit and I’ll get to see some more games.

Well the other night Minnesota had its Class AA finals game at the Xcel Energy Center. There were over 17,500 spectators on hand for it and I bet there were more than twice that many that wanted to get tickets. 17,500 spectators, that’s five or six times as many people as live in the town of Roseau, that ended up winning. Yup, the Roseau Rams, with a 28 and 2 record, beat the Grand Rapid Thunder Hawks 5 to 1 for their seventh state championship. Roseau has only about 325 students and that should have put them in the A division, but they decided to play up in AA and took it all. Sweet! And this was with the Thunder Hawks out-shooting Roseau 29 to 24.

Roseau has a tie-in to the Marines also. Their coach, Scott Oliver, very unfortunately, had his nephew, Marine Sgt. Chad M. Allen, die from a road side bomb in the Al Anbar province of Iraq on February 28^th. Sgt. Allen was from Maple Lake, MN. Flags at state buildings flew at half mast in his honor.

So folks, I tip my glass to the Roseau Rams and all of Minnesota’s other fine high school hockey teams and I say a prayer for all of our country’s military that are doing their duties overseas for the rights of others. Yup, in my book all these fine people are walking with wood!

Warroad's Olympians

One of my friends has a hockey blog that is pretty much devoted to hockey in the Washington, DC area but this past week he posted a nice tribute to the “Miracle” team of the 1980 Olympics. You might want to check it out at www.onfrozenblog.com.

I remember watching that team as they won games and the Gold Medal in Men’s Hockey for the 1980 Winter Olympics played at Lake Placid, NY. This past week on February 22nd (Washington’s birthday) was the 27^th anniversary. It was really a good time and I wish I could have been there to have totally experienced it live. This was a team of amateur hockey players that put their hearts and souls into playing beyond their expected capabilities for Herb Brooks and the United States. Sure, a movie was made about this with Kurt Russell playing coach Brooks and a wonderful bunch of guys acting as the team. That movie, though, could never equal the real excitement of that season. The one thing that amazed me the most about the teams’ play was that they avoided many checks by jumping up in the air as the hit was coming and thereby avoided much of the physical impact. The intensity of their play and their camaraderie might never be seen again in a USA team. We see this more often now in the teams that participate in the Olympics from much smaller countries where they’re tremendously bound with national pride.

Myself, never having been good enough for Olympic play, I still feel free to air some of my opinions. I miss the Olympics where the players are still “amateurs”. When you throw together a team composed of players from various NHL teams and give them a week or so to skate together, they’re never going to gel, not even in time for the last game of the series. The true Olympic team is a team that plays maybe fifty to one hundred games together. It’s a team that maybe starts out with forty or fifty guys competing together and against each other for the top spots to be carried on into the Olympic play. Some will make it and some will get cut. Some will get called back up because of injuries or what have ya – but it becomes a team that’s tight!

So that’s what the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team was. A group of amateurs that stuck together through all that shit, got tight and became champions – became heroes! In my book those boys were walking with wood. You know I’ve got a nice poster of those boys that I bring to work during the Winter Games as an object of inspiration. It’s big, about four and half feet wide by three feet tall and has everybody jumping on each other to the left of Jim Craig’s net. My sister won it at a 7-11 and gave it to me. Bless her heart. After 911 I put a little sticker in the left hand corner that says “UNITED WE STAND”. Ain’t that the truth, ehh?

I think about thirteen of those Olympians went on and became NHL pro’s. That’s the right way to do it, ehh. Not the other way by becoming a pro and then an Olympian. Sheeeeeet no!

One of those guys was Dave Christian. He signed on as a Winnipeg Jet and for about three years he averaged almost a point a game. His best season was 1985-1986 where he scored forty-one goals. All tolled he played in 1009 regular season games; scoring 340 goals and 443 assists. He also had over one hundred post season games with thirty-two goals and twenty-five assists. Not bad for a former Olympian, ehh?

Dave came from a hell of a hockey family. His uncle Roger played on the 1960 Olympic team that won gold also. That was in Squaw Valley. Dave’s dad, Bill, played on that same Gold Medal team in 1960 and then again on the team in 1964. Combined, I think the two brothers had six or seven points while playing in the 1960 series. Herb Brooks was the last player that got cut from that team just a couple of weeks before the Olympics started.

The brothers, Bill and Roger, formed a hockey stick company in 1964 – Christian Brothers. “Hockey sticks made by real hockey players” was the marketing slogan that one of their friends used to inspire their decision to start the business. They made sticks, in the old days, from wood. Wooden sticks, yup – I’ve owned a few! The company was sold a few years back and I’ve kinda lost touch with what they’re doing with the original company.

But shit, Dave, his dad and his uncle were from Warroad, Minnesota. Right on the Lake of the Woods. In the lower forty-eight, you can’t get much further north. I mean this is North Woods country folks. Big town these days with a population of about 1,700 folks. Ya want a brew you go to the Breakers Bar on Lake Street or the lounge at the Patch Hotel. If you’re in town for a road trip/away game at the Gardens Arena then ya can stay at the Patch or the Super 8. Good folks here – walking with wood!

Ya can always snag something to eat from the Main Street Bar and Grill or the Lakeview Restaurant. If you’re in town during the off season for fishing and boating then ya can get a sundae at the Dairy Queen. Not bad, not bad at all.

Their still kickin out some good hockey here. The boys high school varsity team this season went 16 – 8 – 1. And the girls team went 20 – 4 – 0. Pretty damn good if ya ask me. Back in 2005 the boys won the Minnesota State Class A Championship. That’s talking wood my friends!

If ya check into Warroad anytime soon ya still might want to get yourself some traditional wooden hockey sticks. www.buildastick.com will give ya the “Tradition” and build ya “Full Length Wood Custom Hockey Sticks”. What more do ya want? So maybe this company is what became of the original Christian Brothers stick company, I don’t know.

But if ya are up in the North Woods near Warroad be sure to stop in and tell the folks that they’ve got a mighty fine town and that Jasper Wheats say’s “Howdy you guys, ya got me walking with wood again!”