In leading the St. Cloud State women’s hockey team to its highest win total in six seasons last year, goaltending was the least of coach Eric Rud’s concerns. With senior Katie Fitzgerald gobbling up nearly all of the available crease time, all Rud had to do in his second year behind the SCSU bench was send her out there and watch her backstop 12 of the Huskies’ 13 wins.

But with Fitzgerald’s departure and subsequent signing of a pro contract with the NWHL’s New York Riveters, Rud spent the summer thinking a lot about his goaltending and how he was going to fill over 2000 minutes between the pipes.

“You don’t know what to expect when you have three goalies that, basically, you know, one that’s never played hockey in the United States at all and the other two hadn’t played any meaningful minutes in two years,” Rud said.

The three goalies on Rud’s 2016-17 roster entered the season having combined to play the equivalent of just over eight full collegiate games since 2012, with only sophomore Taylor Crosby’s 75 minutes coming in a Huskies sweater. Senior transfer student, and Edina native, Madeline Dahl’s experience came in two seasons with Union College prior to sitting out last season.

That leaves freshman Janine Alder.

All the 21-year-old Zürich, Switzerland native has done is rack up two WCHA Rookie of the Week honors in a three week span in her first month as a Husky. She stopped 51 of 52 shots in an Oct. 7-8 split with North Dakota and followed that up two weeks later saving 56 of 58 shots in a sweep of Minnesota State.

Those performances, combined with a pair of solid early-season Taylor Crosby starts, have Rud breathing a little easier heading into the season’s second month.

“I think four years of this kind of hockey prepared me the best for being here and being ready.” – Janine Alder

“So all summer … you’re excited to see who’s gonna take the ball and run with it,” Rud said. “And, so far, before Taylor got hurt she played a couple real nice games and Janine’s been very good back there.”

Alder had never played hockey in the United States, much less NCAA Division I women’s hockey. In fact, other than international play, including winning an Olympic bronze medal in Sochi, Russia as a member of the Swiss team in 2014, her resume included very little women’s hockey, relatively speaking.

Alder honed her skills playing against men in suiting up for EHC Winterthur of the Swiss National Junior Elite B league, the second highest junior hockey league for men in Switzerland. That experience left her feeling well prepared for the rigors of WCHA women’s hockey.

“It was very competitive and I really loved playing there because it’s such a fast game and hard shots and everything,” Alder said. “I think four years of this kind of hockey prepared me the best for being here and being ready.”

Huskies assistant coach Steve MacDonald got his first look at Alder in the Czech Republic at the 2012 IIHF World Women’s U18 Championship when he was an assistant to Shannon Miller at Minnesota-Duluth. MacDonald monitored her progress from afar and the pair kept in touch over the years primarily via Skype.  

When he arrived in St. Cloud MacDonald recommended her to Rud whose only exposure to Alder prior to her setting foot on campus was on video.

Photo By Maddie MacFarlane

“There wasn’t a lot of video on her against a lot of girls competition so the video we got was of a men’s league hockey in Switzerland,” Rud said. “The one thing we could see on the tape was her footwork. Her skating was excellent and it certainly gives her a chance to be square to the puck all the time even at her size.”

According to Alder, by the time the offer came she required little convincing.

“[MacDonald] just asked me if I want to join and I was like, ‘Yeah, St. Cloud would be the perfect team.’”

“As a goalie, you don’t want to be on a team where you don’t get any shots,” Alder added. “Of course, everyone wants to win championships but I want to play hockey, that’s my biggest love, and I put my heart on the ice every time.”

Some might suggest making the transition from men’s hockey to women’s hockey should make the move easier for someone like Alder but both she and her coach say otherwise.

“In reality, sometimes it’s tough, that transition year, whether it’s the girls doing it from bantam hockey to high school hockey or this level,” Rud said. “The plays develop a little slower, it’s not coming quite as fast, so I think there is a development curve but she seemed to get through it pretty quick and has looked very good in there.”

“The biggest adjustment was from men’s hockey adjusting to women’s hockey because it’s so different,” Alder said after stopping 33 of 38 shots in her first start against defending NCAA champion Minnesota, a 5-2 loss on Oct. 27. “Today it was very close to men’s hockey so it was kind of like my game, my style of game, and I really enjoyed playing it.”

Off the ice, although she speaks five languages, Alder said it hasn’t always been easy dealing with a bit of a language barrier.

“I speak German and adjusting with the language was really tiring in the beginning,” Alder said. “Just like translating everything and getting along with school. But I think I’m settled right now.”

With tournament Most Valuable player and Best Goaltender, Florence Schelling, ahead of her on the depth chart Alder did not play for Switzerland at the 2014 Sochi Games. But you wouldn’t know it by the way she lights up when talking about living her biggest dream as an athlete.

“I wasn’t playing but my experience there was just huge,” Alder said. “Meeting all these big players and big sports people was amazing. Hopefully, I’ll experience it once more.”

One person she met in Sochi who stood out from the others in Alder’s wide eyes was someone she met in line at the Olympic Village cafeteria, of all places, as they were each going through the buffet line.

“I met Henrik Lundqvist, the Swedish goalie, and I think he was one of the nicest guys there and just so friendly and just so down to earth,” Alder said of the long-time New York Rangers goaltender. “He spoke to me like if he was like a normal person.”

One weekend Alder has circled on her calendar is Dec 2-3, when Olympic teammate, Lara Stalder, and her Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs travel to St. Cloud for a set of games. Both players expressed excitement the potential first meeting between the WCHA’s lone Swiss players.

“I’m very looking forward to facing her because she had some very good games recently and she will be on the top of her career I think,” Alder said. “She will be going to the NWHL next year so she’s one of the top players. I’m really close to her so I’ll be looking forward to this, it will be fun.”

“It’s exciting because because everyone kind of like knows players on other teams from high school and now I finally know someone from Switzerland to play against,” said Stalder, a standout senior forward for the Bulldogs and Lucerne, Switzerland native.

“I can’t wait to play against her and maybe put some goals behind her,” added Stalder with a chuckle.

Historically, St. Cloud State has struggled to put pucks in the net. While that could eventually change under Rud’s leadership, keeping them out of their own goal will, in the meantime, remain that much more critical to any success the Huskies have. Goaltending, of course, will continue to play a huge role in that and Alder looks forward to the challenge.

“St. Cloud is just in the middle and I think if we keep on working hard, we can push St. Cloud to the top teams and that’s what I’m looking for,” Alder said. “Hopefully I can be a big part of this development in St. Cloud to get the team closer to the top.”

Story originally published in the November, 2016 issue of our digital magazine. For more stories like this, click HERE to view the November issue and subscribe to have future issues delivered directly to your email inbox. 

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Goaltender Katie Fitzgerald has St. Cloud State on a record winning streak

It might have been lost around the Western Collegiate Hockey Association by some folks.  After all, top-ranked Wisconsin hosts defending national champion Minnesota this weekend in the resumption of the Border Battle of two of the best women’s college programs in the land.

However, around the National Hockey Center, the fact that St. Cloud State has won a school record six-straight games is bigger news than any Black Friday sale.

No one is more excited about it than Katie Fitzgerald, the Huskies’ senior goalie who has been in goal for the same number of victories this season (seven) as in her first three years combined.

“I was just talking to my mom about this. It’s almost surreal,” said Fitzgerald. “This winning streak is just great. I can’t describe the feeling.”

In the last three weeks, St. Cloud, with Fitzgerald in goal, have outscored Minnesota State, Ohio State and Lindenwood, 20-8, and raised its overall record to 8-7-1. If they can secure a win against Minnesota Duluth this weekend, they will have as many victories in conference play (five) as they did all of last season. For her work in the streak, which includes a 1.33 goals-against average and a .950 save percentage (while making 152 stops), Fitzgerald was named WCHA Defensive Player of the Month for November.

“We are all having a lot of fun right now and we are definitely a group that is gaining confidence,” said Fitzgerald, who has a 7-7-1 record, a 2.86 goals-against average and .907 save percentage for the season.  “A lot of this is due to trusting each other and coming together as a team. The defense is blocking shots when we need to. The line combinations are working.”

The Huskies’ six-straight victories, including four wins in conference play, give them a fifth-place standing in the WCHA with a 4-7-1-1 league record. Now those are modest numbers, to be sure, but the ledger shows nearly as many league victories as they had during the entire 2014-15 campaign.

This comes from a program that has only 10 WCHA wins in the previous three years and was 18-74-9 in Fitzgerald’s first three seasons.  In Fitzgerald’s sophomore year they had but four victories, 13 one-goal losses and a change in coaches.

“You try not to get down on yourself, but a lot of petty things bother you. There is a lot of weight on your shoulders when you aren’t winning,” said Fitzgerald. “The old coaches were great but the new coaches have brought energy and everyone has really come together this year.”

Eric Rud is the director of the Huskies’ unprecedented month of November.

“Coming into the season we thought our strength would be the ‘D’ corps and goaltending, and Katie has held us in a lot of games until we would get a big goal,’’ said Rud, the SCSU head coach. “Our defense has been strong and we have played seven of them to keep everyone fresh and energized, and hopefully keep Katie fresh. Take away the first weekend at Merrimack (where the Huskies won twice) and the two blowout losses to Minnesota (11-0 and 7-0), and Katie has given us a chance to win every weekend.”

While Fitzgerald has provided solid goaltending, senior Molly Illikainen has been a sniper for the previously offensive-challenged Huskies. Moved to a line with freshman Julia Tylke and Alyssa Erickson, Illikainen is seventh in the WCHA in scoring with 12 goals, nine assists and 21 points this season. In the Huskies’ six-game winning streak she has scored eight goals and has five assists. After being held without a goal in the first six games and after finding her new linemates, Illikainen has scored a point in nine straight games and has 12 goals and 18 points in that span.

“They had chemistry right away,” Rud said. “It’s been different having a line that gives us offensive output and has allowed our other lines to relax and get better.’’

Illikainen comes from an athletic family. Her father Darrin played hockey at Minnesota Duluth, her mom Mary played basketball for UMD and her brother Alex is a freshman basketball player at Wisconsin, last year’s NCAA runner-up. Molly was a Ms. Minnesota Hockey finalist when she played for Grand Rapids High School.  She played two years at Providence College before transferring to St. Cloud last season along with defenseman Lexi Slattery.  In her first year in the WCHA, she played in 37 games and led the Huskies in points with 10 goals and nine assists. This season, she has twice been named WCHA Offensive Player of the Week.

“At every level she has gone to, Molly has been a goal scorer,” said Rud. “She has a chance to score every shift. And she can score a goal, not just one way, but in different ways. She is good with the puck and can make a move and score. She is a threat to score on the rush or by working down low.

“Molly has the will and a passion to score goals. She is like players I have seen everywhere I have gone in hockey,” said Rud, a former Colorado College defenseman, an assistant coach at his alma mater and the head coach of the Clark Cup-winning Green Bay Gamblers in the United States Hockey League.  “There is one thing about the elite player. You watch when they score. They don’t celebrate like other players.  It’s more a relief to them when they score, rather than joy.”

Now Rud recognizes his streaking team faces nationally-ranked Duluth and Minnesota in road games before the Christmas break, so he is realistic about his team’s chances at becoming an immediate WCHA contender. But he also knows you have start small and grow.

Fitzgerald and her family learned that in a real-life situation 21 years ago.

You see, Katie’s mother Mary was preeclamptic, meaning her blood pressure went to dangerous levels during the pregnancy. Katie was born 14 weeks early and weighed one pound, 11 ounces. She was given a 10 percent chance of survival by the team of doctors and nurses who were dedicated to her care.

“My mom has told me about all the dramatic things that they went through,” said Katie. “It is pretty amazing. I am still friends on Facebook with one of the nurses who took care of me in ICU. My mom kept in contact with her all these years and when Facebook came along, I got to be her friend.”

Oh, the stories they can tell about young Katie.

“My dad (Bill) tells me the story how scared they were,” said the two-time 2015 WCHA Defensive Player of the Week. “I wore a heart monitor so an alarm would go if I had an abnormal heart rate. I guess I would sneeze and everyone would jump.”

“It was a day-to-day worry, but the doctors and the team with Katie just kept us focused on the next day and then the next day,” Mary Fitzgerald told David Pickle of NCAA.org.

Katie was hospitalized for four months after birth and then she spent six months in the neonatal intensive care follow-up care clinic. By her tenth month, Katie was home and living a normal life as an active infant, but she was still small for her age.

“We thought she was going be our petite little Katie,” Mary said. “When she started to walk, she was so small that she could walk under the table in the house.”

At age 5, Katie started skating because her brother Ian played hockey. She played goal in first grade, “when everyone rotates positions,” said Fitzgerald. “But I liked it. With all things my parents went through with me, people couldn’t believe I wanted to be a goalie.”

And with her diminutive nature, Fitzgerald earned a nickname. “My coaches kept naming me ‘peanut’ because I was the smallest,” she said.

Fitzgerald said her growth spurt occurred about age eight and continued until her high school years. She is 5-foot, 11 inches now and, says Katie, “I am not a peanut anymore.” In fact, North Dakota forward Becca Kohler and Ohio State defenseman Jessica Dunne are the only players in the WCHA who are taller.

No one may be more athletic. Fitzgerald played softball, volleyball, basketball and hockey until high school. “My parents were superheroes driving me around,” she says.

Fitzgerald was a four-time most valuable player on Maine West’s high school volleyball team and also was an all-conference softball player in Des Plaines, Ill. It was that athleticism and her play as the goalie for the Chicago Mission, a national U-16 runner-up when Fitzgerald played in 2011, which caused then-SCSU Coach Jeff Giesen to offer her a scholarship in the early signing period.

Fitzgerald played 15 games as a freshman, posting a 4-10-0 record and a .912 save percentage. She continued to split time with Julie Friend in goal as a sophomore and had a 1-9-1 record and .907 save percentage in that long 2013-14 season. As a junior, she was still in the goalie rotation, played 16 games and had a 2-11-1 mark with a .907 save percentage and her first shutout.

Fitzgerald stayed in St. Cloud last summer to train and work on school, with plans to graduate in May and hopes of going into sports public relations. With Friend having graduated, the Huskies’ goaltending position was now all hers. With her size and quick left-handed glove hand, she is an imposing figure in goal.

“Katie has played a lot of games and she may have been in Julie’s shadow,” said Rud. “But she worked hard for her senior year and she has really stepped up and had a good year. Actually, after training hard we went to Merrimack to open the season and she didn’t have her best game. It might have served as a wake-up call for her because she has given us a chance to win most every game.”

Fitzgerald repeated as the WCHA’s Defensive Player of the Week after posting a 1.00 goals-against average and stopping 45 of 47 shots against Lindenwood in a nonconference road series last weekend. One of the victories was a 2-0 shutout, her first of the season and third of her career.

“This winning is about the team,” said Fitzgerald. “Molly is getting goals, but so are other lines. Again, we are much more confident than we’ve been. Our confidence is at a different level and expectations are higher this year.

“It,’’ she said, “has been a long time coming.”

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