Author Archives: karlschuettler

State Tourney Reflection 2014

This post originally appeared on mnhockeyprospects.com and on the USHSHO forum.

The seventieth State Tournament has come and gone, its whirlwind collision of nostalgia and renewal consuming us for four days before melting away into a Minnesota spring. The best team in each class was obvious, but it was still more competitive than last year’s, particularly on the Class A side. We had one instant classic, a double overtime thriller with drama and intrigue at every turn, as stars dropped like flies with injury and exhaustion late in the game. Gary Thorne graced the Tourney with an added dose of gravitas, and the referees made their presence felt a bit more than usual. Edina’s repeat at the top of the heap lets us use the word ‘dynasty’ for the first time in many years, and with an all-public AA field, the Hornets had little trouble claiming the villain tag.

Some of the best stories in this Tourney came far from that small town on the west side with a dream, though. Feisty Luverne proved its doubters wrong and proved it can compete on the highest stage, while New Prague recorded the South’s first top-3 finish in over ten years. Roseau added to its proud Tourney history with a very competitive 5th place showing in AA, its stars once again coming south to dazzle the St. Paul crowds. The biggest of the small-town winners, though, was East Grand Forks, and with its seamless breakouts and a relentless Green Wave of powerful hits, the Class A champion’s mysterious mascot only seemed apt. There is room for all types at the Tourney, but the growth and sustenance of hockey in small towns keeps the Tourney in touch with its roots. There were good storylines among the big city schools, too: Stillwater made its debut, Lakeville North’s thrilling overtime victories put AA’s southernmost section in the title game for the first time in 25 years, and while their faces are a bit more familiar, section wins by Eagan, Centennial, and Duluth East were a reminder of what good coaching and smart defense can do in the playoffs.

As always, the players make the Tourney. There was the delight of Eddie Eades, posing theories on cookies and ice cream, and then there was the agony of Luc Snuggerud, the wounded warrior bowed in defeat. Tyler Nanne channeled his grandfather’s ease with words, while Nick Wolff probably still hasn’t finished his latest shift for Eagan. Zach Yon of Roseau made a last-second pitch for Mr. Hockey, while Luverne eighth-grader Jaxon Nelson gave us a glimpse of the future. Erik Gadbois proved an unlikely hero for scrappy St. Cloud Cathedral, and Eden Prairie’s Michael Parrish mustered a heroism that transcended hockey, putting together a hat trick in the shadow of his father’s death.

The coaches, too, add their own distinct flavor. The old guard was on hand, still plugging along; Bruce Plante was understandably chastened after a fifth straight second place finish, but still managed to show why he is beloved in Hermantown, and a vintage Mike Randolph pulled all the levers he could in a losing cause before making “embellishment” the word of the Tourney. The bubbly and quotable Trent Eigner took his program to the next level, while Luverne’s rising star, Derrick Brown, did a victory lap for all of small-town hockey. But the clear-eyed focus of Tyler Palmiscno (with an assist from the peerless Scott Oliver) and the supreme confidence of Curt Giles carried the day.

Giles is normally one to run a tight ship; he’s not one to furnish reporters with juicy quotes, nor does he hold strong public opinions on the endless debates over private schools and junior hockey. Such is the luxury of Edina, of course: he presides over a program of unmatched depth, and he knows he’s blessed not to have many of the worries facing others. Back at the pinnacle yet again, though, Giles let the façade come down and channeled that old Herb Brooks line, saying the emotion of a Tourney win rivals that of the Stanley Cup. Repeats may tire some fans, especially when they taste of cake, but sports need dominant powers to serve as the measuring stick. Edina sets the standard for all of hockey in Minnesota, and it’s up to the rest of the state to find a response to this latest Hornet run. They came in with the flair and swagger of champions, a fast and edgy team unafraid to show off its talents and let the world know who is number one. Oh, to be young and a Hornet.

The whole weekend overflows with youth, even for those whose follicles have forsaken them, rendered them ineligible for the Hockey Hair Team. This year there was no one quote that fixed itself in my mind, no one poignant moment that pierced through the din. Instead, it was a steady, sustained buzz, fueled by stops at bars between sessions and those incessant Hornets. There are the kids doing what we once did: plotting an off-color chant, smuggling in a beach ball, fighting the crowds at the Expo, bumming around the upper deck, perhaps going on a run through the St. Paul night in the ecstasy of victory, or off to a party in some hotel room, all pretense of dignity and decorum forgotten for a weekend at the start of Lent. For those of us with some remove from the glory days, we have the impromptu reunions, the ease of chatting up anyone knowing we have common ground, the gathering of generations, the march of time and a ceaseless cycle bearing us back to the past. Those of us in the stands can lose track of the constant turnover, forget the rawness of emotions that come out no matter who is on the winning or losing end. That part never changes, and even as we head into summer or perhaps out into the world beyond high school, it long lingers, waiting to be brought forth again for four more days next March. No matter where the world takes us, the memory endures.

Saving the Seaway: Duluth City Council Notes, 3/10/14

The Duluth City Council had a fairly tame agenda on Monday night, and between hockey-caused exhaustion and a busy workday, I settled for following Monday night’s City Council meeting from home.

The opening comments were straightforward, and brushed on a handful of open Council issues. Councilor Julsrud plugged two upcoming meetings, one at 6:30 on March 20 at Good Shepard Lutheran Church in Lakeside to discuss soil testing and plans for a dog park in the neighborhood, and the other at 6:00 on March 27 at Hartley Nature Center over future plans for trails in Hartley Park. Councilor Gardner also gave a brief update on the move toward a charter amendment to resolve issues with council vacancy appointments, saying the committee charged with drafting the changes had some research to work with and would be meeting soon.

After some procedural wrangling and the pulling of several finance resolutions so as to allow more time for public notification, the Council moved into its only big agenda item of the evening, a $230,000 loan to the Housing Redevelopment Authority (HRA) to rescue the blighted Seaway Hotel in Lincoln Park. The Seaway has been condemned by the city in the past and faces serious structural issues, but continues to operate over 60 low-income housing units, and needs a new owner to realistically continue to operate. Three citizen speakers came forward to support the loan, saying the need was pressing, and that a revitalization could be a catalyst to help improve one of Duluth’s more depressed areas. They also stressed the inclusion of tenants in the meetings to decide the Seaway’s future.

Councilor Larson was the first Councilor to declare her support, noting the efficiency of the investment—about $3,000 per unit—and the potential costs of failure to act. Councilor Russ agreed and noted the diversity of groups involved in the effort, while Councilor Filipovich added an environmental angle to the discussion, saying refurbishment was better than demolition. Councilor Fosle, conceding he was likely the lone ‘no’ vote, expressed his doubts: the HRA has a budget of over $10 million, yet taxpayers are being left with the bill; the loan was “forgivable;” and other businesses in the region might not see any incentive to do anything, leaving then neighborhood unchanged. He was especially concerned about projections that had the project in the red for at least three years, perhaps forever, and insisted that it is “not the government’s job to buy dilapidated buildings. This is why people get mad at government.”

Councilor Hanson followed up on Councilor Fosle’s words, and asked CAO Montgomery if the loan really was “forgivable.” Montgomery did not quite answer the question, though he did point out that there was revenue to be made both from the building’s operations and in its eventual sale. He also conceded that there was a real chance the Seaway would operate in the red, but both he and Councilor Sipress insisted that the benefits of an improved Seaway would outweigh the costs. The whole plan was contingent on state grants, they explained, and the HRA is a catalyst for the process that makes an eventual payoff “more probable.”

Councilor Larson offered to talk to Councilor Hanson about the details later, but this didn’t quite quell his concerns, and he proposed an amendment to the resolution that would insist that the eventual liquidation of the building be done at a “fair market rate.” President Krug (via Atty. Johnson) and CAO Montgomery were quick to shoot this idea down, explaining that an amendment would force the plan back to the Development Authority. The Seaway “would have been sold long ago” if it were an “easy deal,” Montgomery explained, and the building would forever be problematic unless it got a “government kickstart.” He also wondered how they would define a “fair market rate,” and President Krug closed the comments by saying that the Seaway was a problem that needed a solution before anything else could be done to rehabilitate Lincoln Park.

Councilor Hanson voted for the resolution, and it passed 8-1, with Councilor Fosle as the lone dissenter. During the closing comments he explained himself further, and appeared to disagree with the narrative presented by some Councilors in which a refurbished Seaway would lift up the entire neighborhood. The “deep cancer” at play here, he said while citing his experience as a resident of and worker in Lincoln Park, is the presence of many “liquor establishments” along the block that blight the entire area. He demanded better management and responsiveness to crime in the neighborhood, and said it “will take more public investment” to turn things around; hence his frustration that the HRA was not picking up more of the tab, though this was a good “first surgical step.”

The only other discussion involved three ordinances amending the city code. Councilor Fosle made some cryptic comments at the start, saying someone had been “pushing an agenda” to make all of these changes, making a 1.5 inch-thick book’s worth of changes before abruptly leaving. He said one of the changes was not merely the “housekeeping” change it had been made out to be, and worried about unintended consequences. Agreeing that there was a lot of information to absorb in a short time, Councilors Gardner and Julsrud sought to explain the changes found in the most complex of the ordinances. The new language created more public meetings, and insisted that developers hold one for all residents within 350 feet, note the number of attendees, and respond to any concerns they might raise. It also allowed for more flexibility and freedom to issue special and interim use permits. This particular ordinance drew a ‘no’ vote from Councilor Fosle and passed 8-1; the other two passed unanimously. Its work complete, the Council wrapped up a relatively short meeting.

***

The most interesting theme to emerge in this meeting was the chicken-or-egg question relating to the Seaway and its place in Lincoln Park. Is the area around the Seaway in need of a facelift because of the effects of the Seaway, or is the Seaway an issue because its environs are the issue? Presumably the two are interrelated to some degree, but where is the best starting point for people trying to attack the problem? With the caveat that I don’t spend much time in Lincoln Park, I’ll say this: going after the blighted building at the heart of the neighborhood is probably more cost-effective than trying to make everything look pretty or cracking down on crime or shutting down bars. (Where there’s a demand, the supply will follow, in one way or another, and some of those other solutions can seem paternalistic, depending on how they’re implemented.) For the same reasons, though, it’s hard to see the changes to one building turning around an entire neighborhood.  This is, of course, why poverty is so entrenched; there are no simple causal arrows, and things cycle into one another through culture and politics and economics and the agency of individuals. The Seaway rescue is an attempt to throw a wrench in some of those cycles. We’ll soon learn if it is enough of one to create newer, healthier cycles for a neighborhood that could use some help.

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.

The Dynasty Lives

It was supposed to end last night. Five in a row was quite enough. The Elk River Elks had beaten the Duluth East Greyhounds during the regular season, and whatever the seeds said, everyone knew they’d had a slightly stronger season. The Elks were feted on Hockey Day in Minnesota this year, touted as a team returning to glory. When a star player left midseason, they pulled together. They weren’t remotely intimidated by the hostile environment in Amsoil Arena, keeping the mood light during pregame introductions and controlling the opening minutes of play. Star goalie MacLean Berglove was on top of his game; it took two rebounds for East to finally get a puck past him late in the second period, and the Elks had an immediate response just ten seconds later. It was a tight game at 2-1, but the Elks were in control. The clock ticked down on the Duluth East dynasty, and up in the stands, I was already writing a requiem in my head.

Not so fast.

East plugged away methodically for much of the third period, but despite a widening edge in shots, Berglove held firm. Then, with four minutes to go, a break: a penalty, the first one of the game. The refs had let the teams play, but Dylan Bouten’s takedown of East’s Alex Trapp was a bit too obvious to ignore. East’s lethal power play went to work, but the top unit, which included a wounded Jack Kolar, didn’t generate much. Out came the second unit, a line of three sophomores, including Alex Spencer, a converted defenseman whose primary purpose is to screen the opposing goaltender. Trapp very nearly found Spencer on a long breakaway pass, but the referees called it back. No matter, Hounds: back to work. With 2:08 on the clock, Spencer swatted a back-hander past Berglove to tie the game.

The clock ran out on regulation. Overtime. The Hounds smelled blood. Two minutes in, leading scorer Nick Altmann spotted daylight between Berglove’s pads, and fired his shot. I couldn’t see it from my angle, but I didn’t need to. It was bedlam at Amsoil. Sticks and gloves exploded in every direction, the student section toppled into a black-clad mass up along the glass, while Mike Randolph barreled out on to the ice to hug his student manager. The party went on through the awards ceremony and on into a frigid Duluth night, car horns echoing through the parking ramp and giddy kids hanging out of windows, jawing back and forth. The Hounds will head back to St. Paul for a sixth straight year, and the fifteenth time in the past twenty-one.

The odds had rarely been longer. Yet somehow, this Hounds team that needed overtime to beat an awful Cambridge team in November found a way. Their coach, Altmann said, told them to “deny losing.” The finish was a carbon copy of their stunner over Grand Rapids in 2011, and not terribly far off from an even more excruciating upset of Cloquet in 2005. Randolph’s record in section finals speaks for itself: 15-1, those fifteen wins now tied for second-most in state history, behind only Edina legend Willard Ikola.

They did it with a team with only four seniors, and with only one returning player who had scored more than 15 points last season. Their offensive numbers were hardly dynamic, and the defense, while strong, had its occasional lapses. Goaltending was also a large question mark heading in, yet East got it done all the same.

To be sure, these Hounds were hardly the little sisters of the poor. They were in the top 15 all season long, and defenseman Phil Beaulieu is one of the state’s finest talents. His partner, Trapp, is also an elite high school defenseman, and the Hounds have their customary organizational depth, with no shortage of quality forwards. Yet once again, they are playing in March, while a host of quality teams will watch from the stands.

This East group found its share of improbable heroes, including Spencer and the scorer of the first goal, Bryton Lutzka. While talented, Lutzka prompted his share of head-shaking on my part over the course of the season; on Thursday night, he played his best game of the year. Before the third period, I joked with a friend on whether Beaulieu might just go out there and play the whole period. There was no need for that this season. Randolph had full confidence in his complete bench, and his bench bought what he’d been selling all season long. There are valid critiques that can be leveled at the storied coach, but a man doesn’t stay on the same job for twenty-five years without changing, and the current version of Mike Randolph seems to have struck the proper balance. His intensity is inspiring instead of overbearing, and his wry humor is peeking out more often; more than anything, he is having fun. And when a man can couple a life of hockey knowledge with a confident, fiery swagger, it’s no wonder when the results follow.

The Hounds will learn their opponent for Thursday’s quarterfinal on Saturday morning. For once, East will not be among the favorites; instead, they will head south with nothing to lose. It’s an unfamiliar position, but one in which East could thrive, so long as they stick to their game. While they have a couple of lopsided losses to top teams, they’ve also had a couple of very close games with them, and no one team stands head and shoulders above the rest in this field.

Elsewhere in the state, the playoffs have produced their share of thrillers. Eden Prairie beat Benilde-St. Margaret’s in double overtime to win the always difficult 6AA, while Roseau—whose population is smaller than the enrollment of Eden Prairie High—outlasted Moorhead in a back-and-forth barnburner. There was a fair amount of schadenfreude when St. Thomas Academy, the private school power that had overstayed its welcome in Class A, blew a 2-0 lead and fell to Eagan 4-2 in the 3AA title game. While not entirely unexpected, as the Cadets are a fairly young team, the loss meant at least one of my preseason predictions was right: AA playoffs really are an entirely different story. St. Thomas simply didn’t play deep and physical teams like Eagan in Class A, and beating that sort of team is going to require some adjustments from their default transition game and efforts to set up perfect shot. A few sections were less surprising, as emerging power Lakeville North rolled through 1AA, and an upset loss by Burnsville left Edina with smooth sailing to an eighth straight Tourney.

In Class A, the field may not necessarily be as strong as usual, but it is a unique one with a number of new faces. With St. Thomas in AA and Breck losing a stunner to Orono, only Hermantown remains among the class’s traditional powers. Top-ranked East Grand Forks barely scraped past an excellent Warroad team in double overtime, and another top-five team, Duluth Marshall, was stuck in the same section as Hermantown. That leaves the Hawks and East Grand Forks as odds-on favorites to meet in the final, but there is intrigue elsewhere. Undefeated Luverne rolled through 3A, and while they haven’t played anyone difficult all season long, they do have some talent, and have at least some chance of making some noise. Orono has already proven it can take down giants, and New Prague looks to be a dangerous, physical team as well. The Class A teams will kick off the action at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, and after that, it’s four straight days of endless hockey. I’ll have an update on where to find my coverage of the Tourney in the coming days.

We Now Speak Ojibwe: Duluth School Board Notes, 2/26/14

The ISD 709 School Board convened on a frigid Duluth night for its February meeting Tuesday night, and got right down to business. Chair Miernicki called upon himself as the first citizen speaker, and left his seat to address the Board as a citizen. He did so to acknowledge the passing of local businessman and political activist Charlie Bell, and in particular thanked Mr. Bell for his efforts to push through the renovations to Public Schools Stadium, in addition to his work on other pro-education campaigns. After returning to the dais and thanking himself for his comments, he called up the next speaker, a bus driver who came forward to decry the District’s management of disciplinary issues on school buses. She called the disciplinary procedures “inconsistent,” noted a time lapse in school action, and noted at least one serious case that had gone unpunished. She requested supervisory helpers on troubled routes and an updated, clearly established policy in the district handbook. Next, four speakers pushed the implementation of an Ojibwe language immersion kindergarten class starting next school year; two addressed the Board in Anishinaabe, and two talked up an immersion program at UMD that had been a positive experience for their relations.

During the Superintendent’s update, Supt. Gronseth celebrated the District’s climbing graduation rates and falling achievement gap. He announced that the District was accelerating a 4-year plan to better align curriculum with state and national standards, and hoped to have a plan in place by the summer. The Board also thanked a representative from Kwik Trip for a donation to the District.

Member Harala then delivered the Education Committee report, explaining each of the items in detail. The Board decided to table the addition of several weather-related make-up days to the school year, as there are still negotiations going on there, and there is also a very real chance that more school days will be canceled in the coming weeks. Four other items on the Education Committee report inspired some debate, though all were approved unanimously.

While he supported the measure, Member Johnston had some qualified critiques of the plan to establish an online schooling program through the alternative Unity/ALC High School. He reminded everyone that computers are not replacements for teachers, and worried that, if not implemented properly, the program would leave “a whole bunch of students somewhere out in the ozone.” He added his worries about over-emphasis on “digital stuff” and talked about getting “kids outside boxes and playing in snow.” Chair Miernicki agreed with Member Johnston (prompting some humorous shock on his part), saying he’d seen how Unity teachers can turn lives around, and Member Harala also agreed with these general sentiments.

Member Westholm took a few moments to talk up the Scott Anderson Leadership Forum, for which the Board had filed a grant application. Member Welty had some good things to say about a plan to re-do the Administration’s organizational structure, and brandished several intricate charts while ribbing Supt. Gronseth about his position on said charts. Members Seliga-Punyko and Harala had some minor questions that Supt. Gronseth handled, and after that, it was on to the Ojibwe language program. Member Seliga-Punyko wanted to know what would happen if not enough students signed up, or if funding sources dried up. Supt. Gronseth replied by saying that kindergarten classes could handle relatively small class sizes, and said there were numerous streams of revenue available. (Right now, the District will pay only for the teacher.) Member Seliga-Punyko also wanted to know when the District will choose a school for the program, and suggested it would be best to use one of the less full schools, such as Myers-Wilkins or Laura MacArthur; when called forward, Supervisor of Indian Education Edye Howes said that decision process would begin immediately after approval. She also told the question-filled Member Seliga-Punyko of her experience visiting a K-5 immersion school that saw over 90% of its students pass standardized tests. Member Loeffler-Kemp thanked Ms. Howes for the research and focus on the budget that had gone into the planning process, and its unanimous passage brought a spurt of applause out of the crowd.

The HR Committee Report sailed through without any holdups, and the Business Committee report was also handled with relative ease, despite its length. Member Welty had a few questions for Business Services Director Bill Hansen on the financial report, but their technical nature had Chair Miernicki suggesting the two of them meet one-on-one. Member Johnston said he’d like to hear these questions, and suggested they save some time by having the discussion at a committee meeting; without really coming to a conclusion on that front, the Board moved on. Member Johnston had a question on why district enrollment figures varied by 700 between the weighted number used by the state (WADM) and a number in a District report on special education; in a tedious exchange, Mr. Hansen attempted to explain that this was due to weighting, as WADM uses lots of fractions to account for part-time or lower-grade students, thus making the number of raw, enrolled students seem smaller than it really is. Despite his continued confusion, Member Johnston voted in favor of the Business Committee report for a second straight meeting, and it passed unanimously.

The closing comments involved further confusion from Member Johnston; he wondered why he hadn’t heard anything about graduation rates and learned about them from the newspaper, but was eventually informed by Member Harala that an email had indeed gone out the previous week. Student Member Manning informed the District that he’ll be bringing together a forum of students to allow them to dialogue with the Board, and Member Johnston invited him to use any connections he has with the school papers (which Member Johnston reads) to comment on District affairs. Member Johnston also asked that the busing issues mentioned by the citizen speaker be put on the agenda, and also repeated his request to do something about the plight of the paraprofessionals.

That brought an end to a long but fairly agreeable night with the Board. The meeting was bogged down by some procedural issues and a few questions probably better suited for different venues, but I’d rather see the Board err on the side of meticulous tedium than glib rushes to approval. Everyone more or less agreed on everything, but there were still some good questions, and the Board did a good job of keeping the concerns of a variety of groups on its radar. The proponents of the Ojibwe language program reaped the results of that tonight, and while it’s just one small issue in front of a Board with countless things on its plate, it means the world to one particular constituency. As long as it keeps the big picture in mind and asks the right questions, these sorts of programs can be real winners for the District.

Loose Ends and Old Debates: Duluth City Council Notes, 2/24/14

After two weeks of drama following its last regular meeting, the Duluth City Council had a tame night on Monday. The agenda was short, the crowd was light, and Councilor Sipress was happily settled into his new seat on the far end of the dais. The meeting opened with some mundane announcements, as President Krug plugged the State of the City address this coming Monday (6 PM, Spirit Mountain Chalet), and there were mentions of snow removal and the need to fill vacancies on the Human Rights Committee.

After the speakers (all repeat appearances) and the passage of the consent agenda, the Council moved on to a resolution of intent to amend the city charter in order to address Council vacancies. The resolution had no specifics, and simply established the four Councilors (Gardner, Hanson, Julsrud, Larson) who will take the lead on the effort to work with the charter commission. Councilor Russ had some issues with the vague language, but Councilor Gardner reassured her that there will be plenty of time to explore all options; she also suggested that, if feasible, any elections in off years should be held concurrent to state and national elections in November. Councilor Gardner reminded her colleagues that they needed nine votes to amend the charter, and invited everyone to bring forward ideas, while Councilor Filipovich urged caution and patience. Councilor Larson asked for a Committee of the Whole meeting on the process before the proposal is finalized, and Councilor Sipress reiterated the emphasis on the non-binding nature of the proposal. It passed 9-0, which Councilor Gardner called a “good start.”

Next up was a resolution for the purchase of a hydro-excavator, which is a machine that uses hot water to clear dirt around natural gas pipes without risking damage to the pipes. Councilor Fosle had pulled it because he figured the new Councilors hadn’t heard his spiel on vehicle purchases yet; as he has several times during his time on the Council, he cited his 30 years as a mechanic in declaring the repair costs of machines far too high, though he also added some cautious optimism about a new plan by the administration to review these costs. Councilors Julsrud and Filipovich talked up the job done by the city’s Public Works Department, while Councilor Gardner explained that all the depth of the frost this winter is part of the reason behind the number of breaks this year. President Krug asked CAO Montgomery for an update on Councilor Fosle’s request for a more thorough inventory, and was told that a fleet consulting firm will do an assessment on the city. An exchange between Councilor Russ and CAO Montgomery had CAO Montgomery explaining the criteria the city uses when deciding whether to repair a vehicle or purchase a new one. The resolution ultimately passed 8-1, with Councilor Fosle providing the dissent.

The Council moved on to a resolution applying for a grant for the cross-city bike trail; as Councilor Larson explained, they had not received a grant they’d applied for last fall, which would have funded the trail through the lower parts of Enger Park. Councilor Fosle, maintaining his stance against trail funding, was the lone ‘no’ vote there. Two ordinances selling city property passed unanimously, as did a pair of permits for the new Duluth Transit Authority center on Michigan Street, though Councilor Hanson abstained from those two votes due to his business relationship with the DTA. The permits created a ramp and a skywalk, Councilor Gardner explained, and were unanimously approved by the Planning Commission.

Councilor Russ celebrated Duluth’s snow removal when compared to Minneapolis in the closing remarks, but most of that period was devoted to discussion of the Lakewalk extension plan that was on the table two meetings ago. CAO Montgomery explained that engineers were working on plans for both the paved Lakewalk along Water Street and a path along the lakefront, behind the Ledges and Beacon Pointe developments, as requested by the Council. Councilor Gardner shared her suspicions that the plan they produced would be cost-prohibitive, but figured the city would hammer out a more sensible plan in time. Councilor Hanson then had a lengthy back-and-forth with CAO Montgomery as he sorted out the details; he asked if there was a funding source, and was told that there was one in place, but the funds had been diverted during a budget crunch in 2007 and 2008, and restoring that funding would mean taking money from something else. There were also questions about some fencing in that area that may be on city property, though CAO Montgomery couldn’t provide a definitive answer on that front, and promised further updates in time.

It wasn’t a terribly exciting night, but the Council did take a much-needed first step toward cleaning up the process for filling Council vacancies, and tonight’s resolution laid the groundwork for a lot of debate in coming weeks. It was also good to see the Lakewalk issue revisited in a substantive way. After a brief departure, Duluth is back to Don Ness’s favorite type of government—boring government—and while I don’t always endorse that, it was a blessed relief this time around.

The Exceptionalism of Herb Brooks

I’ve just started into a three-week stretch of wall-to-wall hockey. The U.S.-Canada hockey duels over the past two days kicked it off; the U.S. women just lost a heartbreaker to the Canadians in the gold medal match in Sochi, while the men were decidedly less impressive in a 1-0 loss that was much more lopsided than the score makes it look. But, time to move on: it’s nonstop high school sections now, with 7AA’s excellent semifinal Saturday in Duluth, the section finals next week, and the State Tournament the week after.  Fittingly enough, the book that turned up on my reading list this past week was about a man who knew both Olympic and high school hockey glory: Herb Brooks.

Herb Brooks: The Inside Story of a Hockey Mastermind is a collection of memories by John Gilbert, a Duluthian who covered Brooks’ teams as a journalist for over thirty years and built a tight bond with the coach. They met during Brooks’ seven-year stint at the University of Minnesota, during which he won the school’s first three NCAA titles, and Brooks went so far as to ask Gilbert to be his PR man for the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. Gilbert declined, but wound up being the only writer with direct access to Brooks during the Miracle on Ice run after Brooks walked out of an early press conference in disgust. They remained close friends as Brooks crisscrossed the world for various coaching jobs over the next twenty years, with Brooks frequently spilling out his thoughts to Gilbert. It may not be the most crisply written book about Brooks, but it is certainly the most intimate.

Brooks was a larger-than-life figure, one whose legend came to overshadow reality. He’s best remembered for his mind games, inspirational speeches, and the brutal conditioning drills immortalized in the film Miracle. No doubt he was a master motivator, and his individualized approach had a way of bringing out the best in everyone; the most poignant moment in the book comes in Gilbert’s account of an incident during the 197-76 Gopher season, when Minnesota was swept by Michigan in Ann Arbor. The team usually had some freedom on Saturday nights after series, but this time, Brooks ordered the entire team to meet in the captains’ room at midnight. Brooks waited in the hallway, hands on hips, ordering players into the room…where they discovered a few beers and a lot of pizza. Once the team was all inside, Brooks left, leaving Gilbert to explain his methods to team captain Moose Younghans. “I suppose he’s really a hell of a guy, if you could ever get close enough to know him,” said Younghans, and that wistful comment stuck with Gilbert. Brooks created his authority from a sense of distance, and while no one can deny his success or doubt that he did genuinely care about his players, there was a sort of sad loneliness to his actions.

But while Brooks could tug at his players’ emotions and sense of destiny, he was so much more than a fiery, demanding coach. He was one of those few coaches who combine that charisma with a brilliant tactical mind, and that combination put him in a league of his own, and he made sure those tactics were very much his own. Sure, he borrowed some from the open, “progressive” brand of hockey played in Europe and always tried to bring some of its elements to his teams, but it was always a hybrid system, Brooks to the core. He attacked North American hockey orthodoxy wherever he went, disdaining dump-and-chase and the use of lanes and instead insisting on puck possession and circling. His tactics didn’t always take as easily as they did with the Olympic team, but they left lasting impressions, and Brooks was long ahead of his time in advocating for rule changes to open up play in the NHL.

Brooks is also well-known for his wars with USA Hockey and its predecessor, AHAUS. He scoffed at its efforts to naturalize Canadians so as to beef up U.S. Olympic rosters (a trick AHAUS successfully pulled off with Lou Nanne), and later blasted its waste of resources on a single National Training and Development Program when it could instead spread its efforts across the entire country. “The broader the base of the pyramid, the higher the peak,” he said time and time again, and as coach at Minnesota, he practiced what he preached, following in John Mariucci’s tradition of only recruiting Minnesotans.

There were to be no shortcuts in building a great program, no poaching of top players from elsewhere: Brooks understood that hockey’s long term success depended on grassroots recruiting and creating a broad pool of quality talent rather than identifying talent at a young age and focusing only on the best. He later proved instrumental in St. Cloud State’s move to Division-I hockey, again expanding opportunities for Minnesotans to play high-level hockey past high school. Toward the end of his life, he supported the creation of the high school Elite League and took shots at junior leagues for poaching top high school players when they should, in his mind, have focused on older players still looking for college scholarships. There was an ideological consistency to all of his actions, and while his views still have plenty of loyalists in Minnesota, one suspects his side of the argument lost a crucial spokesman when Brooks died. Understanding Brooks’s project helps explain the famous moment when Brooks corrected an unsuspecting reporter to say that winning the Minnesota State Tournament, not the gold medal, was his greatest hockey memory. He truly believed that, given enough time, he could take any talent pool and built it into a successful program from the ground up, whatever the level. In that timeless title run, he saw hockey in its purest form.

It’s impossible for me not to read a book about Brooks without also thinking of Duluth East’s Mike Randolph. A few similarities make it an easy comparison, despite their very different career paths; both were the last men cut from a U.S. Olympic team, and both are noted for their intensity and their supremely high expectations, a rigid certainly that can at times seem imperious. Gilbert arranged for a conversation between the two of them in the mid-90s, one that Randolph recalled fondly when I interviewed him for Minnesota Hockey Hub last summer. (Indeed, Brooks was the second name Randolph cited when I asked him for the biggest influences on his coaching style, coming in only after—true to form—his own high school coach, Del Genereau. This was despite the fact that Randolph never played for nor coached under Brooks.) Gilbert saw some elements of Brooks in Randolph’s tactics, and after the meeting, Brooks, despite his general disdain for Duluth, adopted the Hounds, at one point traveling with Gilbert to Grand Rapids to watch a memorable East-Rapids game in which East prevailed in the final minute.

Plenty of things separate the two men as well. Brooks was always seeking out new frontiers, while Randolph was content to settle and leave a legacy in one place. Brooks pulled one of the greatest upsets in sports history; though Randolph has scored some upsets over the years, his teams have never exactly been lacking in talent, and usually play the role of favorite. There are noticeable tactical differences, with Randolph being more willing to resort to dump-and-chase if need be. People also change over thirty-year coaching careers, and both drifted into different personas over the years. But in the end, their singular senses of authority make them iconic names in their respective milieus, and this Hounds fan can only hope Randolph channels a bit of his old friend tomorrow afternoon.

Sipress Retains Seat

The Duluth City Council held a special meeting Thursday night to review the confused appointment of Joel Sipress to the 2nd District City Council seat. (See my notes on the meeting here, and my questions after the meeting here.) President Krug opened the meeting with a lengthy monologue, saying she had “never seen something quite as unseemly as this past week,” both in her time on the Council and during her work with University of Minnesota-Duluth faculty union.

After this opening, President Krug was at pains to insist she did not have any conflicts of interest in the vote, as some rumors had suggested since the initial meeting. (Kathy Heltzer is married to Krug’s spouse’s aunt.) She said that sort of tie was no different from the professional relationships several of the Councilors enjoyed with other candidates for the open seat, and said that, since the marriages were relatively recent—both couples in question are gay, and thus were not legally recognized as married until this past year—she hadn’t even thought of things in that way.

This explanation complete, President Krug then said that she called the meeting because the Council “did not follow established rules” and “filled the vacancy on a tie; integrity demanded a revisit. She went on to explain that the city charter does not allow for a special election, and that while Councilor Gardner will push a change to the charter at the next meeting, it “cannot be done in time.” She finished by suggesting that keeping the result would “silence” the voices of four members of the Council, and moved to reconsider the resolution appointing Sipress.

A tense pause followed before Councilor Julsrud moved the motion, and after a longer pause, Councilor Larson seconded it “for the sake of conversation.”

Councilor Fosle began the conversation by disagreeing with President Krug’s premises. He said that the Council should respect the initial ruling of Clerk Cox and Attorney Johnson, and that there were alternative ways to count votes via ranked choice voting. Echoing a point I made in my last post, he noted that Sipress had taken the oath, and asked Atty. Johnson if they could really unseat a Councilor in this manner. Atty. Johnson replied that they indeed could.

Councilor Julsrud then repeated many of President Krug’s points. She took care to explain her vote had nothing to do with Sipress, but was instead a “matter of justice” and wondered if half of the council was “comfortable with silencing the other half.” She also decried how political the whole process was behind the scenes, and said she had received “arm-twisting phone calls” by people trying to influence her vote.

Councilor Larson offered somewhat more tentative support for re-opening the vote, while Councilor Filipovich, after detailing his lengthy consultations with local politicians and citizens, came out against revisiting the resolution. “Why overturn a unanimous vote?” he asked, referring to the resolution to approve Sipress once he had been declared the winner via RCV, and listed several other challenges he would rather move on to face.

With no more comments, President Krug moved the reconsideration to a roll-call vote. The four Councilors who had supported Sipress (Filipovich, Fosle, Gardner, Hanson) voted against reconsideration, while the four who had supported Heltzer (Julsrud, Krug, Larson, Russ) voted for it; Councilor Sipress, for obvious reasons, abstained. The move to reconsider thus failed to achieve the necessary five-vote majority, and Councilor Sipress will retain his seat.

***

The even margin confirms my concern heading into this meeting: nobody had budged, and it is very easy to construe the motives on both sides as being political. I don’t fault President Krug for at least raising the question; this was an instance in which the Council was damned if it did and damned if it didn’t. Still, the result was predictable, and we can only hope that grudges don’t linger.

If I may repeat an earlier criticism, I’m still bothered by the complete lack of comment by the Councilors over their initial votes. Some said the candidates were all lovely, but never went any further. On a certain level, this is true; both Sipress and Heltzer are well-qualified, and there are few, if any, ideological differences between them (or between them and the rest of the Councilors, save Councilor Fosle). But reading between the lines, it was pretty clear there were large gaps between the Sipress camp and the Heltzer camp, and that each group was hardened into their voting bloc. No one ever explained why, which leaves the rest of us guessing or relying on rumors. This makes everything seem rather catty; a case of Minnesota Nice at its worst. There’s a fine balance to be found here, of course; we don’t want open warfare on the Council either. But there is plenty of room for tactful comments that might help lessen the claims of politics somewhat. If there were deeper divisions here than were obvious, the public deserves at least some knowledge of them.

With some reservations, I can accept the results of the meeting. This conclusion is more a practical one than anything; I don’t see how any effort to open it back up again would bring about any sort of resolution. Four Councilors were not going to budge from their support for Sipress even if the Council had re-opened debate, and dragging this out any longer only would have opened up further opportunities for ugliness. It’s a crude tiebreaking method, and I agree that some of the arguments for moving on are a bit thin, but I do worry about the precedent of removing a Councilor appointed via resolution by reconsideration of said resolution. For good or ill, the Council sealed its fate when no one objected to the initial interpretation of RCV, and once they’d seated Sipress, going back to remove him would have only compounded the issue. It was important to acknowledge the error, but sometimes one has to cut one’s losses rather than carry on with an obviously flawed process in the desperate hope that things might somehow work out.

At any rate, Councilor Sipress is now safely ensconced in the Council, and can go about his work. It’s time for Duluth to get to know him; ultimately, it will be up to his constituents to judge him. It is time to move forward, beginning with the much-needed push to amend the city charter to allow for a special election in future circumstances such as this one.

Scribblings on Sochi

We have less than a week of Winter Olympic fun left, and aside from a few faulty hotel doors and temperatures to make northern Minnesotans jealous, Sochi has delivered the goods. It has been mercifully free of geopolitics, which is a blessed change from the run-up to the Games, which included terrorism fears and an awful lot of criticism of and fixation on Vladimir Putin. (Though I agree that Russia has its share of woes that deserve attention and that Putin is, for the most part, an unpleasant autocrat, it isn’t hard to detect a nasty edge in some of the coverage of Sochi that wasn’t around in Beijing, and almost certainly will not appear in Rio.)

That is a topic for another time, though: at the Games, the focus should be on the athletes above all else. While the U.S. is right up near the top of the medal count table, it doesn’t seem like the Americans are winning a whole lot so far. Aside from the ice dancing duo of Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who floated to gold dancing to “Scheherazade,” the U.S. doesn’t really have the elite skaters it’s used to. Shaun White didn’t deliver, Bode Miller is old, and the American speedskaters aren’t that good, no matter how much they try to use their suits as excuses. American breakthroughs have come in sports like skeleton and bobsled, which don’t usually grab headlines.

But that is part of the delight of the Olympics: it gives a sudden spurt of attention to countries that have become known for certain sports, often in ways one would never guess. There’s the Jamaican bobsled, of course, but watch events in some of the more obscure time slots and you’ll learn all about Latvian and German sledding, Slovenian and Polish ski-jumping, and the Dutch speedskating fans. I’m not sure what to think of some of the representatives of tropical nations, who often moved to the U.S. or some other first-world country at a very young age, or even might be wealthy foreigners who have somehow managed to gain dual citizenship somewhere. (Mexico’s Olympian is Exhibit A of the latter.) At times this looks more like a publicity stunt or a way of sneaking into the Olympics and avoiding stiffer competition in one’s own country, but if it’s accepted and boosts interest in the home country, there’s no need to impose a purity test.

The Games also focus the spotlight on sports that are otherwise mostly ignored, and sometimes these sports are genuinely fun to watch. Snowboardcross, despite sounding like something a group of kids made up while sledding in their backyard, is great fun, with snowboarders racing down a hill and crashing, their performance free from the whims of judges. Short-track speedskating has similar thrills, and the biathlon makes things exciting by adding firearms. Being a cross-country skier, I enjoy the races, particularly the storied 4×10 relay, the skiathlon that forces skiers to both skate-ski and do traditional skiing, and the 50k marathon on the final day of the Games.

Figure skating has its moments of artistry but is often overrated; the new team competition did nothing for me, and the men’s free skate was an anticlimax, with all of the top contenders falling all over themselves. Curling looks like something that would be fun to try—and it’s a pretty big deal here in Duluth, which has put people on the past two Olympic teams, and seems to be an excellent excuse for drinking while allegedly doing physical activity—but, I’m sorry, it is deathly dull as a spectator sport. Moguls look fun enough, but the scoring system—a garbled formula involving time down the hill and judges’ marks—seems about as arbitrary as it gets. Judged sports in general are more susceptible to confusing outcomes, though there was nothing arbitrary about the skating of Russians Maxim Trankov and Tatiana Volosozhar, or in the monster jump by the Belorussian aerials gold medalist. There’s another unique country strength for you: Belarus swept the aerials, and is right up among the leaders of most gold medals at the Games.

The hockey tournament is reaching its climax as well; the U.S. women will play archrival Canada for gold on Thursday, while the men, fresh off the heroics of Warroad, Minnesota’s T.J. Oshie in a round-robin game with Russia, will take on the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals. I’ll admit to being a bit of a skeptic of this year’s U.S. team, but the Russia win is the sort that can bring a team together; while the road will be about as tough as it gets, the Americans have the skill to play with anyone, and as long as they can do that, anything can happen. It only took one period of Latvia-Switzerland to remind me why Olympic hockey is so enjoyable, as the big ice sheet opens up more space for creativity and free-flowing play. While I wouldn’t go quite as far as Adam Gopnik in his takedown of contemporary North American hockey—just win, baby—I do love hockey when it’s played in the tradition of Anatoli Tarasov, with perpetual motion and puck possession. The more we see that style of hockey, perhaps with some Herb Brooks-esque tweaks, the more hockey wins.

Oshie’s Sochi heroics even made it into primetime on NBC, a rare occurrence for the sport. Of course it is chic to deride NBC’s coverage, particularly when it comes to the inevitable tape-delays, though to be honest, I’d rather have the Olympics in the hands of NBC than any other network. In most sports, they deliver, with a classy look and veteran commentators; in hockey, football, and Premier League soccer, their A teams are as good as any. They have a deep bench of quality commentators, though even they can only go so far, and some of the more obscure sports employ former athletes who don’t exactly provide enlightening commentary. (Are they really getting paid to say “oh!” in alarm every time a skater falls?)

Still, I do have one big critique of NBC’s coverage: sometimes it feels more like the Today Show than an actual sporting event, a problem that was only exacerbated when Matt Lauer was hauled in to substitute for Bob Costas when he went down with his eye affliction. (Why not Al Michaels?) Public interest stories are nice, but they have a habit of catering to the lowest common denominator, and there are only so many ways to hear athletes say certain canned clichés. The focus on a handful of select Americans expected to do well is good for their publicity—we’d probably never hear of them otherwise, and non-major sports need icons to get some attention—but it makes for painful theater when they lose, and NBC’s sideline reporters track down the fallen stars.

The end result has its flaws, but with those flaws, it isn’t a bad portrait of the world we live in. It’s a planet of quirky diversity with visible but malleable hierarchies, united by a handful of universals, many trite or empty, but a few which penetrate much deeper. There are always glints of gold to be found.