Doug Woog at the Doug Woog Ice Arena named in honor of the former South St. Paul and Gopher player and coach. Photo: Erin Hinrichs/Review
Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 November 2015 16:30
By John Hamre
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
A couple of Saturdays ago I had breakfast with Doug Woog, a dear friend, foundational mentor of my coaching and one of the state of Minnesota’s great players and coaches. We talked about many topics. He shared much about his family and his grandchildren who he and his wife Jan are busy and proudly following and supporting. He asked about my life since we had last spoken in the spring and summer. Typical of time spent with Doug, you always feel better about things after time speaking with him. The “Wooger” is a special person. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the impact he has made upon my life’s work and hope to continue paying his impact forward.
In our conversation, I congratulated him upon the renaming of Wakota Ice Arena to the “Doug Woog Ice Arena,” approved by the South St. Paul city council this September. Quickly to deflect any praise, Wooger immediately began reminiscing about the many people he has worked with over the years in South St. Paul.
Renaming an arena, or any public entity, shows a community remembers and recognizes its grassroots contributors, and inspires future generations of community members. While proud of the building being renamed, Woog is most happy speaking about the many community relationships he has had in his lifetime in South St. Paul, and the game of hockey which has been the common thread.
The Doug Woog Ice Arena was originally built in 1962 during Woog’s senior year at South St. Paul High School. While he never played high school hockey in the building, he has spent countless hours dedicated to coaching hockey there throughout his adult lifetime – including the South St. Paul High School team, the old St. Paul Vulcans junior team of the USHL, working with South St. Paul’s youth hockey association and running many of his Doug Woog Hockey School clinics and camps.
For numerous summers while still in college and graduate school, I was fortunate to be able to work with Doug, coaching at his camps and clinics. I learned many finer points of coaching from Wooger during these years – some things I realized in the moment while so many other things I continue to realize many years later. One thing I learned about was Wooger’s true passion for coaching and developing youth hockey players – something he holds to this day in his coaching work with and in support of his grandchildren’s many sports and hockey teams.
A second thing I have always remembered Doug emphasizing back in those summer camp years, while working with the youngest hockey players most importantly, is to make sure they learn to skate on their outside edges. I remember Doug once saying something to the effect that skating on the outside edges with confidence is perhaps the greatest gift a coach or parent can give a young skater – a pre-Mite, Mite or Squirt.
Have the players first bend their knees, and then skate small half-circles, gliding off the goal line on an outside edge. Have them do crossover steps to the right along the goal line, blue line or redline with knees bent, and then back to the left, and back to the right, and so on. Have them do these lateral walks in skates at home on a carpet, leaning and balancing on their outside edges. Skate the circles with crossovers, playing chase or tag games. Whatever the player was ready for, and whatever it took, make sure that they learn to skate with confidence on their outside edges when they are still young.
Why? Being able to skate with confidence on one’s outside edges allows a youth hockey player to progress to forward crossovers, backwards cross-unders, stops and starts, and so much of skating that requires great balance, agility and change of directions. Players need to master the ability to skate on their outside edges sometime in the youngest years of Mites, Squirts, or PeeWees. They need to master skating on outside edges before the speed of hockey played becomes too fast to sustain involvement, and thus fun and enjoyment, as players continue to grow and develop.
While having coached at the highest levels of hockey – the Olympics, Canada Cup, NCAA Division I, numerous U.S. National teams, and USHL Junior A – Doug always could relate to the youngest of players still learning the fundamentals of the game, coming to the rink for the pure joy of the sport. He has always possessed a special gift to simply present complex team systems, and to recognize and teach the fundamental skills of the game which unlock so much potential in a player’s future. The combination of these two elements in Woog’s coaching was manifested in his passion for the game, and ever-present passion for and dedication to youth hockey, regardless of what higher level team he might have been coaching at the time. Wooger holds a deep pride in the core values of work ethic, respect, honesty and civic community pride that are foundational to South St. Paul and taught to its youth.
One of Woog’s former players from his time coaching the St. Paul Vulcans junior hockey team is Kevin Hartzell. Kevin had played high school hockey in the St. Paul City Conference in the mid-1970s, and played for the Vulcans under Woog from 1976-78, before landing a scholarship at the University of Minnesota. He played on Minnesota’s 1979 NCAA Championship team under Herb Brooks, and served as the team captain in his senior year in 1981-82. Kevin has had a long and distinguished career in coaching and business. He, too, takes pen to paper for Let’s Play Hockey regularly; but these reasons alone are not why I’m writing about Hartzell along with the Wooger.
Kevin’s older brother, Dennis, was my first youth hockey coach in Mites. Dennis’ son, Bob, is a lifelong and dear friend, and I’ve gotten to know his two hockey-playing sons quite well watching them grow up. A friendship forged in Mite hockey with Bob has lasted our lifetimes. Now, you see, playing Mite hockey for Coach Dennis is where I first met Kevin, and through the eyes and pure perceptions of a Mite is how and when I truly gained a respect for him.
When Bob and I were playing youth hockey, Kevin was busy playing hockey at the University of Minnesota. Yet, Kevin always had time to come to Roseville Arena when his older brother asked him to – either on the indoor ice sheet or on the old outdoor boarded rink where the John Rose Oval and bandy rink now sits – to help teach us skills, skating and having fun learning and playing hockey. Dennis, then a member of the high voltage electricity crew for the University of Minnesota, always made time to take Bob and I and other friends down to the old Mariucci Arena to watch Kevin play against the Wisconsins and North Dakotas and UMDs.
A year or two ago, Bob shared with me a story I hadn’t heard about his uncle Kevin, that he thought would make for an interesting article illustrating the changing perspectives in our hockey culture and society today. While so much has improved in equipment technology, and expertise in knowledge coached to young players, youth hockey today could be improved by taking a lesson, or at least a periodic reminder, from perspectives of yesteryear.
Equipment and ice time were less expensive. More families could afford having their kids playing hockey. The true values of skill development, friendships, competition, life lessons and fun were not clouded by the many non-hockey influences within youth hockey today. Work ethic applied towards a future goal trumped instant gratification.
True, at the highest levels of professional, college and junior hockey today, it is also a business with pressure and results focused solely on today’s performance. Yet every one of the NHL players I’ve written about in Let’s Play Hockey over the past couple of years has emphasized the importance of having fun playing hockey with his current teammates upon playing their best, just like kids playing the game.
Bob had shared with me true Hartzell family lore. When Kevin made Team USA for the December 1977-January 1978 World Junior Tournament, his parents did not inform him of the notifying call from Team USA for a couple of months or more! So I called Kevin to hear his account firsthand, to share as an example underscoring some possible differences in hockey perspectives between then and today.
Kevin described his 1976-77 playing season for the St. Paul Vulcans: “I had been a first year Vulcan, and had two goals at Christmastime. The team played poorly the last game before Christmas break. Having now coached junior hockey for many years, I’m now not surprised. The players’ minds are already on leaving and Christmas.”
Hartzell described then-Vulcans coach Woog’s post-game speech to the team and players after that last game played before Christmas of 1976: “Wooger was going around the room. He got to me, and said, ‘Hartzell, you’re lucky you don’t complain or you wouldn’t even be here.’ The true part was I didn’t complain, and I just worked hard. At the end of that season I had 18 goals, and I led the USHL in playoff scoring.”
Hartzell went on to describe the tryout process for the USA World Junior Team in 1977: “Wooger got me a regional tryout for the World Junior team at the Bloomington Ice Garden. From there I went to the tryouts in Colorado Springs in the summer. After that camp they said they would name six forwards and four defensemen. When I went home I didn’t know if I had made the team. They called my home and told my parents. But they told my parents it wasn’t for public knowledge. So I’m thinking I’m going to read who made the team in the paper in December.
“I was working part-time before Christmas at JC Penney’s, and saw the team announced in the paper. I called home, my mom answered the phone, and said, ‘We’ve known for a couple of months you made the team. Your father and I talked about it, and thought it would be better if you didn’t know so you didn’t get lazy.’ Can you imagine that today? Today it would be all over Facebook.
“Who does that? Parents that love their son, that’s who. My parents didn’t go to the tournament. My dad said he had to work. He would say, ‘I don’t think it’s a smart thing to go to all of the games.’ Go to some of the games, but not all. I agree. It’s important, but let them know it’s not the most important thing in the world – it’s a hockey game, or a basketball game or a baseball game. I got that directly from my dad. If you want to grow corn, you plant corn.”
The 1977-78 World Junior Tournament was held in Montreal, and played at the iconic Montreal Forum.
“My first recollection was, ‘What am I doing here?’”
Hartzell then shared memories of practicing at the Forum, with the Montreal Canadiens sitting on the dasher boards watching them. He shared his memories playing against a Canadian World Junior Team with a young Wayne Gretzky on it. He remembers his linemates – Steve Ulseth and Ed Hospodar – and he remembers the Canadian line they played against playing Team Canada: Rick Vaive, Mike Gartner and Tony McKegney – all future NHLers.
“My dad never coached me. He was a union president and there were a lot of iron workers in my family. Between my dad and Herb Brooks, there is a lot of influence. Then working for the Hubbards – work ethic and integrity, that is all that is preached.”
From Hartzell’s playing days with the Vulcans under Woog, and his opportunity with the USA World Junior Team, Hartzell parlayed the opportunity into a college hockey scholarship at the end of the 1977-78 season.
St. Paul native Kevin Hartzell was a member of Minnesota’s 1979 NCAA Championship team. Photo: U of M Athletics
“One of the first schools that had me on a visit was Minnesota and Herb Brooks. He had followed me as a St. Paul City Conference player (Washington High School). He has me over for a visit and takes me around the campus. At the end of the visit he hands me a piece of paper that assures me of a scholarship, and then he told me he wants me to go visit the others schools recruiting me. Who does that? Herb cared about the kids and cared about his players. Nowadays the recruiting is so accelerated.”
Hartzell summarized this period of his life and the coaching influences he has received: “I really like Wooger – like him as a person and as a coach. I’m as lucky as they come, to have played for Doug and Herb back to back. Doug was a teacher. From Herb I learned how to coach and how not to coach certain players. Herb would tell you, ‘Don’t just read a book, write a book.’ Be yourself. You’ve got to do it your way.”
Both Woog and Brooks impacted Hartzell’s life, hockey-playing career, and subsequent coaching and business careers. And both Woog and Brooks have had deep and positive impacts on youth hockey.
With an emphasis on positively impacting youth hockey, and more importantly youth, the Herb Brooks Foundation website states, “With the Herb Brooks Training Center up and running, the Herb Brooks Foundation is able to focus on its mission: to grow hockey; to give kids a positive experience in the game; and to learn life lessons.”
The history of the Doug Woog Ice Arena on its website reads, “In the early 1960s, a group of local business leaders put their heads and their pocketbooks together and came up with a vision for the future of youth hockey for the southeast metro area. They chose South St. Paul, a hotbed of hockey loyalty, tradition and pride, to be the site of one of the first indoor ice arenas in Minnesota.” Originally named Wakota Arena by combining both Washington and Dakota counties, it is now appropriately renamed after Woog who has for so long been committed to the development of youth hockey in his South St. Paul community, and, like Brooks, in Minnesota and in the U.S., too.
Having celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday, many families and hockey players will be in rinks for games and tournaments on Friday and throughout this weekend. While enjoying our great sport of hockey, be thankful to have the opportunity to be in the rink – whether as a player, coach, fan or administrator. Hopefully, within our sport we will find more ways to continue opening the doors of youth hockey and its great opportunities to more and more kids. Our sport’s future at all levels – recreational, competitive and elite – depends on this. Youth hockey can be the beginning point to lifelong friendships, life-impacting lessons and life-changing encounters.
And to help ensure our youngest hockey players will enjoy the game long into their futures, please give them the gift of skating on their outside edges. Happy Thanksgiving!
During a 22-year coaching career, John Hamre has coached PeeWee, Bantam, high school, NCAA Division I, Junior A and minor professional hockey. He was recently named Director of Hockey Operations for the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team. Hamre was the video coach for the 1994 USA Men’s Olympic Team, coached within the USA Hockey NTDP, and at many USA Hockey festivals. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.
