Last Updated on Thursday, 16 April 2015 10:44
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
This is certainly one of my favorite times of the year sports wise. Spring brings with it the Masters Golf Tournament, one of the best tournaments of any kind in the world which also signals the start of the golf season for us up here in the north. Spring also brings the Stanley Cup Play-offs, THE greatest tournament of all. Increasingly I must say I get bored at times with the NHL regular season. I appreciate the great skill in the game and the grind the players go through, but when the postseason starts, it is a new grind altogether.
The energy and the sacrifice necessary to realize success in hockey’s Stanley Cup play-offs is more demanding, in my opinion, than that of any sport. The eventual champion will need to win another 16 games! I love the NFL, but to win their championship, they need win just three or four games. The Stanley Cup will require 16 wins over the better part of two months. It is a spectacle night after night and like hockey enthusiasts worldwide, I’ll be glued to the action.
It has been an interesting year for me. It is the first year in the last 10 where I actually spent a winter here in Minnesota. I was afforded the opportunity to watch a lot of local and regional hockey. It has been a real treat.
I have greatly enjoyed the number of games I saw the girls play, both high school and midget. There is something I really appreciate about the purity of the girls’ game. By purity, I am referring to the way they “rub” each other off the puck versus trying to be overly physical like the boys do at times. There also seems a genuine, almost innocent enthusiasm for the game, at least that is what I think I am seeing. Maybe it’s just the way the girls approach the game, but I see something that I find very attractive in the girls’ game. The way the girls play the game makes me want to coach girls and girls’ hockey.
I see some high school boys’ teams that are greatly coached, and also some that are not so much. It gets me thinking about the long-standing debate of Minnesota’s elite high school players staying in high school or leaving early for juniors. It is obvious to me that not all programs are anywhere equal, whether it is in coaching or quality of teammates. I think this whole issue remains nebulous with no path equal or right for all.
I am so lucky to be able to watch former players succeed and advance on to new levels. More than any other position, I have enjoyed watching my former goalies do so very well, with a couple winning All-America honors the past couple of years. Also in the past couple of years, two former goalies won the WCHA First and Second Team honors (Stephon Williams at Minnesota State and Jussi Olkinuora at Denver). To see these boys both sign pro is rewarding. But so too did Clay Witt (Northeastern) this year. I was privileged to watch Jay Williams lead Miami University to the NCAA Tournament and of course I get to watch my own son often. It is so rewarding and not that I did much of anything to help get them there, but just to know that in some very small way, I get to be a part of their journey. I do plan to write a larger column on this next fall. I have learned much from these goaltenders.
My friend Matt Tobin is part of a group starting Tier I midget hockey in Sioux Falls. I cannot think of a better place to start such a program or a better man to lead such an effort. South Dakota and southwestern Minnesota can use such programs for their elite players. These areas do not have elite high school programs, so for the emerging elite player, they can locate to a great town with excellent facilities. Starting such a program is quite the undertaking. Finding the right leader for this new program is job-one for Matt and I am wishing him and everyone in Sioux Falls the very best.
Finally, I encourage you to get on the phone or e-mail and let your legislators know that hockey in Minnesota needs their support. Hockey is asking for money to be budgeted to help make the changeover needed in our many and mostly outstate hockey arena’s refrigeration systems. I am a good fiscal conservative and I understand any representative being careful on how our money is spent, but this is for our kids, for our game and really for our culture. Some, if not many, of our outstate brothers and sisters and children will not be able to play this game if we cannot keep the arenas functional.
Kevin Hartzell was most recently the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s. His new book “Leading From the Ice” is now available at amazon.com.
