“I still remember when it was over and we had all celebrated with each other on the ice, and we all headed for the locker room,” Shelstad said, this week. “Guys were all in such a hurry to shower and change and head for the bus, but I sat there without taking off any of my gear. As guys got dressed and left, they all were getting on me because I still had all the goalie equipment on, including my jersey.

“I was already aware that as a senior, when I pulled that Minnesota jersey off, it would be for the last time, and I would never wear it again. I didn’t want it to be over, so I didn’t want to pull it off.”

That will be among the stories exchanged by members of that 1974 championship team when they are celebrated Saturday night at what is now called “3M Arena at Mariucci,” across the street from Williams Arena, where the hockey games used to be held at one end of the huge basketball arena until the new hockey-only arena was built.

Herb Brooks had played in the old arena, too, under John Mariucci, who created the program’s lasting legacy, which was continued by Glen Sonmor, who hired Brooks as his assistant, and then turned the program over to Brooks for the 1972-73 season.

Brooks, of course, was best known for winning three NCAA titles in a six-year span before putting together the 1980 Miracle on Ice U.S. Olympic gold medal team that stunned the powerful Soviet Union and won gold at Lake Placid, N.Y.

But while that was, and remains, the biggest “miracle” in sports history, winning the 1974 NCAA championship might qualify as just as big a miracle, although on a smaller stage, and may not yet even be fully appreciated by his players.

Michigan, North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College and Michigan Tech were the clear dominating powers of college hockey in thoes days, along with a scattering of Eastern colleges such as Cornell, RPI, Boston University in some years. Minnesota was nowhere near the class and power of those teams, which were populated with highly skilled Canadian players who had played three or four years of major junior hockey in Canada.

Mariucci had the foresight to try to coax Minnesota high school players to follow the path that had taken him from Eveleth, Minn., to the university, and into the National Hockey League at a time when the NHL never even acknowledged the existence of college, let alone high school, prospects. So, when he became coach at Minnesota, Mariucci recruited and coerced top Minnesota high school players to attend Minnesota.

Consider that top teenagers all across Canada left home to play “Junior A” hockey in the Quebec, Ontario or Western Canada leagues. They could play until they turned 20 years old, and they would play 60 to 75 games a year with 20-minute periods. When they reached 20, they became eligible for the NHL draft, and sign contracts with pro teams. Those who didn’t get drafted might choose to attend a major U.S. college — such as Michigan Tech, Michigan, North Dakota, Denver or Colorado College.

At the same time, Minnesota kids played high school hockey, where their games were limited to 20 and were limited by ice time and state high school league rules of 12-minute periods. No other college tried to compete with only Minnesota high school players against the virtual pros of other top colleges in the WCHA, but Mariucci persisted and the Gophers were always very competitive, despite having no realistic chance at winning any NCAA titles.

Herb Brooks recruited high school, junior hockey players to Gophers
Brooks coached a newly formed Minnesota junior hockey team for one year, and realized quickly that he needed to add a few tougher players just to withstand the physical level of play, and when he went to take over the Minnesota program, which had finished in last place, he made sure that along with the top Minnesota high school prospects, he also recruited a few hard-nosed players from his junior team.

In their first season under Brooks, the Gophers finished about .500, which was a major upsurge. Then, in his second season, Brooks guided the Gophers through and into the league playoffs, and then to the NCAA final four (in those days), which would be held at Boston Garden — home of the Boston Bruins.

The adventure continued when Mike Polich intercepted the puck and scored a huge short-handed goal to quell a Boston University rally at the end of the game and push the Gophers into the final, where they played a fantastic final game and Shelstad stoned Michigan Tech — the collection of Minnesota high school kids who started their college careers at age 18 or 19 had beaten the Tech powerhouse with almost all its freshmen starting at age 21 after years of three times as many games of junior development.

Cast of 1974 Gophers
Running through all the names, brothers John and Rob Harris, brothers Bruce and Tim Carlson, brothers Tim and Mike Phippen, plus goaltender Shelstad, Perpich, Doug Falls, Brad Morrow, Joe Micheletti, Cal Cossalter, John Sheridan, Warren Miller, and Eric Lockwood filled out the roster. Micheletti was an all-state center at Hibbing who was converted to defense by Brooks and became an outstanding puck-moving defenseman who made it to the NHL. Lockwood was the only Canadian, a back-up goaltender who rarely played.

However many of them show up for the celebration of their 1974 championship this weekend is questionable, but there is no doubt that none of them retains the intense appreciation for wearing that jersey with the big block “M” on the chest as Shelstad does.

That is the heritage that follows the Golden Gophers in hockey, and while Brooks followed by coaching them to an NCAA runner-up finish in 1975, to their second NCAA title in 1976, and to their third NCAA title in 1979, he established the template for all future Gopher hockey teams.

In more recent years, Minnesota Duluth and the Gophers have added NCAA championship trophies, while St. Cloud State and Minnesota State Mankato have challenged for national prominence. But no college championships would have been possible is it hadn’t been for the first one, 50 years ago this spring.

The current team, after finishing NCAA runner-up last season, is battling to move into Big Ten contention, behind Michigan State and Wisconsin this year, which puts them in a quite similar position as Michigan, which is similarly loaded with top-end talent but hasn’t jelled yet. Fittingly, perhaps, those are the teams that will battle at Mariucci Arena this weekend, and while many of the current players might be looking at their experience as a stepping stone into pro hockey, they will be entertaining a dedicated group of players whose devotion and appreciation for being part of Gophers heritage will be reflected by the celebration in Suite 7.

The post Gophers Celebrate 1974 Champs appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

It was the end of the first season as Gophers head coach Herb Brooks, who had lifted the faltering program from a 10th-place, 7-21 season, to sixth-place with a 12-13-3 record. Minnesota lost 8-6 in the first game of the total-goal set. The team gathered for a group breakfast down a massive winding staircase at the Edgewater, for the obligatory scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and fried potatoes.

“I remember walking down that art deco staircase,” said Brad Shelstad, a junior goaltender who rode the bench that weekend while Brooks sent Doug Hastings into the nets, despite Shelstad’s better goals-against average and save percentage. “As we were all sitting at our table, there was another group gathered off to one side, and they looked sort of extra casual, with long hair. A couple of our guys made subtle comments about how they looked, but we went ahead with our breakfast.”

The Gophers season ended a few hours later, in a 6-4 playoff loss to finish the 1972-73 season 15-16-3 overall.

“Later on, I checked and found out that the other group in the room was a rock band called Pink Floyd, and they were performing their new album, ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ in Madison that same weekend,” Shelstad said. “I ended up being a huge Pink Floyd fan, and fan of that album — which I still play all the time.”

That oddity, and that legendary album, might well have gone down as the highlight of Shelstad’s Gophers goaltending career, because there was nothing that spring that foretold what could possibly happen one season later, in the 1973-74 season. Nor could any fans of all the other Minnesota-based college hockey teams appreciate what was coming next.

The University of Minnesota Duluth had just moved up to expand into a Division I program. While St. Cloud State, Mankato State and Bemidji State were all comfortable playing at the Division II level, with reduced scholarship and financial requirements and their own minor-league network. While UMD was striving to reach Minnesota’s stature, the Gophers had never attained proper financial stature with, say, Michigan, which dominated the Big Ten and stood the best chance of competing with the national powers at Denver, North Dakota, Colorado College and the Eastern powers of Boston University, Cornell, RPI and others.

Michigan was the envy of John Mariucci at Minnesota because it enjoyed rivalries with Michigan State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, and later Lake Superior State — five Division I teams compared to Minnesota’s one, or two.

Mariucci stubbornly promoted his homestate high school products, which were trickling out to other schools offering better scholarships. Still, with no junior hockey network to develop prospects up to age 20, Minnesota continued to recruit high school players entering as 18- or 19-year-old freshmen.

Against them, Michigan, Michigan Tech, North Dakota, Denver and Colorado College were all watching Canadian junior players age and develop up to age 20, and those who didn’t get drafted by NHL teams might consider coming to school as 21-year-old freshmen. So, Minnesota’s seniors were sometimes younger than the freshmen brought in post-junior by the other Western college powers.

So, Minnesota had never won an NCAA championship. How could they? When Brooks took over the Gophers program, he was determined to carry on Mariucci’s beliefs and concepts, and while the other in-state college programs considered the Gophers their primary adversary and rival, there was no real indication that something huge was looming on the horizon to attain national championship stature.

In fact, as Shelstad recalled, nothing looked more alluring than “The Dark Side of the Moon” to those young Gophers in 1972-73.

Herb Brooks: The miracle man
In the fall of 1973, the Gophers started 0-4-1, losing to UMD, twice to Wisconsin, tying and losing to Michigan. But then, the Brooks magic set in.

His 23-man roster started to click. Shelstad was No. 1 in goal, with Bill Moen and Eric Lockwood backing up. On defense, Brooks had Brad Morrow, Les Auge, John Perpich, Doug Falls and a giant named Dick Spannbauer. But Brooks wanted more versatility, so he took Joe Micheletti, a young center who had fled Hibbing to the state high school championship, and he converted him to defense. Smart, smooth and good with the puck, Micheletti had an outstanding season. Brooks took a similar path with David Christian on his 1980 Miracle on Ice Olympic team.

Up front, a clever center with a quick shot named John Sheridan was joined by Mike Polich, another Hibbing spark plug, and Tom Vannelli, a crafty center from St. Paul Academy, plus wingers Warren Miller, Buzzy Schneider, John Matschke, Cal Cossalter, Tom Dahlheim, Roseau brothers John and Robby Harris, Edina brothers Bruce and Tim Carlson, Roseville brothers Pat and Mike Phippen. A completely diverse group of forwards — possibly none of whom might have invited notice had they been playing junior hockey, but who all accepted partial scholarships to be a part of the Golden Gophers.

The Gophers gained momentum through the tough WCHA season, although they still had trouble with certain teams. They lost a midseason series at Duluth, split a series with Denver and skated to a pair of ties at Wisconsin. In their final series of the regular season, the Gophers made the trip to Houghton, Mich., where John MacInnes’ Huskies swept the Gophers. That left Minnesota sharing the WCHA championship though still technically second in the conference.

It didn’t matter though, because Minnesota was at home in Williams Arena to two-game, total-goal series against Michigan, which the Gophers swept 5-1 and 5-4. That put the Gophers up against Denver, and the teams tied the first game.

“John Harris backhanded in a big goal for us,” Shelstad said.

Then the Gophers won 2-1 to send them to the NCAA Final Four (as it was known in those days) at Boston Garden.

Gophers reach NCAA Final Four
In the home of the Boston Bruins, the Gophers jumped out ahead of Boston University, but coach Jackie Parker’s Terriersrallied in the third period against Shelstad and the Gophers, closing the deficit to set the stage for the most dramatic single goal in Gophers hockey history.

Having tied the game 4-4, Boston went on the power play when Spannbauer was penalized with a minute to go in regulation. It appeared that the Garden rink was tilted toward Shelstad and the Gophers goal, and it seemed inevitable that the Terriers were going to score again and steal the national championship.

But while killing the penalty through the closing half-minute, Polich stole the puck in the neutral zone and raced into the B0ston zone. Terriars goaltender Ed Walsh, who coincidentally later played with Polich on Montreal’s top farm team where the two were roommates, later told Polich that as he skated in toward the goal, Walsh knew he had an open winger on the far side, and he stole a millisecond glance to see where the winger was. In that instant, when he looked back, he didn’t see any puck.

Polich had cut loose with a quick and deadly shot in that moment, and the puck sailed past Walsh and into the goal for a shorthanded goal to win the game 5-4 with 13 seconds remaining in regulation.

The joy of victory, the great relief at surviving — all the possible emotions — spilled over as the Gophers celebrated. But they still had a huge obstacle awaiting in the defending champion Michigan Tech Huskies.

“We had no options,” said Shelstad. “It was our last game as Gophers. I still remember Bill Steele. I don’t know if he ever went into motivational speaking, but he should have, because he sure motivated me! As we were warming up in Boston Garden, he skated down to our end and came up next to me and said something like, ‘It’s all over now, buddy, because we’re going to fill the net.’ It got to me, and I thought, ‘You little…who do you think you are?’”

The Gophers won its first NCAA championship in Minnesota history by a 4-2 score, outshooting Michigan Tech 39-24.

In the 1975 NCAA championship game a year later, Brooks and his Gophers lost to Michigan Tech. But the teams met again in the 1976 title game in Denver, with the Gophers winning that one. So, after having never won a national title in its history, Minnesota suddenly won two-out-of-three during Brooks’ first three years as head coach.

Brooks put together one more championship team, winning the 1979 NCAA title, to give him three championships in his seven years at Minnesota. That was all before he left to create the 1980 gold-medal-winning Olympic team, loaded Minnesota players.

Now, 50 years later, Minnesota is trying to fight off the challenges from five other Division I programs in Minnesota, with UMD, St. Cloud State, Minnesota State Mankato, Bemidji State and St. Thomas all battling for national prominence. But while gazing into the future, it might be the ideal time to pause for a look back at the proud heritage that Mariucci, Glen Sonmor and Brooks created out of the void of no NCAA titles in Minnesota.

The post Flashback: 1st Gophers NCAA Titles appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

(Image courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

The memories remain vivid to all those who have ever played hockey outdoors, but Ikola points out that being able to escape the cold and play in one of the state’s first indoor hockey arenas was a huge influence. “It was a tremendous advantage to be able to play indoors,” Ikola said. “I don’t remember ever losing a game at the Hip.”

Ikola grew up in Eveleth in the 1940s, and even today he looks back fondly of being a kid, playing in the Eveleth Hippodrome. It has endured through decades of historic teams and memorable games.

There are a lot of good reasons why hockey history books read a lot like “Eveleth, and Everybody Else.” A small but wealthy mining town on the Iron Range, Eveleth had iron ore mines right within the city limits, luring workers from all over the country, and world, for the good-paying jobs in the open-pit mines. If some of them were invited because they were good hockey players, or had sons who were, so much the better to bolster the area’s semi-pro teams to entertain the miners in post-World War II Eveleth.

But the biggest reason for Eveleth’s early hockey success was that solid, substantial building known as “The Hip,” a brick fortress that is the Eveleth Hippodrome, built just a block down the hill from the bars and businesses of downtown Eveleth. It opened its doors for the city’s skaters and hockey players exactly 100 years ago — Jan. 1, 1922 — and links Eveleth’s rich hockey history from what is an entirely different world in January of 2022.

“The Hip was just down the street from the high school, and I lived about three blocks up the hill,” Ikola recalled. “Every elementary school had a real nice outdoor rink. But when we had the chance to play at the Hip, almost everybody else was playing their games outdoors.”

Championship banners fill the rafters of the Eveleth Hippodrome. (Image courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

If you doubt that an indoor rink could have that much influence on a high school program, consider that the first Minnesota state high school hockey tournament was in 1945, and Eveleth earned the right to represent Region 7 in all of the first 12 years of the tournament. Eveleth High School won the first tournament, in 1945, with an 11-0 record, climaxed by a 4-3 championship game victory over Thief River Falls at the St. Paul Auditorium.  Eveleth took third place in the second tournament, in 1946, and two years later the Golden Bears won the first of four consecutive undefeated state championships — in 1948, ’49, ’50, and ’51. Advancing to play in the first 12 state tournaments, winning five of the first seven — that’s domination.

After that, other towns, communities and suburbs started building arenas and striving to catch up to the standard that Eveleth set in those first dozen state tournaments.

Those years also were a magical time for Willard Ikola to come along as a goaltender, too, because while John Mariucci had gone from Eveleth to the University of Minnesota and on to the Chicago Blackhawks, Eveleth was turning out a stream of legendary goaltenders. Frankie Brimsek, Mike Karakas and Sam LoPresti all made it from Eveleth to the NHL at about the same time. Imagine only six teams in the NHL, and three of them — half the league — had goaltenders from Eveleth.

“Frankie Brimsek was known as ‘Mr. Zero’ and I idolized him. I had a big picture of him in my room,” Ikola said. “He and Karakas played against each other, and Sam LoPresti joined Mariucci with the Blackhawks, so they were all in the NHL at the same time.”

Maybe as important to Ike was that his older brother, Roy, also played ahead of him.

“My brother Roy was a goalie too and he played on the 1945 Eveleth team that won the first state tournament,” Ikola said. “He later played goalie at Colorado College for the team that won the first NCAA tournament.”

For Ike, an older brother who was a goaltender also meant access to his big brother’s hand-me-down goalie equipment.

“I played for the Jackson Street Wildcats,” Ike said. “Every neighborhood had an outdoor rink and a youth team. There were no coaches, we didn’t have jerseys, and there weren’t many hockey gloves. But every Saturday morning, they let the youth teams play in the Hip. It was colder than hell, and natural ice, of course, but the lobby was warm.

(Image courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

“When we were playing Saturday at the Hip, we’d look up and see a guy sitting up in the corner. It was Cliff Thompson, who had come to town to be a phy-ed teacher, and to coach baseball. He ended up coaching the hockey team, too, in boots. When we saw him, somebody would say, ‘Coach is here,’ and everybody picked up the pace, the passes were all tape-to-tape. We all wanted to make a good impression.”

Ikola also was blessed with exceptional teammates during his high school years. John Matchefts was a year older, and the legendary John Mayasich was a year younger. And after the long string of great goaltenders, Ike got another break when Ron Drobnik, who played with Ike’s older brother on the team that won the first state tournament, was followed by followed a gap down to Ike, who was an eighth-grader.

“Cliff Thompson asked me if I’d practice with the team,” said Ikola. “It helped me a lot to get to play with and against older players. I did that on those Saturday mornings at the Hip too. I had the goalie equipment, so if I got into the rink, I could play against the older guys. I’d bring a sandwich and play from morning until dark.”

Ikola also remembers focusing a little extra in practices and warm-ups to not allow his teammates to score on him. “I always thought that since we had a lot of one-sided games, I might not have many important saves, so it might impress somebody if I could keep Matchefts and Mayasich from scoring on me,” he said.

The likes of state tournament and Gopher record-holder John Mayasich, and former Michigan standout John Matchefts, highlighted those Eveleth teams in the early state tournament years, right up through the late Mark Pavelich, who was an All-America at UMD and a star for the 1980 Miracle on Ice Team USA that won the gold medal at the Lake Placid Olympics, plus Doug Palazarri, who became an /All-America at Colorado College and later was an executive at USA Hockey and the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. Others included Wally Grant, Pat Finnegan, and brothers Dave and Gus Hendrickson, who went off to play for Amo Bessone at Michigan State before retiring to coach high school hockey on the Range. Craig Homola was captain at Vermont before coming home to coach the Golden Bears.

Then there was the unending string of exceptional goaltenders, including Pete LoPresti, son of Sam, who went on to star at Denver University and then played several years with the home state Minnesota North Stars.

They all went their separate ways, but they all had one thing in common — playing their most formative years at the Hip, which became the citadel for hockey in the state, and the entire country. It stands as solid and secure as ever, just down the hill a block from what used to be Mitch’s Bar, and Tuna’s, where the most intense fans might run up between periods for a couple beers and to analyze if the Golden Bears coach was doing OK, before returning to the Hip.

(Image courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

In most arenas, the boards are fastened at the bottom so when somebody gets checked into them, the boards can flex up to a foot or so to absorb the impact. At the Hippodrome, those boards were sunk into concrete and were as solid as running into the  brick wall itself. The huge photos reproduced on the walls of the lobby are reminiscent of the classic old facilities like the Montreal Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens, but the biggest difference is that the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs have moved into flashy new arenas. The Hippodrome stands alone, still in use, although the Eveleth and Virginia schools and athletic programs have merged, along with the various smaller towns around, to form the Rock Ridge Wolverines. Quite a change for the kids from such storied rivals as Eveleth and Virginia, as time and enrollment numbers have changed with the times.

“Hibbing was about the only team we played in high school that had an indoor rink,” Ikola said. “We’d play Virginia, Grand Rapids, International Falls and other Range teams, and we’d go up to play Roseau and Warroad. None of them had arenas, so they liked to come to Eveleth and play at the Hip. Up at Roseau and Warroad, it was so cold the referees couldn’t use whistles because they’d freeze up, so they had little bells they’d ring for an offside or penalty.”

Ikola set the state tournament record for shutouts with five, recording one in 1947, two in 1949 and two in 1950, during those undefeated state title seasons.That showed a different kind of domination for Eveleth goalies, because Ike’s predecessor, Ron Drobnick, is assured of retaining the all-time tournament record he set in the first tournament, in 1945, of fewest saves in a period, none. And he did it twice in the same game, during which he set the record for fewest saves in a game, one.

(Image courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

Years later, Ikola turned down a chance to play for John Mariucci at Minnesota because the Gophers didn’t offer scholarships and Ikola said his family couldn’t afford to send him there. Vic Heiliger became the new coach at Michigan and recruited Johnny Matchefts from Eveleth, which led to him also recruiting Ikola, who became a two-time All-America and won two championships for the Wolverines in 1952 and 1953 — the formative years of the NCAA tournament. Mariucci held no grudge, and put Ikola on the 1956 U.S. team he coached at the Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy, and later helped Ikola get the coaching job at Edina.

But after all his travels led Ikola back to coach at Edina, he never forgot his Iron Range roots.

“I always loved to take my Edina teams back up there to play,” Ikola said. “We didn’t have any Lake Conference games over Christmas vacation, so I’d take the team, and the JV, and the Bantams and Peewees and we’d all go up there and play.”

Maybe being exposed to games in the Hip, where they could see how important hockey was to the Eveleth kids, wore off in a positive direction for the Edina Hornets, too.

Laurie Ikola, Willard’s wife since the two were students at the University of Michigan, would go on those trips, of course, and she remembered after the game going to visit Ike’s mother at the home where he grew up. “We won the game, and we were so excited,” Laurie said. “Ike’s mom said, ‘Did you see, after the game, when Pastor Rohaniemi went down and shook Willard’s hand, right in front of everybody?’ She thought that was more important than the game.”

Maybe the Rock Ridge Wolverines will work their way up to deserving a similar place in hockey history. But as legends go, nothing but possibly the Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens can approach the stature of the Eveleth Hippodrome.

The post The Magically Hipp appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Our hearts are heavy this morning with the news of the passing of Minnesota coaching and broadcasting legend, Glen Sonmor. Glen coached the Gophers, Fighting Saints (with whom he also served as GM) and North Stars before a long career calling Gopher games on the radio alongside Wally Shaver.

A few years ago, Glen was kind enough to grant us the privilege of sitting down with him for a series of interviews discussing his long hockey career, both on and off the ice. Below is the product of that discussion filled with fond memories and anecdotes from Glen’s lifelong love affair with the game of hockey.

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The post A Hockey Life appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.