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The Duluth East 2013-2014 Season in Review

The State Tournament is over, which means it’s time to wind down my hockey coverage on this blog. If you miss my philosophical rambling, good news: I’m working on a post that should go up this weekend. But before we put away our skates and get ready for spring, I figured I’d say a little bit about Duluth East’s season.

22-8-1, 6th place at State. The record books might call it the weakest East season in five or six years, but plenty of programs in the state would’ve loved to have had that. If you’d offered me that before the season, I would have snapped it up. For a team whose dynasty was supposed to be running on borrowed time, for a team with only four seniors, for a team whose youth teams feeding in hadn’t been quite as good as the last few, even with the unusually large number of Marshall-bound players factored in—it was a superb year. The offense got off to a slow start, but grew better as inexperienced players settled into their roles. The Hounds lost a couple of frustrating games, but also went 4-0 against the toughest conference in the state, demolished a supposed threat on the road in Grand Rapids, won two games in the Schwan Cup Gold, and restored order against Duluth Denfeld.

It was enough to earn the top seed in 7AA—something they really didn’t deserve, given their regular season losses to Elk River and Cloquet, but with five quality teams in the section it didn’t amount to a grave injustice, and the Hounds once again dispatched of Grand Rapids without too much trouble. That set up the anticipated final against Elk River, in which the Hounds were outplayed for long portions of the game but found a way to head back to St. Paul for a sixth straight year. The dramatic comeback made for one of the most thrilling and rewarding section titles in team history.

The State Tournament was a mild disappointment. A series of upsets left the Hounds with the 4-seed, and a battle with #5 Eagan; whatever the rankings said, it was a very even match-up on paper. The Hounds looked the better team for the better part of two periods, but hockey can be a cruel game, and two fluky goals had them staring at a big hole. The offense struggled to generate much traction after a key injury, players began to press, and the wheels came off some in the third period. The results in the consolation bracket—an overtime win over Stillwater, and a one-goal loss to Roseau on a late goal—were respectable, but not quite, well, enough for a consolation prize. But, as the Eagan loss showed, hockey can be a fickle sport. The Hounds fought to the end, the younger players gained some valuable experience, and the seniors graduate knowing nothing but State Tournaments in their time at East.

For a second straight year, the heart and soul of this team was its top defensive pair. First Meirs Moore and Phil Beaulieu, and then Beaulieu and Alex Trapp, were rocks on defense and put up big numbers ranging forward into the attack. Beaulieu, a Mr. Hockey Finalist, will go down as one of the finest defensemen in the history of a program that has produced as many D-I defensemen as anyone, and Trapp will have his shot at the next level, too. While less flashy, senior Joey Marinac’s steadying presence will also be missed, leaving Bryton Lutzka as the only returnee among the top four defensemen. Lutzka improved markedly as the season went along; I feared he might be their defensive liability heading into sections, but he shined on the highest stage, and the Hounds will need his big hits and improved discipline to give their blue line some order next season.

The cupboard isn’t exactly bare, either. While Alex Spencer and Nathaniel Benson spent most of the year playing forward on the third line, both are converted defensemen, and it would be no surprise to see one or both slide back to steady the defense next season. The third pair saw very little ice time, but there is some potential there, too. They might not have the offensive sparkplugs they’ve had the past couple years, but they still have the look of a deep and fairly steady group.

At forward, junior Nick Altmann had a breakout year, and though he was slowed by injury at the start and end of the season, senior Jack Kolar was also a force; someone will have to step up to take his place. The good news, of course, is that Kolar was the only senior, and there will be plenty of people fighting to fill out the remaining spots on the roster. Junior Brian Bunten and sophomores Ash Altmann and Ryan Peterson are locks for next season; Bunten is Nick Altmann’s longtime partner in crime, the younger Altmann may have the highest ceiling of any forward on the squad, and Peterson’s work rate is second to none. Beyond that, there’s a long list of forwards who cycled through the lineup this past season; Maysen Rust played more than the rest, but Matt Lyttle, Evan Little, Auston Crist, Nick Funk, and Jackson Purdy should all have a shot at a regular shift next year if they put in the work over the summer.

The East Bantam AA team didn’t have a stellar year, and some of its talents are still just first years, meaning they’re unlikely to get the call to varsity. (Freshmen have rarely played varsity for the Hounds over the past decade, and I don’t expect a change there.) They were still competitive with many good teams, though, and will be playing in the VFW State Tournament in a few weeks. And with so few graduating seniors, East doesn’t need a whole bunch of bantams to jump right in; a few here and there should do the trick, and the rest can mature a bit more on JV.

In goal, junior Gunnar Howg quietly had a very good season, especially when one considers his improvement from start to finish. At the beginning of the year, some compared him to JoJo Jeanetta, the East goalie in their 2011 2nd place State Tourney run, largely because of his unconventional style and relative lack of hype coming into high school. Others bristled at this comparison; it seemed early to be comparing him to the most successful East playoff goalie of recent years. Statistically, though, Howg’s junior year was superior to Jeanetta’s. He had the benefit of a strong defense, but it’s an encouraging sign, and if he keeps working to improve, he could be a top-notch goalie in 2014-2015.

The 2014-2015 team may not have the obvious stars of the past few years, but even though they’re the Cakeaters of the North, Mike Randolph’s teams have always been able to assume the blue-collar mantel without too much difficulty. (Even if Randolph retires, I’d be surprised if he isn’t succeeded by a disciple with a similar thought process.) They enjoy a deep feeder program that continues to give them plenty of quality players, and if the coaching staff can cobble all the pieces together, they’ll be in good position to defend their section crown yet again next season.

Looking around the rest of 7AA, the stiffest challenge is almost certain to come from Elk River again. The Elks came ever so close to beating the Hounds this past season, and their youth teams over the past two years have been as good as any in the state. They will have some holes to fill; they’ll miss star goalie MacLean Berglove, forward Chase Springman, and a couple of other players who provided good depth, most notably on defense. Their biggest question concerns two stars who could leave; sophomore Matt Kierstad has already earned himself an invite for a tryout with the U.S. National Training and Development Program, and junior forward and leading scorer Jake Jaremko could also be a flight risk. With those two, they’re a clear favorite on paper; without them, they’re a bit on the young side, and it could easily be another race to the wire with the Hounds.

Some other teams will have a say, though. Grand Rapids will really miss its two graduating superstars, but their collection of talented sophomores should be ready to carry more of the load. With another good bantam team feeding in, they’ll be good, though on the young side. St. Michael-Albertville should continue its steady rise to relevance, and Cloquet, which, gave contenders fits late this past season, should be even more dangerous with a little more experience. Forest Lake and Andover have deep enough programs to remain relevant despite some losses, too. In other words, it’ll be another year of a deep, competitive section, though the Hounds still own the crown until someone dethrones them.

For now, though, it’s time to thank our seniors and hit the weights in preparation for next year. These past two seasons, in which the Hounds have silenced many doubters and extended their dominion over 7AA, have been an absolute delight for a returnee to Duluth in need of some way to get through the long winters. Odds are that I’ll be following from a distance again next season, but I’m excited to watch it all unfold, and as always, I’ll have a certain weekend in March cleared on my calendar.

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.

Two Losses in February

The regular season is coming down to the wire, and it’s been an adventurous week for the Duluth East boys’ hockey team. The Hounds lost back-to-back games for the first time since 2010, both by one goal, though the situations couldn’t have been more different.

Monday’s loss to archrival Cloquet was a blow to a team that rarely loses to local competition. The Hounds had won 12 straight against the Lumberjacks since a 2008 playoff upset, and while there has been a gulf in talent between the two teams for most of the years since, Cloquet usually played well enough to manage at least one reasonably tight game per season over that stretch. Cloquet coach Dave Esse’s strategy was a straightforward one, but not one that is always easy to pull off with a group of middling high school players: they trapped the Hounds, packed it in, and did all they could to slow up the East attack. They successfully turned the game into a snooze-fest, clogging the neutral zone with bodies and lulling a packed Heritage Center to sleep, but keeping East from adding to an early 1-0 lead. All it took was a single odd-man rush for the Jacks to tie the game, and momentum did the rest. Cloquet, fired up at a chance to beat East, withstood a late Hounds push and escaped with the 2-1 win.

On Thursday night, it was an entirely different story, as top-ranked Lakeville North came to town. This time the Hounds got off to an inauspicious start, as the North top line of the three Poehling brothers struck seventeen second in, and again midway through the first period. After that, though, the Hounds gathered themselves, went back to work, and played North at least even for the better part of two periods. Mr. Hockey Finalist Phil Beaulieu popped in a pair of goals, and the Hounds’ defense adapted to North’s speed and began to dictate the tempo. Things slowly came apart as the Hounds tired late in the third, but goalie Gunnar Howg made enough big saves to force overtime, and East had a few near-misses on tips in front of the North net. The Poehlings finally cashed in again three minutes into the overtime, ending a quality effort on a sour note. It was a reassuring rebound performance, but not quite the decisive statement that would have cemented the Hounds as a frontrunner in a complicated Section 7AA.

It’s hard to know what to make of the section right now. Grand Rapids finally found its stride on Wednesday in a win over Hermantown; while one game does not a season make, the 5-3 win was a step in the right direction for a team that certainly has the talent to make a run at a State Tournament berth. Andover has been on fire down the stretch, with wins over quality teams like Elk River, Maple Grove, and Centennial. They’ll truly put their winning streak next Tuesday when they visit state title contender Blaine. Elk River, on the other hand, has lost three of its last four, though all against quality competition, and may need a win over Centennial on Saturday to hold on to the top seed in the section.

The section seeding will be decided next Wednesday, when the coaches will meet at Tobies Restaurant in Hinckley and design a playoff bracket over sticky rolls. Often, the order is logical; this year, it is a mess, with plausible arguments for most any ordering of the top four. East, Rapids, Elk River, and Andover all have quality shots at winning the thing, which means they’d all have to beat two pretty good teams to win the section, but they may have preferences over who they’d prefer to meet in the semifinals. Nor are all four safe bets to escape the first round; an all-but-forgotten Forest Lake team lurks as a reasonably good probable 5-seed, and then, of course, there is Cloquet, which has obviously shown it can take down giants. The other coaches might be angling for a first-round East-Cloquet battle to perhaps knock the Hounds out of the picture, though if the Hounds take care of business in their last two games before the meeting, it would be tough to make a case that they belong at #3, which would match them up with #6 Cloquet.

So, what to make of these Hounds? We know they’re young, but play good team defense. They aren’t going to blow anybody out unless they get a lot of power plays; in fact, penalties could play a big role in their fate, as their power play and penalty kill are among the best in the state, while they have been rather pedestrian at times at 5-on-5. (Encouraging reminder for Hounds fans: last season’s team was much the same way during the regular season, but found another gear when it mattered.)

When this team runs its systems well, they can skate with anyone in the state; the North game makes that abundantly clear. If they stick to the formula, they’ll be tough to beat, especially in a section that lacks elite teams. The trouble is that the scores of most games will stay close enough that anyone will have a shot at them, and as the Cloquet game proved, it doesn’t take much to unleash a bit of momentum. How will the team react to a blown assignment, a bad call, or a strange bounce? The system work is great, but something unexpected is almost certain to happen at one point or another. East’s best playoff teams in recent years, when faced with such unpleasantness, have simply gone back to work, reasserted themselves, and kept the opposition from really feeding off of one single turn of events. Others have panicked, gone down too early to try to block shots, failed to clear loose pucks, and let the other team dictate play.  At this point, it’s hard to know which sort we have on our hands. We’ll find out in the coming weeks.

Duluth East and Apple Valley Revisited

The Duluth East boys’ hockey team heads to Apple Valley tonight. On paper, it isn’t a thrilling match-up; the Eagles have fallen on hard times in recent years, while the Hounds are among the better teams in the state. East won their meeting 10-1 last season. But even so, this game will always bring back memories of the game many high school hockey fans think was the greatest ever played. I re-watched that game a few months ago, and took some notes as the game went along. Here is a recap of the night of March 8 (and the morning of March 9!), 1996, at the St. Paul Civic Center.

-Duluth East comes into the AA State Tournament semifinal game as the top-ranked team in the state. Twelve players on the Hounds’ 20-man playoff roster will go on to play some D-I hockey, and another six will play hockey after high school in juniors, in Canada, or at a D-III school; both of those figures may be records. The defending state champs are led by 1996 Minnesota Mr. Hockey Dave Spehar, the leading scorer in state history and hero of the previous year’s tournament. They return two full lines and their top two defensive pairs from the previous season. They’d demolished Blaine 7-1 in the quarterfinals.

-Apple Valley, however, is no slouch, and is widely thought to be the one team that can stop East. They’re ranked third in the state (2nd-ranked Hill-Murray, the only team to beat East during the regular season, had been upset by White Bear Lake in sections), and lost only one game against a difficult schedule. They boast six future D-I players of their own, and another likely could have played had he not chosen baseball instead. They may not be quite as deep as the Hounds, but with the likes of Brad DeFauw and Erik Westrum on hand, they can match their top-end talent, and they have a small but talented goalie named Karl Goehring.

-One of those East D-I players, junior forward Matt Mathias, did not play. He’d suffered an injury in the quarterfinal, and had to watch on a TV in the Civic Center hallway. The UPN-9 crew interviews him twice during the game; once early on, and once in the 4th OT.  Senior Matt LaTour is pressed into duty in his stead.

-In the open, Wally Shaver and Lou Nanne talk about the need for AV to have a strong start to the game, as they’d been somewhat slow in their section final and quarterfinal; if they don’t, East might blow them out of the water, as they have with every other team they’ve played in the playoffs to date. The Eagles deliver, checking the smaller East forwards aggressively and outshooting the Hounds in a scoreless first period.

-The Eagles also look good killing off an East penalty, even though the Hounds, according to Wally, had an 85% PP over the second half of the season. Their defensive discipline in the early going, which forced East to expend a lot of effort simply to get out of regulation with a tie, may have been the most important piece of the puzzle.

-Duluth East coach Mike Randolph shakes some things up in the first intermission, and East comes out looking better in the second, with Dave Spehar starting to float and the Hounds looking to stretch the ice.

-Spehar came into the game sitting on four consecutive Tourney hat tricks, but the lone hat trick in this game goes to Apple Valley’s Erik Westrum. The crafty forward gives the East defense fits all night long. He scores his first goal of the night just past the five minute mark of the second, temporarily stemming the East momentum.

-13 seconds later, East’s Pat Gunderson responds with a blast from the point, and the game is tied at 1. The game opens up considerably from that point on, with both teams racing up and down the ice and trading chances.

-After Nick Gretz scores the second AV goal, a fan throws an octopus on the Civic Center ice. The Eagles take a 2-1 lead into the second intermission, despite a strong period by East on the shot counter.

-Spehar has two near-misses on breakaways, but each time, the defenseman gets just enough of him to disrupt him. Andy Wheeler has a couple of near-misses as well, one of which is the save of the game from Karl Goehring.

-Spehar takes an ill-advised penalty a minute into the third period (one of only two in the entire game, one on each team). Not to worry, says his longtime linemate, Chris Locker: he steals the puck and scores a shorthanded goal to tie the game at two.

-Less than two minutes later, Westrum has a response, and puts his team up 3-2. Three minutes later, Spehar finally strikes for the Hounds, circling the AV net in search of a passing lane before firing a low shot through traffic.

-After the first period, commentators Wally Shaver and Lou Nanne are calling it an excellent game; by the middle of the third, they’re calling it a truly great one. Little do they know…

-Both teams go back and forth, trading chances left and right, and with just over six minutes to go, Westrum completes his hat trick.

-East presses forward in desperate search of the tying goal, with Randolph using his timeout and a “goalie change” to get his top line as much rest as he can muster.

-That dedication pays off. The AV defense is drawn to Spehar behind the net, and he feeds Locker out in front to tie the game with 38.8 seconds left on the clock. It’s tough to gauge crowd noise from a DVD, but I’d hazard to guess that was among the loudest moments in Tourney history.

-In the 1st OT, Randolph puts the game in his top line’s hands and sends them out to win it. The result is firewagon hockey that is still exhilarating to watch, even 15+ years later. Both teams fly up and down the ice, trading chances. Apple Valley rolls two lines.

-Over the first two overtimes, AV’s best player is Brad DeFauw; he gets three excellent chances, one of which hits the pipe early in the 2nd OT.

-In the 2nd OT, Randolph decides to try to win a war of attrition and starts rolling three lines, with very short shifts. Larry Hendrickson sticks with two for AV. Randolph continues to float Spehar, daring AV to push forward and create an odd-man situation in the offensive zone; AV never takes the bait, and keeps its defensemen back around their own blue line.

-East has a strong start to the 2nd OT, while AV looks sharper toward the middle of the period; East again starts to take control toward the end, when Dylan Mills tees up a shot.

-LaTour deflects Mills’ shot, and it goes over Goehring’s shoulder and somewhere up in the vicinity of the crossbar. In real time, Wally seems to think it went in, while Lou thinks it hits the crossbar; replays seem to suggest the former, but there’s room for doubt. Most tellingly, there is no sound of puck hitting crossbar. A photo in the next day’s Duluth paper will confirm this: the puck was in the net. But the referees have no replay to rely on, and play goes on as the East fans boo.

-There is a distinct shift in gameplay at the start of the 3rd, as both teams grow cagey. East controls more of the play and has some decent chances, but Chris Sikich of AV does have the best chance of the period.

-At the start of the 4th, it looks as if AV is starting to take control. East gets the momentum back mid-period with a great shift from its top line, with Spehar once again making his presence felt everywhere, and Wheeler just missing.

-Late in the 4th, Goehring breaks the single game saves record in the Tourney. AV answers back to East’s surge and has two good chances near the end of the period that Hounds goalie Kyle Kolquist saves.

-By the 4th OT, it seems clear that the man with the most energy on the ice is AV defenseman Aaron Dwyer; Wally and Lou make a note of this fact.

-Between the 4th and 5th OTs, everyone looks spent; Kolquist is flat on his back with his head resting up against the boards, while Sikich is lolling on his side beneath his bench, modeling his stellar flow. Randolph dumps water over the head of a slumped Spehar. The crowd, which is still tightly packed into the Civic Center as it nears 1:30 AM, does the wave. Many have been standing throughout the OTs.

-East has a good surge toward the start of the 5th OT, but their momentum grinds to a halt when DeFauw flattens Spehar with a huge check. Spehar skates gingerly to the bench, and will not get a chance to return to the ice.

-On the next shift, Dwyer blindly fires a shot on net. Kolquist is screened and reacts too late, and the Eagles are on their way to the state championship game.

-In the aftermath, players from both teams embrace, and after the East coaching staff gets Kolquist to his feet, cameras capture he and Goehring talking to one another.

-East will win the 3rd place game 9-2 a few hours later, with Spehar notching one last Tourney hat trick. Apple Valley wins the state title 3-2 over Edina.

-The game had been just the second ever meeting between the two teams, but immediately thereafter, they began to schedule each other regularly. Ever since, East holds a 13-4 edge in the regular season series.

-Some of the stars of that game are still intimately tied to their programs. Mills and Kolquist are now two of Randolph’s assistants at East, while Sikich was named AV’s head coach at the start of this current season.

-Randolph, reflecting on that game and the 2011 triple-overtime loss to Eden Prairie in the state title game, in an interview this past summer:

It takes time to get over. It’s part of the nature of the beast. But then you reflect back, time heals, and you realize how fortunate you were to be part of that. Those were two of the best games at the State Tournament ever; as I told the kids, there was no loser in that game. To be part of it is special. I get over it about mid-summer. (laughs). But you always think about, ‘what if’?

Hounds Throw Down the Gauntlet

On Thursday night, I made the road trip 80 miles west of Duluth to Grand Rapids for a hockey game. The town of 10,000 people has a rather mixed identity: it is part vacationland, part paper mill town, and part gateway to the Iron Range. What isn’t in doubt, of course, is its status as one of Minnesota’s most storied hockey communities.

The Grand Rapids High School Thunderhawks (Indians in less P.C. times) won three titles in six years back in the 70s and 80s, and have produced as many college and NHL players as any school in the state. Recent decades haven’t been nearly as successful, but the program has risen again in the past few years, with two second place finishes in the mid-00s, two narrow section title game losses to Duluth East in the past three years, and a promising youth program feeding in. Thursday’s game had the potential to break Rapids’ long string of frustration against the Hounds, a team they’ve only beaten twice in their past twenty meetings. They entered the game on a six-game winning streak, and a win could have just about locked up the top seed in Section 7AA, something the Thunderhawks have yet to earn in the two-class era. They boast a Mr. Hockey frontrunner in Avery Peterson, one of the state’s best goalies in Hunter Shepard, and a bumper crop of sophomores. A capacity crowd packed its way into the historic IRA Civic Center, ready to blow the wood-trussed roof off the building if Rapids were to win.

Duluth East, however, decided to crash the party, and they did it in style. The Hounds smothered Rapids with superb neutral zone play and a relentless forecheck, grabbing an early goal by Nathaniel Benson for a 1-0 lead. Despite East’s controlling play, Shepard and the inexperienced Rapids defense was doing just enough to keep it close for a while. Rapids took a major penalty late in the period, however, and it was 3-0 by the intermission. “Why so quiet?” the East students taunted a silent Civic Center.

 A few power plays gave the Thunderhawks a little more life in the second period, but East goalie Gunnar Howg saved the shots he needed to save, and another bad Rapids penalty set up an East power play goal late in the period. The Hounds went into cruise control in the third, not allowing a shot until over 12 minutes had passed, and adding a fifth goal with .5 seconds to go for some icing on the cake for the Cakeaters of the North.

The game was a total triumph of Mike Randolph hockey. His young Hounds executed his gameplan as well as any Hounds team ever has. They used their depth to their advantage, and the third line of Alex Spencer, Maysen Rust, and Nathaniel Benson—a potential concern I’d cited earlier in the week—was a wrecking crew all night long. The best player on the ice was not Peterson, but East defenseman Phil Beaulieu, who seemed unbothered by his huge amount of ice time, slaloming past countless defenders and shutting down every Rapids rush that came his way. He made some new friends as well, stopping for a photo op with Grand Rapids mites between periods. It was that sort of night for the Hounds.

Tactically, Rapids was a mess, as they tried to skate straight into the heart of the East defense and generated nothing in the way of odd-man rushes. If not for six power plays, they might not have mustered ten shots on goal. It was hard to find any sort of positives for the Thunderhawks; their one recourse, perhaps, is history, as East beat Rapids 5-1 in the regular season meeting in 2007, the year they picked up their sole playoff victory over the Hounds. This team can’t possibly be as bad as it looked on Thursday night, and while there are a bunch of things that would have to go right in a playoff rematch—better discipline, better breakouts, a willingness to do some dirty work on offense, a big night out of Shepard—it’s certainly imaginable that they could get it done.

East, on the other hand, has to make sure this mid-January win isn’t the peak, but only another sign of improvement from a squad that has already grown up a lot since November. They went to the box too often for comfort, and more 5-on-5 scoring wouldn’t hurt, either; they can’t count on major penalties, especially in the playoffs, when referees are more likely to swallow their whistles. But the win certainly put the rest of the state on notice, and we still don’t know how high their ceiling is. They now have a fighting chance at the top seed in 7AA, though every game will matter as they try to atone for their early season loss to Elk River. No matter how the season ends, the big win in enemy territory will go down as one of the highlights.

The Hounds at Midseason

The Duluth East boys’ hockey team has played twelve of its twenty-five regular season games to date, and with a 9-3 record to date, and are #9 in Class AA in my latest rankings. After losing twelve seniors off last season’s squad and having only four this season, the 2013-2014 Hounds might have been expected to endure some growing pains. Indeed, it hasn’t all been smooth skating; they were upset by a decent Centennial team, had a narrow escape against bottom-feeding Cambridge, and aren’t exactly scoring in bunches. But so far, the positives far outweigh the negatives: they’ve knocked off powers Wayzata, Eden Prairie, and Breck, and played well in a narrow loss to section frontrunner Elk River.

The winning formula looks similar to the one used by last season’s Hounds squad, which also overachieved in the eyes of most pundits. Their anchors are their two big defensemen, Phil Beaulieu and Alex Trapp; both log loads of ice time but handle it well. Beaulieu darts about the ice playing pond hockey, practically without a position; for his efforts, he’s been rewarded with a scholarship to Nebraska-Omaha, where he’ll join former teammate Jake Randolph. Trapp, meanwhile, is as steady as they come, maintaining his discipline and dishing out the heavy hits. Despite the heavy reliance on the top pair, there is some depth on defense; senior Joey Marinac anchors the second pairing, and a steady supply of players have rotated through the other spots, with hard-hitting Bryton Lutzka and 6’4” sophomore Alex Spencer enjoying the bulk of the playing time.

Up front, the top line of Nick Altmann, Brian Bunten, and Jack Kolar has carried most of the scoring load, with Altmann in particular lighting the lamp with regularity. While not as prolific as the top line last season, this group—which was together last season as well—has good chemistry and can at least hold its own against most of the state’s better lines. The second line hasn’t produced a ton of points yet, but—much like the Altmann-Bunten-Kolar line last year—they are a young group featuring two sophomores and a junior, and have generated plenty of offensive zone time. Ash Altmann and Ryan Peterson accounted for two of the three goals in the Eden Prairie win on Saturday, showing their offensive potential.

The third line, on the other hand, remains unsettled. The Hounds lead the state in defensemen converted to forwards, as several D have taken turns at the wings of junior center Maysen Rust. There is potential here, but they have yet to match the level of the all-senior checking line the Hounds put out last season. East may not have the firepower of many of the other teams in the top ten, but they’re good enough to skate with all of them, and if they play smart defense, they don’t need to pile up tons of points.

Smart defense is, of course, Mike Randolph’s specialty. The Hounds’ coach has had some very different types of teams over his quarter century at the helm, but there are constants throughout: puck possession and cycling in the offensive zone, and their ability to forecheck aggressively clog up the neutral zone when they don’t have the puck. The former makes for some very pretty hockey; the latter, on the other hand, is no one’s idea of sexy hockey. But when properly executed, it protects narrow leads and wins tight games, and so far, this young squad seems to be buying in and following the gameplan as well as any. Sure, East might score a little more if Randolph turned them loose a bit more often (and he does throw in some wrinkles from time to time), but they’d also give up a lot more, and this isn’t the sort of team that’s going to do well in a shootout.

A few other things could foul up the formula. The first, of course, is goaltending: junior Gunnar Howg seems to have grabbed the starting spot with his acrobatic saves, but he’s still learning on the job, and has had a few forgettable moments so far. East’s defense doesn’t allow many scoring opportunities, but when they do, they are often good ones, and East goalies will need to be in good form down the stretch. Another mild concern is an occasional lack of discipline; it’s not a persistent problem and the penalty kill is solid, but they’ve taken a few more trips to the box than usual this season, and a few have come at inopportune moments.

Lastly, there is that matter of other teams who will have a say in the Hounds’ fate. Elk River has its best team in some time, and with a narrow win over East in December, they already have a leg up for section seeding. That Elk River team also lost to Grand Rapids, whom the Hounds visit this coming Thursday. East has owned the Thunderhawks in recent years, and they are certainly the deeper squad. But Rapids has one of the state’s best goaltenders in Hunter Shepard, and their collection of talented forwards doesn’t need many chances to make other teams pay. A loss on Thursday would make a top-two seed unlikely, a fate that hasn’t befallen the Hounds since 1999. And while they aren’t nearly as talented, an offensive outage from the Hounds could certainly give teams like Forest Lake, Andover, and even Cloquet a shot at a playoff upset.

And so the Hounds head into the second half, and as usual, the schedule is one of the toughest. In addition to the Grand Rapids game, they also play rival Duluth Denfeld this coming week, and will look to avenge last season’s embarrassing loss. They will also face a powerful Blaine team and Lakeville North, the state’s first half darlings who came out of nowhere to beat many of the elite. More often than not, one can predict the Hounds’ destiny based on the way they play over the second half; if they win the games they’re supposed to win and at least play top teams tough, their playoff prospects are excellent; if they struggle in games they should win comfortably, they might have peaked a little too soon. Time to see what this young team can do.

A Changing of the Guard in 7AA?

Section 7AA has been Duluth East’s dominion over the past five years, but last night’s result at the Heritage Center—a 3-2 win by 4th-ranked Elk River over the Hounds—has the potential to be a watershed moment.

It was a big night for the Elks in many ways. It was the first win by a 7AA opponent over East since the Elks beat the Hounds in 2010, and only the second since 2008. It was East’s first home loss since the 2010-2011 season (though that comes with an asterisk, as East was the “road” team in their loss to Duluth Denfeld last season). To find East’s last home regular season loss to a section opponent, we have to go back to a December 2006 game against Cloquet. Even without the history, it was a coming-out party for the Elks, who are now 3-0, with wins over state powers East and Edina. They are now the favorites for the section crown.

It was an important win, but it wasn’t the convincing sort of win that erases any doubts. The game went back and forth, with each team tallying once in the first two periods. The Hounds struck first on a terrific move by defenseman-turned-forward Phil Beaulieu, who dangled through the Elk defense before firing his shot; the Elks watched him closely for the rest of the night, making sure the East captain had little space to maneuver. The Elks tied it on a tap-in by Kyle Badger, and took the lead not long into the second on a blast from the blue line by Grant Bunker that nailed the water bottle atop East goalie Gunnar Howg’s net. After a penalty kill, East began to assert itself, and tied the game on a wicked shot from sophomore Ryan Peterson. The game-winner came with four and a half minutes to go, and was very similar to the first; there was a scrum in front of the East net, and suddenly the referee signaled a goal.

The gameplay was fairly even, though the teams excelled in different areas. Elk River’s forwards showed off their skill, beating the East defensive corps on the rush at times; the Hounds, on the other hand, relied on coach Mike Randolph’s signature puck possession system, controlling play for stretches in the 2nd and 3rd periods with their steady cycling and ultimately outshooting the Elks, 30-24. The difference-maker was Elk River senior goaltender Maclean Berglove; both East goals were tough to stop, and while Howg had some solid saves for East, he couldn’t quite pounce on the pucks sitting in his crease on the first and third goals, and the second goal came from very far out.

Recent history warns us from taking too much away from this game. Back in 2010, the Elks edged East 3-2 in the regular season meeting in Elk River, a game in which a veteran Elks’ goalie outplayed his less experienced East counterpart, despite a large edge in shots for East. The two teams met again in the 7AA final, and the Hounds steamrolled the Elks in a 5-1 win. As is the case this season, East was very young that year, and took some lumps in the regular season before putting things together in the playoffs.

But these Elks are not those Elks, and the 2013-2014 edition looks like one of the best teams in the state. Their third line scored twice last night, showing off their depth; they also did a superb job of blocking shots in front of Berglove, making his job much easier. With ten seniors on the roster, they have plenty of experience, and they play disciplined, smart hockey. Their second-year coach, former Minnesota North Star Gordie Roberts, has himself a team with no weaknesses. The Elks’ program seems be in a very good place right now, too. After five Tournament berths in seven years around the turn of the century, they moved to 7AA in 2005-2006, and haven’t been back since. They hit bottom near the end of the 2012 season, when longtime coach Tony Sarsland, a man who made Mike Randolph seem cute and cuddly, was axed by the district. Last season ended in pain, with Grand Rapids tying their 7AA semifinal with ten seconds to go and winning in overtime. But now, having done their penance, the Elks look like a force: their youth program has been on even terms with many of the state’s best in recent years, and the Twin Cities exurb will host Hockey Day in Minnesota 2014.

Still, several teams in 7AA could spoil their party; it’s a deep section, and even some of the weaker teams have shown they can stick around with the two top-ranked squads. East only has four seniors (one of whom is out hurt), and they have some correctible problems to fix don’t really have much of an identity yet. Randolph’s teams tend to improve as the season goes along; over the past nine years, they have a December winning percentage of .699, but up their game to an .857 clip in January and February. They may continue to take some lumps; they don’t have a whole lot of offensive firepower, and as a narrow win over Cambridge showed, East will probably get stuck in some close games against less-than-stellar opponents. But the East program continues to put out quality hockey players, and they’ve already shown that this young group can skate with the state’s best.

All we can say for now, then, is that the 7AA race will be as good as any in the state. Elk River and East are very even and are top ten teams at the moment, and a yet-untested Grand Rapids team has some stars it could ride into the conversation as well. It’s a bit early to be saying much about section seeding, and teams like Forest Lake and Andover won’t be easy wins, but at this point, there’s good incentive to grab the top seed and avoid playing one of the other top three in the semifinals. The Elks now have the inside track for that spot.

For both teams, it’s back to work now. Elk River travels to face a quality Maple Grove team on Thursday in a Northwest Suburban Conference game, while East visits archrival Cloquet. The Elks must be careful not to peak in December, as senior-heavy teams sometimes do; the Hounds cannot take future improvement as a given, and while there were no glaring weaknesses on Tuesday night, there were no clearly pronounced strengths, either. We have a long way to go, and whether East extends its dynasty or another team emerges, it’ll be neck-and-neck to the end.

What Is Duluth’s Future?

This is going to be a sprawling post, and I envision it as the start of a series on Duluth, Minnesota, my hometown, that builds on the fairly narrow focus of my posts on city council and school board meetings.  For those of you who have never been there, it is a city of 85,000 on the tip of Lake Superior, and the world’s largest freshwater port; and no, it is not a suburb of Minneapolis. (When I was in the college on the East Coast and told my classmates I was from Duluth, Minnesota, the inevitable next question was, “is that near Minneapolis?” They didn’t know how to respond when the answer was “no.” There were also the girls who once asked me if Minnesota was near Maine. And the one who didn’t believe that ice fishing was a real thing. But I digress.)

At any rate, a few days ago, the New York Times ran a piece by Robert Putnam, a Harvard scholar famous for his book Bowling Alone, which explores the decline of communal bonds in the United States. His work is some of the most fascinating stuff on modern American culture, though as with all scholarly work, there are intelligent critiques and rebuttals and endless back-and-forth nitpicking. While nuance is always necessary, I do worry about fraying social fabric and the increasing isolation in modern America, and perhaps more importantly, the pathologies that afflict an increasingly stratified society, from broken families to drug abuse to cycles of poverty. Without going straight into causes, solutions, and ultimate implications, it is clear there is a problem here. The ability of a city to cope with or adapt to these issues will likely determine its fate.

This particular article was more focused, however; it told the story of Port Clinton, Putnam’s Ohio hometown along the shores of Lake Erie. Like much of Middle America, Port Clinton has not fared particularly well economically in recent decades; its manufacturing base has collapsed, and though its lakeside location has kept some money in the town, it is now very divided, and not the foundation for the American Dream Putnam claims it was when he grew up there in the 1950s.

There is a shoutout to Duluth near the end of the piece, and the parallels are not hard to see. (The results of the Duluth surveys taken for Putnam’s project, while they do not mention many of the things discussed in the NYT piece, are here.) Duluth is much larger than Port Clinton, but for a while, it looked like it was going down the tubes when it lost its U.S. Steel mill and shed perhaps 30,000 residents toward the end of the 20th century. Like Port Clinton, Duluth has weathered the storm somewhat thanks to tourism dollars, and it has been fairly stable for two decades now. For all its troubles, Duluth really hasn’t fallen off the cliff in the way Putnam seems to think Port Clinton has.

If Duluth doesn’t fit so smoothly into the narrative of Midwestern industrial decline, we have to ask what sort of story we can tell about Duluth. In addition to the tourism dollars, I’d attribute Duluth’s resilience to two factors:

1. Due to its size, it remains a regional hub in a way that most small towns in America aren’t. Duluth may not have grown since it stopped shedding people in the early 90s, but it also isn’t shrinking, while most of the rest of the region is; its quasi-suburban areas, Hermantown and several unincorporated townships, have actually seen some growth. While Duluth may not have the opportunities Minneapolis does, it does have some allure when compared to small northern Minnesota towns. It has two 4-year universities, remains a busy transportation hub, and many regional services that cannot be outsourced to a metropolis or Malaysia (health care, certain government agencies, etc.) are based here.

2. Old money. At the start of the twentieth century, Duluth was a millionaires’ playground, and though not all of the grand old houses on the east side are in the best of shape these days, a chunk of the money is still here, doled out from trusts, foundations, and donations from heirs. For example, the revitalization along the waterfront likely would not have been possible without the efforts of the late pizza roll magnate Jeno Paulucci, whose restaurants anchor the Canal Park area. Putnam’s piece mentions the scholarships set up for many local students; Duluth has a bevy of such awards, and I received one that kept me debt-free through college.

(In a rebuttal to the Putnam piece, Front Porch Republic’s Jeffrey Polet points out that such scholarships may simply funnel graduates out of town, never to return. He may have a point; I am sure some of the recipients I graduated with, happily farmed out to elite colleges, will never be back. In my case, however, the strength of the Community Foundation and my sense of obligation to that history were among the many things that kept me grounded here.)

Duluth does very well in the indicators of social cohesion, which bodes well for the city, though some of Putnam’s later work shows that more homogenous communities tend to have much stronger social fabrics (a fact that so deeply troubled Putnam that he took years to release his data). Duluth, being 92% white and with strong northern European ties, obviously fits the bill. Moreover, it is a fairly segregated city (and not just in terms of race, though most minorities are concentrated in the city center). When explaining Duluth to outsiders, I’ve often described it as two separate cities: a combination college town/comfortable suburb on the east side, and a struggling rust belt city in the west. This is overly broad, of course, and perhaps an uncharitable portrait from a dyed-in-the-wool east-sider. The west side’s civic pride remains strong, and lower-income housing has been creeping eastward somewhat. But a simple look at the public high schools tells the story: three central and west Duluth high schools have folded into one since 1980, and East High remains much larger than that single western high school, Denfeld. (The East attendance area grew somewhat with the closure of Duluth Central a few years ago, but not drastically, and the school-aged population—a good indicator of how desirable an area is for families moving in—is much more dense on the east side.) Duluth East is the home of the “cake-eaters” of the north—it is the wealthy school that has long overshadowed Denfeld in academic and athletic prowess, even though Denfeld retains a very loyal following; perhaps even greater than East, since west-siders are far more likely to stay put while the East kids head off to supposedly greener pastures.

The divide is also made fairly clear by the quality of life and perceived political influence statistics in the Putnam study (see p. 49-54), though the west side does have some real strengths in those numbers. (This write-up also doesn’t mention where the dividing line is, which would be interesting to know.) This invites several questions:

-Duluth sprawls along 27 miles of lakeshore and riverfront, and there is a ridge along the length of the city that makes construction impractical in many places. How much does geography make Duluth’s divisions inevitable? The flip side of these divisions are some very strong local neighborhood identities, and I think these can be very good things. Are the divisions bad in and of themselves? Putnam certainly thinks so, and though I certainly understand that hyper-localism has its downsides, and can lead to discrimination, I’m not entirely convinced—in part for the reasons Polet touches on, though he doesn’t do a very thorough job in that post.

-What role do suburbs (ie. Hermantown) and new construction in Duluth Heights (away from the lakeshore and “over the hill”) play in Duluth’s development?

-Whither Superior? The Wisconsin city across the bridge is sometimes derided as Duluth’s armpit, but it still has a substantial a population and is an important part of the metro area. (And where else would we Duluthians go to buy our liquor on Sundays?) In the parts included in the Putnam study, it scores noticeably worse than Duluth in some respects. How does its fate affect Duluth’s?

-One effort to revitalize Duluth seems to evoke a hipster vibe. The attempt to attract “creative people” to revive the economy is mocked at times, but there is a certain logic here: in many cities (Manhattan, parts of Washington DC, San Francisco, and on and on), urban renewal (or gentrification, depending on how one looks at it) starts with artsy people moving into cheap housing, making the neighborhoods “interesting,” and in turn attracting wealthier wannabe urbanites who gradually displace the poorer people. Given Duluth’s universities, natural beauty, and decent arts scene for a city of its size, it seems to have potential for the hipster crowd. (Witness the dramatic rise in microbreweries and the expanding bike paths.) Mayor Don Ness, who is in many ways emblematic of this movement, certainly seems to be pushing it, as do several city councilors.

But this brings up some necessary questions: is this desirable development, and does the fact that it often just ignores or pushes poor and working-class people elsewhere trouble anyone? This model seems to work in major urban areas, but how well does it apply to a much smaller city? At first glance, a lot of this appeals to me—while I am probably a bit too clean-cut, conservative in temperament, and boring in my musical tastes to be a proper hipster, I enjoy culinary variety and good beer and a vibrant arts scene, and I’d much rather have more localized development than further urban sprawl. But I can still hear City Councilor Garry Krause’s words echoing in my mind: is our obsession with the new and interesting coming at the expense of the mundane, and the people who have called this city home for generations?

While Mayor Ness is a very popular and personable man who won re-election unopposed in 2011, in his initial election in 2007, he won the east side and lost the west side of the city. At the time of that election, I remember a high school teacher noting the unusual fact that Ness, by far the more liberal candidate, did better with the wealthier Duluthians, which seems to counter our normal political narratives. Looking at it from this perspective, it makes a lot more sense now.

-Duluth also includes many newcomers, and if certain critics are to be believed, it attracts a number of poorer people who look to take advantage of its relatively strong social safety nets. Councilor Jay Fosle had a complaint (not well-explained to the broader public) a few meetings ago about U-Haul rental patterns in Duluth; back in that 2007 mayoral election, Ness’s opponent, Charlie Bell, made some sort of remark about people from places like Chicago showing up and causing problems. Can someone give this critique some coherence or empirical backing, or is it just shoddy identity politics? And if it is true, what do we make of it?

This post is getting out of control, so I’ll cut myself off here. I’m throwing this open for discussion, in large part because I don’t know the answers. Urban planning interests me as a field, but I’ve never really pursued it because, eternal critic that I am, I have yet to latch on to any sort of coherent vision for how to revitalize a city. Duluth has considerable potential with its location, strong civic engagement, and unique culture; this city has a soul, and a lot of people probably don’t realize how unique that is. But where do we go from here?

Exit Bruce LaRoque

Bruce LaRoque, who coached Grand Rapids High School hockey for 14 seasons, retired on Monday, citing health and family-related reasons for his abrupt departure. He put together a 215-135-27 record at the helm of one of Minnesota’s most decorated programs in a stint that included six trips to the section final and two State Tournament berths, both of which resulted in second-place finishes. Once the dust has settled, Grand Rapids fans should be able to reflect fondly upon his tenure at the head of the small-town hockey hotbed on one end of the state’s famed Iron Range.

It is worth remembering where the Grand Rapids program was when he took over at the start of the 1999-2000 season. At the time, Rapids hadn’t been to State since 1991, and had only made one section final since. The incredible Rapids dynasty of the 1970s and early 1980s was a distant memory, and though the program still put out a star player every few years, it never mustered up the depth displayed by the rising suburban and private school powers, to say nothing of section rival Duluth East. In his 2001 book Blades of Glory, John Rosengren said that the 2001 Rapids team “played for pride, no longer for glory,” and seemed to be headed for the realm of hockey nostalgia much like their Iron Range neighbors.

LaRoque’s teams changed that. First, they took Duluth East to the brink in a pair of section finals in 2003 and 2004, and in 2006 and 2007, they broke through back to the State Tournament. They represented the program in style while there, knocking off the top-ranked team in the field (Hill-Murray and Edina, respectively) each year. Those Thunderhawk teams were also perhaps some of the last of a dying breed in Class AA hockey: while they had two legitimate high school superstars in Patrick White and Joe Stejskal, very few other players went on to play beyond their senior year. These days, title contenders often have ten-plus players who play after high school; those Rapids teams did it with a group of kids who weren’t hockey specialists, but filled the old northern Minnesota stereotype of hard-working, hard-hitting multi-sport athletes. Grand Rapids proved that small northern towns could still be relevant on the State stage, even with apparent disadvantages in numbers and offseason training.

LaRoque’s final years were weighed down by a series of frustrating playoff defeats. Since 2009, the Thunderhawks have suffered three first-round losses—two of them upsets—and two agonizingly close section final losses to Duluth East. The 2011 loss to East, in which arguably the deepest and best Rapids team of the LaRoque era held the Hounds scoreless until the last two minutes of the third period, was especially galling. Indeed, Duluth East was a constant source of frustration for LaRoque, who had an on-ice record of 3-19-1 against the Hounds, though one of those wins was Rapids’ only victory over East in eight playoff meetings.

Between the disappointment of losing and some of the grumbling that occurred when LaRoque’s sons made the team—whether merited or not, a seemingly inevitable occurrence for any parent-coach—it is not hard to see how stress drove LaRoque from the game. He had to deal with a fiercely loyal but demanding fan base that expects Rapids to add to its storied history regardless of how good the competition might be. Through it all, he leaves the program in better shape than it was when he took the reins; while many other people and outside factors played a role, Rapids’ youth system is now among the strongest in the state, and looks capable of producing high school contenders for years to come.

LaRoque was never an attention-grabbing coach. He didn’t have the personality of other long-term northern Minnesota coaches like Mike Randolph and Bruce Plante, but his even-keeled style made things work. He didn’t blame outside factors for the program’s struggles, and took responsibility for losses instead of passing things off on the referees or other things beyond his control. In an era when many players leave for junior hockey, Rapids has been unique in its ability to keep its star players at home. That is a credit to the power of the community, and LaRoque had a talent for respecting that tradition without over-hyping it or forcing it down anyone’s throat. Whoever succeeds him in overseeing the Halloween Machine will inherit a program that has its house in order as well as any in the state, and that is a testament to LaRoque’s success, no matter how frustrating those narrow losses might have been.

Hounds Hockey History VIII: The Silver Age (2009-2013)

This is the eighth and final post in a series on the history of Duluth East hockey. For the complete series (in reverse order), click here.

In 2009, the Duluth East hockey team inaugurated a new home arena—the Heritage Center on the west side of Duluth—and hoped to erase the bad memories of three consecutive section semifinal losses. Sometimes, when a team emerges from a darker period and starts a dynasty, it involves an overtime thriller or a dramatic upset. Other times, however, the team in question is just so talented that it steamrolls anyone who might be in their way. The 2009 Duluth East Greyhounds fell into the latter category.

With four D-I defensemen, a Mr. Hockey finalist at forward, and three balanced lines, the Hounds were an obvious title contender. To be sure, they had their weaknesses; there were no clear second- or third-best forwards to support Max Tardy on the top line, and the goaltending was on the streaky side. They never reached #1 in the rankings; the Edina Class of 2009 was among the best in recent memory, Eden Prairie and Bloomington Jefferson put forth their strongest teams in years, and a loaded Blaine team slipped by East in an early January game. But the potential was certainly there, and East looked like a force in early-season shutouts over Minnetonka and Wayzata, and also in a cathartic, fight-filled thrashing of Cloquet that helped erase some bad memories.

The 2009 East team’s Achilles Heel was a tendency to control games on the shot counter without putting in many goals, an issue that highlighted their muddled collection of forwards and empowered opposing teams that managed to hang around. A January loss to Rochester Century highlighted this weakness, and the trend would revisit the Hounds in the section semifinals, when Forest Lake goaltender Paul Moberg did all he could take down the Hounds. Despite a 57-20 edge in shots, East needed an overtime goal from Jayce Paulseth to move on. The section final, however, seemingly put these worries to rest, as East sailed past Elk River 4-1, their relentless pressure and solid defense hearkening back to the great 1997 and 1998 East teams.

East claimed the 4th seed at State and drew a less-than-intimidating foe in Cretin-Derham Hall. But the Hounds’ weakness struck again; they completely dominated gameplay in the first period, but were unable to get the puck past goalie Ben Walsh. Two quick breakaways the other direction put the Raiders up 2-0, and they extended their lead shortly into the second. Finally, East struck back, and Walsh let in two fairly soft goals. At 3-2 midway through the second, it only seemed like a matter of time before East finally asserted itself. But they gave up another break the other way, and Cretin’s fourth goal took the air out of the building. Coach Mike Randolph benched goaltender Matt Cooper after giving up four goals on ten shots, plugged in sophomore JoJo Jeanetta, and tinkered with his lines, but to no avail. Cretin won, 5-2, handing East one of its most frustrating playoff defeats of the Randolph era.

Friday offered the long-anticipated Edina-Duluth East match-up, but it took place not in the semifinals, but in the consolation round at Mariucci Arena. The fate of the top-ranked Hornets, who’d also been dumped 5-2 the previous evening, reminded fans just how fickle the State Tournament can be. Randolph started Jeanetta in goal, and while Tardy logged a hat trick in his final game as a Hound, it wasn’t enough; Edina won a penalty-strewn game, 6-4. The Hounds’ season ended in disappointment, though they had at least broken through back to the State Tournament and set the stage for later runs.

With heavy graduations on defense and the departure of vaunted junior Derek Forbort to the NTDP, East had some rebuilding to do on the blue line in 2010. Randolph shifted forward Jayce Paulseth back to join the sole returner, Andy Welinski, on the top pair, and entrusted the scoring load to a deep lineup that included a highly touted sophomore class of Nate Repensky, Dom Toninato, Trevor Olson, and Randolph’s son, Jake. He tinkered with his lines as the season went along in search of offense; Jake Randolph settled into a niche on the second line and led the team in scoring. East’s offensive woes lingered through much of the year, and the young defense also had its growing pains. A loss to Elk River involving many shots and few goals left East as the second seed in 7AA.

Still, by the time the playoffs rolled around, there were signs that East would peak at the right time. The team picked up second half ties against Blaine and defending state champ Eden Prairie, and a power play unit that included Toninato, Randolph, and Olson helped get the offense going. The young team flashed its potential in the section final against Elk River, in which they erupted for four goals in the second period and cruised to a 5-1 win.

East opened the State Tournament against fourth-seeded Hill-Murray, a very deep squad that was much more experienced than the Hounds. But early on, it was East that looked the more dangerous team, as they ran to a 2-0 lead behind two goals from the celebrated sophomores. Hill tied the game on two quick strikes in the final minute of the first period, but East got one seconds later from Toninato, and went into the locker room up 3-2. They couldn’t sustain the momentum beyond the break; Hill had two more quick strikes early in the second, and though East had some excruciatingly close chances, they couldn’t knot the score again. Hill put the win on ice when they blew past the East top defensive pair in the third and won, 5-3.

East bounced back the next two days with two-goal wins over Lakeville North and Roseau to lock up the consolation trophy. It was a satisfactory result for a team that had lost so much from the previous year, though the close loss to Hill left a somewhat sour taste, and there was some grumbling about the reliance on young players in key situations. Welinski left for the USHL after the season, and a junior forward transferred to Cloquet, but there was still good reason to expect a bright future for the young Hounds.

The 2011 Hounds added another bumper crop of sophomores to support the solid junior class, and East’s depth had them back in the conversation for a spot in the top five early in the year. Randolph, Toninato, and Olson, now permanently united on the East top line, put up the most impressive numbers by East forwards since the days of Spehar and Locker. Repensky and flashy sophomore Meirs Moore led the defense, while Jeanetta returned for another season in goal. The regular season wasn’t flawless, but the Hounds did enough to lock up the top seed in 7AA and proved they could give just about anyone a close game. A third straight playoff win over Elk River in the semifinals set up perhaps the most exhilarating playoff run in East hockey history.

It began against Grand Rapids in the section final. The 2011 Thunderhawks were a very dangerous team, and offered a rare 7AA opponent that could match East’s depth. Rapids took a 1-0 lead in the second period, and several spectacular saves from goaltender Dom DiGiuseppi kept East off the board, even as the Hounds ratcheted up the pressure in the third. Randolph took a calculated risk and put the game in the hands of his top line, asking them to log loads of ice time as the clock ticked down. With 90 seconds to go, it paid off. Meirs Moore buried the game-tying goal on a rocket from the point, and after a brilliant passing sequence against the stunned Thunderhawks, Olson scored the game-winner twenty-six seconds into overtime.

The Hounds went to State as the third seed, but drew a tough first round opponent in White Bear Lake, which was fresh off an upset of top-ranked Hill-Murray. For a time, it seemed as if the Hounds would simply impose their style and march on to the semis. But White Bear twice rallied to tie the game in the third period, and the Hounds embarked on a second straight overtime adventure. The Bears smelled blood and pressed the initiative, but East weathered the storm and forced the game to a second overtime. There, senior Zac Schendel won the puck along the boards and slipped a sneaky shot five-hole for the victory.

East took on defending state champion Edina in the semifinals. They started slowly but then began to ramp up their forecheck, and Edina star Steven Fogarty and Jake Randolph traded goals in the second period. The teams battled back and forth, playing superbly in all areas; the difference-maker was East sophomore Alex Toscano, who rifled home the overtime game-winner. The Hounds were headed back to the title game for the first time since 2000.

East faced top-seeded Eden Prairie in the final, a team that featured one of the deepest senior classes in Tournament history. Trevor Olson twice gave East the lead, but Eden Prairie answered each time, and once again, the Hounds were off on an overtime odyssey. An injury to senior defenseman Hunter Bergerson sent the Hounds scrambling, but Kyle Campion came off the bench to play the game of his life, and Bergerson’s partner, Andrew Kerr, made up for his absence with a complete highlight reel of hard checks on Eden Prairie star Kyle Rau. The game was so even that it could only end on some sort of fluky play, and that is exactly what happened. In the third overtime, a shot squirted through Jeanetta’s pads, and Kerr fanned on a clearing attempt. Rau dove for the puck and swatted it with his stick, and the puck proceeded to bounce off the post and Kerr’s skate before sliding into the back of the net. The miraculous overtime run was at an end.

Determined to atone for their near-miss, the Hounds returned just about all of their key parts for the 2012 season. The team earned a preseason number one ranking, along with plenty of hype. Randolph and Toninato would both be Mr. Hockey finalists, and Randolph would also nab AP Player of the Year honors; the team was deep and experienced at every position. While the Hounds would miss Jeanetta in goal, junior Dylan Parker looked to be a perfectly suitable replacement.

Injuries sidelined Olson and Repensky for the first month of the year, and it was some time before they were full strength, if they ever truly were. Still, it hardly seemed to matter; the Hounds marched past all opponents and put together gaudy wins over two teams that climbed to the #2 ranking, 6-2 over Minnetonka and 4-1 over Maple Grove. There were a few signs of weakness; East barely survived a road trip to Grand Rapids, and on a day when a bunch of players were out with injury or suspension, Minnetonka shellacked the Hounds 9-3 for their only regular season loss. But East bounced back to sail through the rest of the regular season, and remained the odds-on favorite heading into the playoffs.

After putting Olson on the second line for much of the year to create two great scoring lines, Randolph reunited the famed top group late in the season. The team doubled down defensively late in the year, and while they didn’t blow out the opposition in sections, there was never really any doubt East would come out of 7AA. Perhaps the low-scoring games should have been a warning sign that the Hounds had peaked a little too soon.

The top-seeded Hounds faced Lakeville South in the first round of the State Tournament; while South boasted Mr. Hockey winner Justin Kloos, they had the inaccurate reputation of being a one-trick pony. The Cougars showed early on they could skate with East, and never quite let the Hounds set up in the offensive zone as they had so many times that year. Still, the Hounds took a 1-0 lead in the first, and weren’t under any serious pressure. The turning point seemed to be an East power play goal that was waved off for a high stick; slowly, the Cougars began to believe, and before long, South looked like the Tournament-tested veteran team, while Mike Randolph was left looking around at his own team wondering, “who are these guys?” He pulled out every trick in his book, floating players high, switching up lines, trying both deep rotations and, in the end, putting the game firmly in the hands of his stars. Nothing worked. South took a 2-1 lead in the third, and Kloos’s empty-netter sent shock waves around the Xcel Center; though East got a goal from Olson in the game’s dying seconds, it wasn’t enough. The Dream Team was left in tears, vanquished by a team Lou Nanne gave “no chance.”

The top four seeds at the Tournament all went down in the quarterfinals, setting up a consolation bracket loaded with talent. After sleepwalking through the first two periods of their game against Edina, Toninato keyed a rally, and East escaped with a 3-2 win. They finished off Eagan the next day to take home the consolation title, though the question of what could have been will long linger.

East began the 2013 season amid talk of turmoil and decline. After lengthy speculation that Jake’s senior year would be Mike Randolph’s last at East, the coach announced he would be back for a 24th season. Still, not everyone was thrilled by this prospect; despite a fine run to four straight State Tournaments, the way those years had ended—two upsets, and two games they could have won but did not—left a bitter taste. A new Duluth East building had opened the previous year, but controversy over its funding left the Duluth school district similarly unsettled. Conner Valesano bolted for the USHL, but a healthy core did return from the 2012 team, including the superb defensive pairing of Meirs Moore and Phil Beaulieu. East carried 13 seniors, though a number of them had little varsity experience, and the scoring load was heavily concentrated on the all-senior top line of Ryan Lundgren, Alex Toscano, and Jack Forbort.

After looking decidedly mediocre for the first month of the year, East erupted for back-to-back 4-1 wins over state powers Edina and Minnetonka just after Christmas. The wins suggested East could still take down giants, but they had yet to prove they could muster that effort consistently, and the team’s first loss to Duluth Denfeld since 1995 underscored those concerns. The loss seemed to be a wake-up call, as East did not lose again in the regular season. They didn’t always win with style, and were often content to grind out scoreless draws 5-on-5 and rely on their lethal power play. But it could be a winning forumla, as was shown by a late-season 3-2 win over Minnetonka on the strength of three Moore power play goals. After following the same script in a 3-0 win over Cloquet in the section semifinals, East again tangled with Grand Rapids for the section title. Though East led throughout the game, the Thunderhawks always hung within striking distance, and a dominant third period out of their star defenseman Jake Bischoff very nearly tipped the balance of power in 7AA. But East held on to win, 4-3, cinching a fifth straight section title in front of the largest crowd to ever attend a high school hockey game in Duluth.

East, seeded second in the Tournament, didn’t exactly set the world on fire in their first round game against Moorhead. But once again, defense carried the day, and a Jack Kolar second period goal gave East all the offense it would need in a 1-0 win. This set up a fourth Tourney meeting with Edina in five years, and the highly skilled Hornets were hungry to avenge their recent struggles against the Hounds. East came out flying in the first and took a 1-0 lead, but the tide slowly began to turn; while they withstood the Edina onslaught for two full periods, the Hornets broke loose in the third for three quick goals. Moore cut the deficit to one with a few minutes to go, but in a game in which the Hounds didn’t get a single power play, there wasn’t enough in the tank to move on. East bounced back in style the next day, cruising past Wayzata in a 7-3 win in the third place game. Though it wasn’t quite the prize they wanted, the trophy topped off a strong season that cleared the air around a program frustrated by the agony of recent playoff defeats. Randolph in particular appeared more relaxed, and the Hounds’ coach will be back for a 25th season next year.

That is, more or less, where East hockey stands right now. The most recent dynasty over 7AA will end someday, and there will be new challenges within and beyond the Hounds’ control, but with a rich tradition and a strong base of youth hockey on the east side of Duluth, they should be a factor for years to come. Thanks to the people who came forward and offered their help as the series went along—it was gratifying to see such an active interest. Just because the blog posts are done doesn’t mean the project is over, though; I’d love to continue to expand on what I have. If you more information that covers some of the gaps or adds color to something I covered only briefly, by all means, send it along, and I can do a follow-up post. And if you’re really ambitious, there’s a lot of archive-digging that can still be done to fill in the gaps in the earlier years. In the coming weeks, I’ll try to get some of my data up online in a presentable format. Also, as promised, there will be a post in the not-so-distant future that will grapple with the notion that East hockey (and high school sports programs in general) can grow to be “too big,” or lose sight of what high school is really about.

Thanks for following, and I gladly welcome any feedback, criticism, or different interpretations—as much as I may try to be objective, there are always more sides to any story.

Quotes come from my own post-game press conference notes.