Kevin Hartzell-2013

Being in Norway has given me time to reflect on occasion. I cannot be anything but grateful to have had the life I have had. Being a part of hockey teams as both a player and coach is one of the true joys I have had in my life.​

I watch virtually every NFL Football game from here in Norway. I admit to being an NFL fan. It is a great game with many great athletes. The level of team-coordinated play is amazing and I think coaching matters as much or more in football than it does in any other game. 

Not all that long ago, I recall being in a meeting arguing against making checking from behind a penalty. There was a day not that long ago when “checking from behind” was not a named penalty. 

At practice, we did something I have wanted to do for some time. I took some pictures from the puck’s perspective to show shooters what it is the puck actually sees. With today’s great camera technology, we took one of these new-fangled cameras and taped it to a stick. The results were even more dramatic than I anticipated.

Just before my journey to Norway, I played racquetball up in International Falls with Brady Hjelle and Jake Youso. Jake and Brady are former teammates with the Broncos of I-Falls. Jake was getting ready to leave for college. 

What about the goalie? Do you think about him/her? As a coach, do you make your goaltender a priority in your daily practice plans? Have you made it your business as a coach to think about how to nurture your netminders and help them be the best they can be? 

Kurt Davis grew up in Plymouth in a hockey family. His father was a many-year high school coach in the state of Minnesota. For such a great hockey upbringing and background in hockey, Kurt felt he had almost never had the success in hockey many dream of – winning at a higher level of hockey.

Hello from Norway. I am greeting you from Lillehammer, a beautiful smallish town of less than 30,000 residents. This wonderful small city was host to the 1994 Winter Olympics. That particular Olympics was famous for the Swedish hockey team beating Canada for the gold in a shootout.

Anyone who reads my columns in Let’s Play Hockey has a pretty good sense of the kinds of topics I like to write about. I like to write about the basics of why we play and the difference forces that affect the game we all love. 

I am so excited to be heading to Norway to coach this year. I have been retained to coach in Norway’s top professional league, the GET Liagen. I will be with Lillehammer IK (IK=Ice hockey Klubb). It will be the first team I have ever been associated with that doesn’t have a team nickname.

Recently I have had a couple of interviews for head coaching positions in our hockey world. I have been twice asked an interesting question. The question was framed something like this: “Your critics claim you are great with the average player, you coach em up as well as anyone, but you don’t prefer the high-end player.”

When Eric Hartzell was a young lad, he would skate and play on our backyard pond with friends and frequently by himself. Eric loved to skate. I thought when he was young that he was already one of the most beautiful skaters I had ever seen. He had a strong and slightly bull-legged skating stride.

Having a son play in the ECAC the past four years has given me a new perspective on the balance of power in American college hockey. Those of us “in the West,” and that includes me, often want to believe that the WCHA is and always has been the best conference in college hockey. 

Congratulations to the four Minnesota natives that have been recognized as final 10 candidates for the 2013 Hobey Baker Award, presented annually to the year’s top college hockey player. 

I continue to remain passionate about leadership. In the past year I have begun to put on leadership clinics for kids and young adults. It has never been more needed. We see occurrences of the lack of leadership almost daily on the news.

C.J. Franklin is the reason I miss coaching this year. To be honest, he is not the only reason I miss coaching, but he is certainly one of THE reasons I miss coaching. His teammate Zeb Knutson is another.

As many of you know, I have been traveling out East watching quite a bit of hockey, mostly at the college level. I call home to Minnesota most days to talk with various friends in the hockey community.

In last week’s edition of Let’s Play Hockey, Kevin Kurtt wrote about the numbers of native Minnesota hockey players and their representative numbers around the various leagues. I have believed for some time that we in Minnesota overachieve in the over-all numbers of players we nurture for the levels of Division I college hockey – which is awesome. 

After a great Christmas in Connecticut, we hung around to see the high flying Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks invade Hamden, Conn., and the hottest team in the country, the Quinnipiac Bobcats who were sporting a 10-game unbeaten streak. 

Wednesday, Dec. 5 – This year the NBC Sports Network has been televising a NCAA college game of the week and sometimes more than one. On this particular Wednesday night, they are televising Dartmouth and Vermont.