A little more than three years ago, Nelson was coming off a senior season where she capped off her high school career at Andover by finishing with a school record 219 career points and a 2020 Class 2A state title. In a recent interview, Nelson said it was the culture around the Huskies program that was the key to winning it all her final year.

Jamie Nelson (center) fist bumps teammate Elisebeth Tammi at Xcel Energy Center in the 2020 girls state hockey tournament. (MHM Photo / Tim Kolehmainen)

“I will never stop preaching about the culture that we had my senior year or all four years in high school, but that senior year team was something special,” she said. “Even now, we have a ton of those players in the WCHA and whenever we play each other or see each other, it’s like no time has passed. We pick up right where we left off and I can honestly say that some of those players are my lifetime friends.

“I just think that the culture we built there and the camaraderie that we had contributed to our success.”

That level of individual success continued during Nelson’s freshman season in Mankato where she made the WCHA All-Rookie Team and won the WCHA Rookie of the Year, the first in MSU history. When asked if he expected Nelson to play that well out of the gates, Mavericks head coach John Harrington said, “probably not.”

“We thought she’d be able to contribute to our team right away, but it’s tough when coming out of high school,” he said. “High school girls coming into Division I hockey is a big jump, and sometimes it takes a while for them to not only mature their game, but just to mature generally to be effective players.

“Again, it’s one thing to have the skills and everything, but as you move up levels and move into college, everybody has those skills. But if you have the ability to think the game really well, it’s a little easier to make the adjustment and I think that’s what Jamie does well. She can think the game really well.”

Nelson credited something else to that success and that was COVID-19. While the pandemic raged around the world, she got to physically and mentally focus on enhancing her individual skills as a player in private.

“I had a ton of confidence, and I’ll actually give a lot of that credit to COVID,” Nelson said. “It kind of allowed me to take a step back, and I didn’t have any other responsibilities. So, every day I was out in my garage shooting pucks, stickhandling and just working on those skills that maybe I wouldn’t have enough time for with a busy school schedule or spring sports.

“So, I was actually very thankful for COVID; a lot of people won’t agree with me. But I was trying to use that time to get better, and once I got into college, I felt like I was super confident in my game and my abilities. I just think that I spent a ton of time on myself going into college that allowed me to step into a major role here at Mankato.”

Injury bug bites
Things started off well for Nelson at MSU, but then things went downhill during her sophomore season as she tore her posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) in her left knee and after returning to the roster later that year, she ended up reinjuring her knee.

“Initially, it was supposed to be two months, and I actually went to get cleared and I went straight from the doctor’s office to practice,” she said. “The first drill, I fell on it again, reinjured it, and it turned into a six-month recovery. So, that was pretty discouraging, but I feel better than ever right now. So, I’m almost thankful for another year on top of COVID.”

After only playing in two games during her second season with the Mavericks, Nelson got back on track during her junior year statistically as she led the team in assists (22) and in points (27). She also played for the U.S. Collegiate Select Team in the Collegiate Series against Canada in August 2022, notching two assists in Game two.

“I’d never put a USA jersey on before and some of the girls on the team, they’d been there since U18s,” she said. “But that was my first opportunity, and it was indescribable. I had a lot of pride representing Mankato and the U.S. With my injury, I experienced a really low, low, and then I experienced a really high, high coming back from that. So, I think it made that experience even better knowing where it came from to get to that point.”

As much of a high as that was, Nelson experienced another low as she was injured during the third game of the Collegiate Series and had to deal with another two-month recovery. All in all, she’s dealt with a torn PCL in her left knee, a medial collateral ligament (MCL) sprain in her right knee and an acromioclavicular (AC) joint separation in her shoulder.

With a laugh, Nelson said she’s got “one good limb left.”

Jamie Nelson, who has two years of eligibility left with Minnesota State, is thankful to be out on the ice after coming back from multiple injuries. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota State University, Mankato)

Some athletes might have a hard time recovering from all those injuries, but Nelson said she found a personal trainer that helped get her to 100% and that she feels even better than before her injuries. She also doesn’t take for granted any time that she gets on the ice.

“I think I’m just thankful to be out there every day and having to sit on the sidelines for an entire year, I was just happy to be out there,” she said. “I think when I put too much pressure on myself, I underperform. But when I’m out there just trying to have fun and being thankful for the opportunity, I play my best hockey. I felt really good having the entire summer to train and get back to full strength. So, I was able to gain that confidence back in myself.”

Nelson’s senior season (she has two more years of eligibility left) is off to a solid start as she leads the Mavericks with eight goals and 11 points. She also scored the overtime winning goal against Bemidji State on Saturday and two tallies the night before. Even though Mankato is off to a rough start at 3-10, Nelson feels positive about her team and is striving to be the go-to player on the roster this year.

“My goals are just to be a leader for the team and right now, we’re in a little bit of a slump, but I want to be that person on the team that can give us confidence and almost like a contagious belief in ourselves that we can beat anyone in our league and anyone in the country,” she said. “Right now, we don’t have a lot of confidence, but I play on our power play and our penalty kill, I get major minutes. So, I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform and as a senior, I just want to show the younger girls that every game we play is a fight, but we can win any game in this league.

“We just have to show up and play to the best of our abilities. I think the biggest thing that will lead to our success is trusting in each other and ourselves and just believing that we can do it. I do think that belief is contagious and if they can see it from me, then maybe they can follow in my steps.”

The post Roller Coaster Ride appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

After lean times Minnesota State is rounding the corner

EDINA — Through the first half of the first semester, Minnesota State was predictably near the bottom of the WCHA. They swept a non-conference series against RIT and tied St. Cloud State. Otherwise, it was a loss-filled start to the season that saw them go 0-10-1 through their first 11 conference matches.

But then something happened.

The Mavericks started rounding the corner. Since that rough start, they’ve gone 3-2-0 in-conference and 4-4-1 overall. And it hasn’t been easy. They had to beat a resurgent Ohio Sate, a defensively sound Bemidji State, and the nationally-ranked Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs.

Minnesota State sophomore Corbin Boyd (Minnetonka) scored twice against No. 2 Minnesota in a Jan. 8 game at Edina’s Braemar Arena. (Photo courtesy of Minnesota State University Athletics / Mark Vasey)

Most recently, they returned from the midseason break and gave the Gophers a run for their money in the woefully named U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Museum Women’s Face-Off Classic at Edina’s Braemar Arena. The Mavericks outshot the Gophers in the first period and closed the gap to 4-3 in the third when Corbin Boyd scored her second of the game (and season) with just 57 seconds remaining.

“I think we’ve gotten better and we’ve gained some confidence by those wins and it has made us a better team,” said second-year coach John Harrington after the game. “It’s such a big thing to have the confidence that you can win hockey games.”

Their success is one of the big variables as the second half kicks off. With wins against tough competition logged, could their continued success shake up the middle of the WCHA standings?

It may just be three conference wins, but don’t underestimate how significant that is. They didn’t win a single in-conference game last season. To find the last time the Mavericks beat a WCHA opponent you have to track back to the 2014-15 season and a Feb. 2 game against St. Cloud.

“I think it’s our experience,” Harrington said. “Last year, we only had one senior. We had 21 freshmen and sophomores. I think the one thing is just having that year under our belt, where we’re familiar with the league. We still only have three seniors on our team. We’re still a young team.

“We’ve had a lot of young players not only get the experience of being in the league but the experience of playing in a lot of situations. That’s helped us and certainly, we’ve had a couple freshmen who have come in and made some solid contributions.”

He may be underselling just how reliant they are on the team’s youth. Though their senior class includes goaltender Brianna Quade — who Harrington calls “the backbone” of the team — there is reason to believe their recent success matters.

Last year’s team included just four total upperclassmen. Of their 24 players this season, seven are juniors, eight are sophomores, and six are freshmen.

And it’s not just the raw numbers. The production is coming from their youth as well. Four of their top seven scorers are sophomores, including Emily Antony, who leads the team in goals (5) and points (12), as well as Boyd, who shares the team lead with Antony for assists (7). There isn’t a single senior in those top seven.

And having just three seniors is itself a rarity. Inside the WCHA, only Ohio State has fewer. After that, it’s UMD with five and the Gophers and Badgers with six each. The Mavericks are a young team and they’re getting key contributions on both offense and defense from young skaters.

“They compete real hard. They’re fast,” said Minnesota coach Brad Frost after the Gophers’ 5-3 win at the Hall of Fame Game. “They’re improving. You can see why they beat Duluth and you can see why they’ve gotten some conference wins this year.”

Nonetheless, the Mavericks are goal starved. Carrying an underwhelming 5.3 shooting percentage, they’re averaging just 1.27 goals per game, down from last year’s 1.52. But the defense is notably improved. They’re allowing just 3.14 goals against per game, which is the school’s lowest mark since the 2013-14 season when Danielle Butters (.924 save percentage in 30 games) and Erin Krichiver (.943 save percentage in eight games) made a huge difference in net.

Even more importantly, they’re not allowing as many shots to opponents. Last season they allowed 34.75 shots against per game, which was their best mark since prior to the 2012-13 season. This year, they’ve tamped that down to 29.75.

“They come at you hard on the forecheck with two and in their d-zone, it seems like they’re always on you,” said Frost. “It doesn’t maybe look as structured, but you just don’t have a lot of time and space with the puck. They do a nice job.”

Minnesota State might not be challenging for the national championship, but they’ve made some major strides. It’s starting to show up in the standings and in their underlying numbers.

With a team sporting 14 sophomores and freshmen, and only three seniors, they’re a team that could become a frustrating presence for the top dogs in years to come.

The post Mavs’ Changing Tide appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Forever-linked Johnson, Harrington to go head-to-head from the bench

They have trained together, played together on the most inspirational gold medal team in U.S. Olympic history and beat the USSR hockey juggernaut in the “Miracle on Ice.”

They have signed countless autographs while sitting by one another at memorabilia shows and stood next to one another while their teammates lit the Olympic torch. They have heard thousands of people go to the way-back machine and tell them where they were that February weekend in Lake Placid, N.Y. in 1980.

But they have never coached against one another – until this weekend in Mankato, Minn. when Mark Johnson leads the unbeaten University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team against first-year coach John Harrington and his über-young Minnesota State Mavericks.

“It will be awkward to see him on the other bench,” Johnson said. “The only time I ever coached against him was at fantasy camp at Lake Placid last March. My team won the gold medal.  John’s didn’t do so well.”

Johnson chuckled. He knows what a competitor Harrington is.  Sure enough, Harrington had a response for Johnson.

“I needed to fire my general manager who picked the fantasy team. Neal (Broten) was my GM and we had a poor draft,” Harrington said.

When it was suggested that Harrington has a tough time losing – at hockey or golf, or trivial pursuit, for that matter – the man known as “Bah” interrupted. “Mark is as competitive as I am. He just does it with a different demeanor than me.”

The friends and ex-teammates will come at this weekend’s Western Collegiate Hockey Association series with different perspectives. Johnson’s Badgers, an NCAA Frozen Four finalist last year, are unbeaten in eight games this season, have outscored opponents 42-2 and have registered a program-record (and WCHA record-tying) six-straight shutouts in league games.

Minnesota State head coach John Harrington (right). (WCHA.com photo)

Harrington’s Mavericks have yet to win a WCHA game and are 2-7-1 overall. The Mavs dropped a pair of games last weekend at Ohio State while skating 17 freshmen and sophomores. “We have two seniors and one hurt her ankle and the other had a concussion,” said Harrington. “We have a lot of growing pains, but our team is getting more accustomed to the pace of the league and getting better each week. But here comes Wisconsin who hasn’t allowed a goal to anyone and we are averaging 1.1 goals a game.

“I just hope Mark takes it easy on us,” Harrington said. The tone in his voice said Harrington’s team won’t roll over for the Big Red.

Harrington and Johnson have come a long way since being fresh-faced kids who stood on the podium at Lake Placid 35 years ago with gold medals around their necks, while the national anthem played and the country’s sports fans became hockey fans filled with patriotic frenzy.

They were “Bah” and “Magic” then. Harrington was a member of the Conehead Line with Mark Pavelich and Buzz Schneider, while Johnson earned the nickname Magic for his play as the Olympic team’s leading scorer. Now they are they are called grandpa around their families. Both are 58 years old, but still are in great shape physically – probably below the weight they played at in Lake Placid. Harrington works out religiously and Johnson ran his seventh Ironman Triathlon with his son Patrick over Labor Day weekend.

Both are hockey guys, lifers in a sport they love. They aren’t living in the past as characters in the movie “Miracle.” They have forged careers in the sport they love.

Before they became teammates on Herb Brooks’ 1980 Olympic team, Harrington and Johnson played against each other in the WCHA. Johnson played for his dad, the iconic Badger Bob Johnson, at Wisconsin, scoring 40 goals as a freshman in his hometown of Madison, Wis. and winning a NCAA title in 1977. Mark was an All-American who scored 125 goals and had 256 points in three seasons at UW.  Harrington was an overachieving, walk-on from Virginia, Minn. who played at Minnesota Duluth and became a force in the WCHA while playing on a line with fellow Iron Ranger and future Olympian Pavelich.

Following their collegiate careers, Johnson was the leading scorer on the U.S. Olympic team with 11 points, including two goals against the Russians, and Harrington was credited with an assist on Mike Eruzione’s go-ahead, game-winning goal against the Soviet Union in the “Miracle on Ice” semifinal win. Harrington also played on the 1984 U.S. Olympic Team, while Johnson went on to an 11-year career in the National Hockey League, including a 1983-84 season with Hartford when he was the Whalers’ leading scorer with 87 points and tied an NHL All-Star Game record with three assists.

Johnson and Harrington are the only two members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team to be actively coaching, after Mike Ramsey left the Minnesota Wild’s NHL organization two years ago. Both proudly consider themselves career coaches. Harrington has won titles as a Division III coach, a European pro coach; and, he won a pool B title as Team Slovenia’s head coach at the world championships. Johnson has 368 career victories in 13 seasons at Wisconsin, fourth best all-time in women’s collegiate hockey and 18 wins away from tying former Minnesota Duluth coach Shannon Miller for third place.

“All kidding aside, this will be exciting, coaching against Mark,” said Harrington. “He is one of the great coaches in women’s hockey. I have watched his games in the past as a fan but now, when I study his team on video more closely, I am impressed at how well they do the little things. They have a lot of talented players, but they are just a well-coached team.”

After Johnson’s playing days ended in 1993, he returned to Madison and started at the bottom of the coaching rung. Johnson was an assistant coach at his alma mater, Madison Memorial High School. The next year he coached at Verona High School and in 1995 took a pro job in the Colonial Hockey League with the Madison Monsters, where he coached current North Dakota coach Brian Idalski.

In 1996, the legendary Jeff Sauer hired Johnson to be an assistant coach with Wisconsin’s men’s team, a position he held until 2002 when Sauer retired. There are many folks in Madison today that still wish Johnson succeeded Sauer, but UW athletic director Pat Richter chose to hire Mike Eaves, a former teammate of Mark’s. Johnson then applied to be coach of the UW women’s program, got hired and has experienced great success.

With Johnson on the bench the last 12 years, the Badgers have won four NCAA titles, five WCHA playoff titles and four WCHA regular season crowns while producing four Patty Kazmaier Award winners.

The success has not gone unnoticed. Johnson was named coach of the U.S. Olympic team in 2010 and the American women collected the silver medal, losing 2-0 to Canada in Vancouver, B.C. He has become the face of women’s hockey to many people in North America, but Mark is not the outgoing salesman of the game that “Badger Bob” was. He is more a teacher, quietly explaining the game to anyone who will listen.

You have to ask both Johnson and Harrington if you want to talk about what happened in the Olympics in 1980. Harrington said his new team has yet to ask to see his gold medal. Aside from signing DVDs from the movie “Miracle” or politely talking with fans who bring up Lake Placid in 1980 at the rink, they are unlikely to talk about the past. Harrington sold his Olympic jersey and other gear last year to help finance his daughter in nursing school. They still do the occasional autograph show to sign memorabilia and coached together at the 1980 team fantasy reunion camp last winter. But both guys are very much coaches now, concerned with the present and not living in the past.

Johnson, whose daughter Mikayla is a winger on his team, said “he was very pleased” with his third-ranked team’s two shutout wins over No. 6 Bemidji last week. “Bemidji has a good team. They can limit your chances, have a good goalie and some seniors that can score. When we got (Sarah) Nurse back (from missing two games with an illness) we had a complete team and a good effort.”

Now it’s a road trip to face his old friend and the Mavericks.

Wisconsin head coach Mark Johnson. (WCHA.com photo)

“I think it will be fun,” said Johnson.  “Of all the players on the (1980 U.S. Olympic) team, you are closer to some more than others and Bah is one of those I have always been friends with. We have kept in contact over the years. When he was coaching at St. John’s (in Collegeville, Minn.), we’d talk a lot and we have kept in contact regularly.”

Harrington was an assistant coach at Denver and St. Cloud State (men’s team) before becoming the head coach at St. John’s from 1993-2008, where he led the Johnnies to a 241-142-31 record, five MIAC regular-season titles, five NCAA Division III tournament appearances and four MIAC playoff titles. He coached pro players in Switzerland and Austria and coached the Slovenian national team before taking a scouting job with the Colorado Avalanche. During his tenure with the Avs, Harrington helped out as a volunteer assistant with St. Cloud State’s women’s team and enjoyed the experience.

When the Minnesota State job opened up, Harrington applied for the job, conferred with his old buddy Mike Hastings, the Minnesota State men’s coach, and then called Johnson.

“We’ve had other talks about coaching over the years, but last spring at fantasy camp in Lake Placid, I talked to him about the women’s game and how he enjoyed it and the transition he made from coaching the men (as an assistant) at Wisconsin to becoming the women’s coach,” said Harrington.

“We just talked about the women’s game, in general, and about the league,” recalled Johnson. “I am glad it all worked out for him. He is a very knowledgeable coach. I am sure he is finding his way around the league right now, but he has had a lot of success over the years and I am sure he will there.”

This weekend’s games will be the second women’s series held at the renovated Verizon Wireless Center after years at old, rickety All Seasons Arena, and it will be the first series overhead with a large jumbotron scoreboard overhead.

“It is awesome,’’ said Harrington. “It is a good-looking arena now. Everyone who has seen the place is very impressed.”

“The move to the big rink will give him a fresh start. It was a good time for John to go in there,” Johnson said. “Obviously moving downtown and them renovating their facility downtown and bringing the women’s program back to that facility is a step that’s going to be really positive for that group to start over.”

In future years, there may be bragging rights at stake when Harrington and Johnson go head-to-head. This weekend, it may be more of a reunion, a time to catch up with an old friend who is starting a rebuilding project.

“John has a great track record with a lot of different programs,” said Johnson. “It will be his first time with the women’s side, but I think he’ll do a good job and have an opportunity to put women’s hockey on a different level in his city.”

The post Golden Boys appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Trio of first-year WCHA head coaches ready to craft exciting new legacy

EDINA, Minn. – A year ago this month, John Harrington was behind the bench, coaching  a team that included Jarome Iginla, Alex Tanguay and Nathan MacKinnon as Patrick Roy looked on from the stands.

Last week, Harrington was about to lace on his skates for his first practice and was aware his team included just one veteran, a senior winger named Katie Johnson. It is quite a transition from coaching in a Colorado Avalanche preseason intrasquad game to running practice at Mankato’s All Seasons Arena.

“I am just as excited,’’ said Harrington, a scout with the Avalanche for the last four years and now a rookie women’s hockey coach at Minnesota State. “Whole new experience.  New players.  It is a chance to teach and that is what I like.”

What a difference a year makes.

Just ask Jenny Potter. Last season she was the head coach at Division III Trinity College in Connecticut and still good enough to play, as her all-American resume at Minnesota and Minnesota Duluth and her medals from the U.S. Olympic team attests. Her hockey skills were reinforced last winter when she played occasionally for the Boston Blades of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Last week, Potter was blowing the coaching whistle as the new leader of the women’s program at Ohio State.

“I’m excited to be back in the WCHA,” Potter said. “I had great times playing in the WCHA as a player and now I’m excited to be in it as a coach. Top-to-bottom it’s the most competitive league and that’s what excites me.”

Maura Crowell shares Potter’s excitement about her new position, head coach of the tradition-rich Minnesota Duluth women’s program, which has won five national championships. Two years ago, Crowell coached Harvard to an NCAA berth when Katey Stone was leading the U.S. Olympic team. Last season, Crowell returned to her position as Stone’s top assistant, a person responsible for recruiting many of the Crimson players who reached the NCAA finals before losing to Minnesota at Ridder Arena in March. A month later, Crowell took the next step in her career, moving from the Ivy League to the Twin Ports in northern Minnesota.

”Being a head coach in the WCHA is an unbelievable opportunity,” said Crowell. “The WCHA is the best league in country. I know they have had a ton of success here (in Duluth). The challenge is to bring us back to national prominence and I know we have the resources here to get the job done.”

While three programs are watching new coaches introduce themselves to their players and implementing new systems, the WCHA, which has 15 national championship trophies in its 16 years of existence, has also undergone a renovation with five programs changing coaches in the last 18 months.

“The one thing that has been consistent is each team every year is getting better and better,” Wisconsin’s Mark Johnson, the dean of WCHA coaches, said during the league’s preseason conference call. “It seems like our fan support is increasing. Our product has gotten stronger. That’s a testament to each of the eight athletic departments that have committed to helping women’s hockey grow.”

While there may be a lot of new coaches, there is still a look of familiarity to the WCHA season, which opens this Friday (Sept. 25).

Defending WCHA and national champion Minnesota is once again the preseason coaches’ pick to win the regular season title. Wisconsin, which won the WCHA playoff championship at the Final Face-Off last season, is picked to finish second and North Dakota is picked for third. Not coincidentally, those teams all have veteran coaches – Johnson, starting his 13^th season at Wisconsin, along with North Dakota’s Brian Idalski and Minnesota’s Brad Frost, who each are starting their ninth season as head coaches.

Bemidji State, which won a school-record 21 games and advanced to the WCHA playoff finals in Jim Scanlan’s first season as head coach, is picked to finish fourth, followed by  Minnesota Duluth, Ohio State and St. Cloud State.

“I wasn’t given the keys to a clunker, there were a lot of good players,” said Scanlan about the Beavers’ success last year and praising assistant coaches Amber Fryklund and Shane Veenker, who were holdovers from  former coach Steve Sertich’s staff.

Scanlan, a successful head coach at East Grand Forks High School, and St. Cloud State’s Eric Rud, who was a men’s assistant at St. Cloud State and Colorado College, were the new kids on the WCHA coaching block last year at this time.

Rud, like Harrington, lacked experience coaching women prior to taking over in St. Cloud. His best advice for Harrington?  Keep an open mind. The culture in women’s hockey is a tad different from what Harrington saw as a successful head coach at St. John’s University, a Division III program, and coaching pro teams in Europe before taking a scouting job with Colorado.

Let Rud explain: “We were up a goal in a game early in the season and I walked by the locker room and the tunes are blasting and the girls are having a great time,” Rud said. “To be honest, at first, I panicked. I said, ‘What on earth is going on in here,’ and (SCSU assistant coach and former Olympian and UW player) Jinelle Siergiej pulled me aside and told me, ‘This is what we do. We do this in the Olympics. We do this at Wisconsin. This is our deal.’ It wasn’t that they were screwing around. They were enjoying the process and excited. I enjoy that part of the women’s game.”

Harrington, who like Johnson played on the gold-medal winning 1980 U.S. Men’s Olympic team, said he is energized by the new job.

“As you get older, you look back on your career and I have been fortunate to do a lot of things,” said Harrington, who was also a men’s assistant coach in the WCHA at St. Cloud State and Denver, and coached two pro teams in Switzerland after leaving St. John’s. “A couple years ago, when Goose (Jeff Giesen, now Harrington’s assistant coach) was at St. Cloud, he let me work with his team at practice a few times. It energized me and made me realize I enjoy working with these young women who want to learn as much as they could.

“It whet my appetite to get back into coaching and then this opportunity arose. Mike Hastings (the Mavericks’ men’s coach)  is a good friend of mine and when he told me about the plans for the women’s team moving downtown, it made the job even more appealing.  I think when we start practicing and playing at the (remodeled) Verizon Wireless Center, it will give the program another jolt of excitement.”

Harrington knows his team has only three juniors to go with one senior. He knows the league is tough and four other programs have plans to re-energize their programs and compete with the three holdover coaches who have elite programs.

“We’re certainly going to try to win. I think it’s going to be important for us to have an understanding of success, and that might not include wins and losses,” Harrington said. “We can’t always look in those columns. It’s going to be a process here to develop. I think what I enjoy doing is trying to develop players and to teach.”

“I am acquainting myself with the players, and they are with me and their new teammates. It’s like I said on the conference call, I suggested to the players they might want to put tape on their helmets with their name on it so I know who is who.”

It may be advice that a lot of coaches and fans can employ as the WCHA – with a new look but arguably better than ever – starts another season.

The post Dawn of a new era appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.