Monthly Archives: March 2014

Karl’s State Hockey Coverage

Greetings from Minneapolis, where I’m settled in with some old friends on the eve of the 2014 Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament.

For preview capsules of all eight quarterfinals, check out these posts of mine on mnhockeyprospects.com: Class A | Class AA

For the third straight year I’ll have a press pass to the Tourney, which means I can add some insights that the general public might not see. When I get to the Xcel Center tomorrow, I’ll set up a thread on the forum where I’ll post updates, with quotes from press conferences and random observations (some enlightening, some less so). For the 140-character versions of these things, plus observations on the number of free cookies I’m eating, check out my Twitter feed here.

 From a big picture perspective, here are six of the more compelling storylines this year:

Cinderella Stories In each class, there was a monumental upset of a private school power by an unheralded school in sections, as Orono took down Breck, and Stillwater edged past Hill-Murray. For their trouble, those two teams have drawn the top seed in each class. Orono will need another great performance by goalie Jonathan Flakne and hope for a few breaks against East Grand Forks’s smothering defense. Stillwater, on the other hand, took it to White Bear Lake and Hill-Murray for long stretches of their upset wins, and while a game against Edina in primetime is a tall order for a school making its first Tourney appearance, they’ll have a shot if they play the same way.

Publick Skoolz Rool For only the second time in the past 15 years, there are no private schools in AA. Class A, too, is down to only two privates this year, which ties the lowest total in the past ten Tourneys. Those two schools—St. Cloud Cathedral and Totino-Grace—meet in the first round, and they aren’t exactly traditional powerhouses, either. This leaves the heckling students in the upper deck with a bit of a dilemma, but Edina is always easy to tag as the villain, and it will be interesting to see if Hermantown starts wearing out their welcome in Class A.

Northern power in Class A? Northern teams are usually among the contenders in Class A, but with the dominance of St. Thomas and Breck over the past few years, none have won a title since Hermantown in 2007. The Hawks and East Grand Forks are odds-on favorites in Class A this year, meaning the trophy could be heading back up into the hinterland.

A Repeat in AA? AA hasn’t had a repeat champion since Bloomington Jefferson won three straight from 1992-1994, but Edina is the best-positioned team to do so in a while. The Hornets have everything you could ask for, and the downside to 3 top-5 teams going down in section playoff thrillers is a Tournament field with—on paper, at least—an easier path for the favorites who do make it through. For all their success, the Hornets have been an underdog in their three title runs during the two-class era, but have yet to close the deal in the years in which they’ve been favored.

The South Rises It was a good year for southern teams. In Lakeville North, 1AA has its first seeded team ever, and if the young Panthers can handle the bright lights, they have good odds of making the AA final. In Class A, New Prague grabbed the 3-seed and a fairly easy first round draw in Chisago Lakes, meaning a southern team has a good shot at a small-school semifinal for the first time since 2003. And then there’s undefeated Luverne, which has been saddled with Hermantown in the first round. Even if they get blown out, their season has been great for the traditionally hockey-poor southwest corner of the state, and should help boost interest in that area.

Gary Thorne I may be in the press box, but part of me envies those of you watching from home this year, as you’ll enjoy one of hockey’s greatest voices calling the action in the AA Tourney. Thorne’s play-by-play is synonymous with many of the greatest moments in hockey history over the past 25 years, and now he’ll set his voice to the memorable moments of the 2014 Tourney. Of course, he’ll be paired with the timeless Lou Nanne, now in his fiftieth year of providing Tournament commentary.

I hope you’ll join me for part of my week in the press box—though, of course, I’ll be abandoning my cushy perch and heading down to the stands for the 8:00 game on Thursday, when Duluth East takes on Eagan in its quarterfinal. It’s a great match-up between two very similar teams that play very tough hockey, and renews the classic north-versus-metro rivalry that helped build the Tourney. There’s something about that late-night game that lends itself to drama and intrigue—it’s gone to overtime the past two years—and it’s also a great time slot for the Twin Cities-based members of Greyhounds Nation, who should be free to join me in the stands for an impromptu reunion. No matter what the Hounds do, it’ll be a memorable four days, and it’ll be over all too soon. At that point I’ll be writing my annual reflection essay, and then it’ll be a long, hopefully warm, summer before we start the cycle again.

Don Ness Goes West

I took a break from packing for the State Tourney to watch Duluth Mayor Don Ness’s State of the City address tonight. It was vintage Mayor Ness: upbeat, ambitious, and optimistic about Duluth’s future. Indeed, Ness has good reason to be optimistic; he began by listing off some of the city’s big wins over the past year, from record-low unemployment to the demise of the Last Place on Earth, and said the city is “showing signs of population growth that Duluth has not seen in sixty years.” It would be good to know more about that, but it’s an encouraging sign.

Next, it was on to a few broad challenges facing the city. One is the housing stock, which is already old and strained, and will need to grow if the city does indeed grow. Ness established a few goals and celebrated last month’s housing summit among community leaders, which was a decent start toward addressing a real issue. He also spent some time talking about income inequality, to which possible solutions included “engaging labor,” primarily in the building trades; granting equal access to communities of color; and making sure schools and colleges are teaching the skills students need. There isn’t really anything concrete in among these buzzwords, though there is only so much a local government can do on these fronts.

The bulk of the speech, though, focused on a vision for Duluth’s western end, and the St. Louis River corridor in particular. As Duluthians have learned over the past few days, the St. Louis River is the “world’s largest freshwater estuary,” and the string of neighborhoods dotting the riverbank—many of them separate enough from their neighbors to feel like their own small towns—do indeed have potential if the city “taps into its authentic strengths.” Ness noted the ongoing environmental restoration efforts along the river, and said they went hand-in-hand with economic development. He wrapped up the pitch with four legislative goals: the Spirit Mountain water project, further flood relief for the zoo and Irving Park, the re-implementation of a recently expired tourism tax, and housing incentives. He concluded by saying 2014 was the start of a “virtuous cycle” for the city, and said that “all we have to do is accelerate.”

The most striking thing about the Ness plan is its comprehensiveness. There are any number of ways a city like Duluth might try to improve its economy. It could try to follow the “creative class” theory and attract interesting people who will develop a rich cultural scene. It could focus on Duluth’s historic strengths, manufacturing and transportation, and try to create blue-collar jobs. Or it could embrace the post-industrial service economy and train most of its efforts on tourism, perhaps with some health care thrown in as well. In Ness’s Duluth, the choice is “all the above.” That’s an impressive commitment, and ultimately probably the right one, though the city does need to make sure it doesn’t spread itself too thin and wind up with a lot of some things but no critical mass in anything.

It’s also an incredibly ambitious plan on many levels. First off, Ness does deserve credit for going out there and pitching such a big plan; as I’ve observed before, the west side is not his political base. He doesn’t need to do this. Aside from flood reconstruction and city-wide projects like the expansion of trails, it’s hard to think of any development large development projects on the west side in recent years; most of the attention has been focused downtown, up in the Duluth Heights area, and in a few pockets on the east side such as the BlueStone Lofts. This is a leap into new territory; one he truly believes is the next step in bringing this city toward whatever destiny it has in mind.

It also makes complete sense intuitively. As someone who’s spent some time wandering the western neighborhoods, I agree there is clear untapped potential: natural beauty, empty space left over by dying industry, tight-knit neighborhoods, and a somewhat tired feel that could use some updating. Further neglect will only deepen divides between east and west, and it’s important to act while the west side’s civic pride remains strong.

With great opportunity, however, comes the great possibility of screwing things up. There will be competing visions going forward, and the people who don’t get what they want will have to be placated somehow. Economic and environmental incentives may align for now, but there’s no guarantee that will last. The end result isn’t going to look like the west side of forty years ago, even if there is a decent manufacturing base out there. Community input is essential; this can’t just be something the (mostly east side-based) city administration imposes on the west side. Ness’s nod toward “authentic strengths” is a step in this direction, but people have different perceptions of authenticity, and for many, it involves keeping things the way they are. This is going to cost money—probably a lot of money—and if people don’t jump on the incentives the Administration thinks they will jump on, it will be a financial sinkhole.

On that front, the biggest battle is probably going to be one of perception. For many who don’t live out that way, there’s no real animus the west side; people just don’t feel the need to go there. It used to be big manufacturing area, but not anymore, except for that smelly paper mill; it seems long and spread out and no one can remember the neighborhoods; the schools’ test scores and such are lower than the east side or Hermantown. It’s just there, without any real draws aside from a few trails and a small-city zoo. It has to fight the perception that it’s a part of the city that history has left behind.

That’s a very unfair generalization, of course; there are plenty of bright spots out west, and plenty of people who are fighting for it. (The late Charlie Bell immediately jumps to mind.) There are also plenty of residents who don’t care at all about grandiose things like arcs of history, and simply want to get on with their lives; that could be good or bad for the redevelopment plans, depending on how they’re presented. The point here is that perception moves slowly. It isn’t going to shift with more trails or a co-op or a niche manufacturer. It’s a long process, one that will long outlive the Ness Administration. It can work (witness Canal Park), but it’s no guarantee.

I could blather on for a spell with more questions (for example, why does the credits music sound like it’s from India?), but I’ll stop myself. I don’t have a definitive take on Ness’s vision for the west side, perhaps because I can swim in both seas. My inner developer loves it all, and wants to start drawing up plans on a map while dreaming of the future. Another part of my brain orders me not to be so presumptuous as to say I know what should be done with the side of the city I don’t know well, that history should take its course. Duluth needed a Ness at this point in its history to get it to think past the post-industrial mire it’s been in for my entire life; it will also need its critics acting in good faith, though, or else it will end up with another half-baked, expensive mess that creates more problems than it solves. The vision must remain comprehensive at all steps, and not just pay lip service to certain areas.

I hope Ness is right; I hope this is the start of a new virtuous cycle for Duluth. I also hope it is a patient one. There’s a lot of work to done before we go barreling ahead, but if we do it right, it might just work out in the end.