The University of Minnesota hockey programs are no stranger to those high expectations, especially the women’s program, which has seven national championships and three national runners-up finishes in 24 seasons up until 2023-24.

Those standards, though, don’t preclude the team from having any fun. That couldn’t be demonstrated any better than with the team’s leader, junior captain Peyton Hemp, engaging in a bit of fun with her younger sister and fellow teammate, Josie, on occasion.

“There’s times I’ll walk into the dressing room or the conference room on the road and see them horsing around and wrestling and things like that,” Gophers head coach Brad Frost said. “So I certainly think they have fun.”

On top of Frost’s view of his players’ lighthearted antics, when brought up to the players themselves, the discussion was met with a few laughs.

“I think that’s like a part of our relationship,” Peyton said. “Obviously, there’s so much love there, but we definitely get on each other’s nerves, but it’s all on the love, so it’s super fun.”

It’s just sisterly love, right? Once you are around someone long enough, you can be just a bit more comfortable. No matter if it’s in the locker room, in the hallways around Ridder Arena, or in the team areas of rinks around the WCHA, the pair can be found often wrestling with one another.

Peyton Hemp has 10 goals and 23 points in 26 games so far this season. (Photo courtesy of University of Minnesota / Gopher Sports and Brad Rempel)

While there is no one who is the instigator to all of the friendly bouts, at least some of them can be attributed to the younger sister.

“After practices sometimes, I’ll literally just out of nowhere kind of jump on her,” Josie said. “We’ll literally just start tackling each other, so there’s that. Sometimes in the locker room before practice, we will just randomly, it’s not actually a fight, but we’ll randomly just start wrestling each other, literally just like out of nowhere.”

Andover to Minnetonka to Minneapolis
This pair of sisters from Andover, Minn., being two years apart, have had quite the experience playing together growing up. From being little kids all the way to high school to play hockey together, it ended up being a little weird to the duo when Peyton was at Minnesota and Josie still had two years of high school left. While those high school memories were fleeting at Andover, as Josie transferred to Minnetonka for her final two years of high school, Peyton and Josie reached the ultimate goal while playing together.

In 2020, they helped Andover to a Class 2A state championship with a victory over Edina.

“I think the one that sticks out the most with her and I was in my junior year and [Josie’s] freshman year at Andover when we won the state tournament,” Peyton said. “I think that’s probably like the biggest one. That was just super fun to win that with her and it was super special too, but there were so many moments growing up.”

That success in the state tournament propelled Peyton to be the state’s Ms. Hockey in her senior season in 2021 before joining the Gophers. Josie played the remainder of her two years of high school without her older sister, but with her younger sister, Layla, at Minnetonka.

A junior at Minnetonka this season, Layla is also committed to Minnesota, but she’s a goaltender. She also recently helped backstop the United States to gold at the 2024 U-18 Women’s World Championship.

“I’m sad we don’t all three get to play with each other, but it’s super cool obviously for me being in the middle,” Josie said. “Being able to have Layla and Peyton and then getting to play with the both of them for two years in high school [was really special].”

Josie Hemp is a 5-9 defenseman in her freshman season at the University of Minnesota, joining her older sister, Peyton Hemp. (Photo courtesy of Bjorn Franke)

Three sisters, three roles
Funny enough that the trio each plays their own position, but it was Josie who actually played forward instead of defense until high school. When she was a forward, she was linemates with Isa Goettl, now a teammate on the Gophers. Josie said that her dad helped bring it up once about potentially making the switch in positions. Then, in high school, after getting some shifts on the back end, she realized she really enjoyed playing defense and stuck with it ever since.

Using that experience as a forward, Josie said it has helped her understand her role as a defender. While she said she views herself more as an offensive defender, and Frost also says she has good offensive instincts, she values the experience of knowing how to play up front to better understand her own responsibilities on the ice on defense.

Josie is looking to redshirt the 2023-24 season and compete for a spot in the Gophers’ defensive corps next season, and through a large part of a season of practices in her first year with the team, she said she’s learned the most about speed and size at this level of competition.

“The transition [from high school] was definitely big, with the speed,” Josie said. “Even though I haven’t gotten to play in a game, I definitely think I’ve learned so much in practice because of adjusting to the speed, as I would say, speed is the biggest thing for me.”

Going against older sister Peyton in practice has to be a tough assignment for anyone, considering the complete game she produces for the Gophers every night. Both Frost and Peyton said that she brings a consistency to the game that coaches and teammates alike really appreciate. From the penalty kill to the power play, her competitiveness and consistency have been making an impact.

That also helps Peyton’s role as the team captain, to set an example for the rest of her teammates to look to in the long grind of the season.

With the competitive angle she helps represent on the team now, to the little competitions that both Peyton and Josie had with together with older sister Catalina in their garage as kids, Josie and Peyton are as close as can be.

“Honestly, I feel like it’s just great to have, like obviously you’re friends with everybody on the team, like you love your teammates and stuff, but it’s such a blessing to have that one person that can just be your go-to,” Peyton said. “[Someone] that knows you truly, they literally grew up with you, so they pretty much know everything about you.”

The post Hemp Sisters Have Fun appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

But the women’s representatives from Minnesota deserve to be recognized for their prominence, too. A look at the week before Christmas national rankings show that five of the top eight teams are from the WCHA, starting at the top:

1. Ohio State, 14-2
2. Minnesota, 13-2
3. Wisconsin 13-3
6. UMD, 10-5-1
8. St. Cloud State, 12-5

The 1-2-3 punch at the top had to survive the sort of upsets that never used to happen in the WCHA.

St. Cloud State, clearly the surprise of women’s college hockey this season, invaded Columbus and, after falling behind 1-0 in the first period, scored twice in the second period. Finnish import goaltender Sanni Ahola stifled the Buckeyes the rest of the way for a shocking 2-1 upset. Ohio Sate had lost only one game all season, and while everyone anticipated a tough game, nobody expected a Huskies win.

St. Cloud’s Addi Scribner said that after that upset, an Ohio State fan came up to her and said: “Your goalie is unreal. She’s a Cyborg!”

The Buckeyes came back in the second game and broke a 1-1 tie with four straight goals in the second period to gain a 6-2 victory and a split. While being upset by St. Cloud could have cost Ohio State the No. 1 ranking, it didn’t. That’s because No. 2 Wisconsin suffered a similar weekend, against Duluth.

UMD went to Wisconsin and lost 3-0, solidifying the Badgers position on Saturday. However, the Bulldogs battled the Badgers through two scoreless periods in their Sunday afternoon rematch, and were determined to make their effort stand up in the third. UMD won that second game 3-2 for the split. 

A victory by the Badgers would have elevated them back to the No. 1 ranking.

The upsets weren’t over when the weekend ended, though, because the Gophers had a one-game matchup Tuesday against St. Cloud State. Peyton Hemp gave the Gophers a 1-0 lead but Scribner tied the game in the second period. The game went to overtime and a shootout. Allie Franco’s shootout goal gave the Gophers, who came in on an eight-game winning streak, the extra WCHA point. 

But it seems there are no such things as upsets anymore in the WCHA. At least going into a frantic pre-holiday-break weekend that features Wisconsin at Minnesota, and UMD at St. Cloud State, with Bemidji State at St. Thomas for good measure among Minnesota’s teams.

Minnesota teams have always dominated with NCAA championships
For statistical evidence, it’s not as though the Minnesota teams and the West are just emerging on top. Go back to the year 2000-01, which was the first year the NCAA conducted a national tournament for women’s teams. In the first 13 years it was held, Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota virtually owned the championship.

UMD won the first three NCAA titles, with spectacular players such as Jenny Schmidgall, Maria Rooth and Caroline Ouellette leading the way. Under Shannon Miller’s coaching, UMD won five championships in all, with the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2010 trophies still filling the school’s trophy case. Minnesota won championships in 2004, 2005, 2012 and 2013 — meaning that the Bulldogs and Gophers won nine of the first 13 NCAA women’s championships.

The other four titles were won by the emerging power at Wisconsin, meaning that those three WCHA teams won all of the first 13 women’s national championships. The Badgers won in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011, and their 2007 team went 36-1-4 to eclipse the 31-3-2 of UMD in 2003 and the 36-2-2 by the Gophers in 2005.

But in 2013, the Golden Gophers had a load of talent throughout their lineup and set the record for all time with a splendid 41-0-0 championship season.

It was the following year, in 2013-14, that Clarkson broke through and claimed the first NCAA title for women for the East, and Clarkson also won championships in 2017 and 2018. And that’s it. Only three times did a non-WCHA team win the title, and all three times it was Clarkson.

All NCAA tournaments took a year off during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When they resumed, Mark Johnson led his Badgers back for their sixth championship, with Ohio State emerging to capture the 2022 title. Last spring, Wisconsin was a surprise winner of its seventh title, and the same WCHA teams seem clustered for another run this season.

St. Cloud State women marking their mark
But maybe there will be an additional team in the mix, after St. Cloud State pulled off the seemingly impossible task of upsetting Ohio State on the road and coming home to tie the Gophers. That takes care of the top two-ranked teams, and now they get to take on old rival UMD, which upset No. 3 Wisconsin.

The games at St. Cloud State’s Herb Brooks National Hockey Center are expected to be tight, low-scoring battles, because both teams have two outstanding goaltenders. UMD has record-setting Hailey MacLeod, who is setting records for goals-against and save percentage, alongside freshman Eve Gascon, from Montreal.

St. Cloud State has an interesting duo, with Ahola capturing the spotlight in net. She’s paired with Jojo Chobak, who spent a season at UMD before transferring to St. Cloud State because she had grown weary of backing up Swedish Olympic star Emma Soderberg, who decided to stay another year.

Both teams depend on depth, getting scoring from their three top lines, and four for St. Cloud State. Both play tough defensive hockey but with defensemen who can readily move up into the play to help the rush or fire lasers from the points.

“We hung our hats on being a tough defensive team last year,” said St. Cloud State coach Brian Idalski. “We haven’t changed that and still want to play tough defense, but we’ve added some new players and I think we’re capable of scoring more goals this year.

“Especially coming off two tough games at Ohio State, then tying the Gophers on Tuesday. We’re getting contributions from all four lines, and we’re approaching this weekend like we’re preparing for the playoffs.”

From Duluth’s end of the transition from last weekend’s upset to this weekend’s rivalry series, the sound was similar. Center Mannon McMahon praised third-line center Jenna Lawry, who was cool and poised as she scored the game-winner at Madison.

“It was super cool to see how Jenna and her line have stepped up, and now they’re being rewarded,” McMahon said. “A lot of us were disappointed at losing 3-0 in Saturday’s game, but we were confident enough to not let that happen again on Sunday.

“Our response from the first game to the second was what I was most proud of. Now we have to carry that through to St. Cloud. It’s going to be tough. They just don’t quit, and they love to battle.”

The post Women Take Command appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

One of the big series finds St. Cloud State — the most surprising team in the NCHC, if not the whole country — at home on its Herb Brooks National Hockey Center ice to take on perennial CCHA contender Michigan on Friday and Saturday.

The Huskies sputtered through their non-conferemce schedule with a meager 2-4 record, but now we suspect St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson was using those non-conference games precisely as they were intended, to work newcomers into his lineup and juggle units for the regular season.

That suspicion gains credibility when you check out the Huskies once the shooting started in the NCHC. Forget the 2-4 start, because St. Cloud State has zoomed through six games to take sole possession of first place, most recently disassembling University of Minnesota Duluth with the same sure-handed force that might have been deployed to disassemble that Thanksgiving turkey on your platter.

Huskies bite the Bulldogs
Scorewise, both games on the big rink at St. Cloud lived up to the intense rivalry tendencies of Huskies-Bulldogs games over the last decade, although this time both games saw some uncommon rough stuff to end both of the St. Cloud victories last Friday and Saturday night, by 2-1 and 6-5 scores.

The first game was scoreless until Jack Reimann scored late in the second period for St. Cloud State, and UMD’s Matthew Perkins scored midway through the third period to tie the game 1-1. That put Joe Molenaar in the spotlight. Molenaar has been a trusted, loyal soldier throughout his career at St. Cloud State, but he’s never given Larson reason to expect big goal numbers. Until this year. Molenaar, who scored only two goals last season, scored the game-winner with 2:19 remaining against UMD. It was his fifth goal in the last four games. 

The first game boiled over in lost tempers in the final minute as a couple of 5-on-5 scraps broke out. The second one came at the final horn and ended with UMD captain Luke Loheit switching from peacemaker to aggressor, delivering a face-to-face cross-check that earned him a 5-minute major, game misconduct and, because the official time of 20:00 didn’t leave much for punishment, he was also suspended for the next game (last Saturday).

Unlike the defensive shutdown battle, both teams hit the ice running in game 2, and it veered back and forth. Jack Rogers staked the Huskies to a 1-0 lead at 1:46. But Blake Biondi, getting a chance to center the injury-ravaged first line, scored on a power play at 8:56 for a 1-1 tie. Veeti Miettinen — who Larson *did* expect to score this season — regained a 2-1 lead for the Huskies on a power play at 17:46, only to see Anthony Menghini tie it 2-2 in the final second of the opening period.

That pattern resumed in the second period when Tyson Gross gave the Huskies their third lead of the night at 10:38, but UMD defenseman Owen Gallatin countered that in the last minute of the middle period for a 3-3 standoff.

St. Cloud State broke through for two goals in a row to open the third period, with Kyler Kupka scoring at 0:39 and Miettinen at 3:20 for a 5-3 cushion. That made eight goals in Miettinen’s last eight games. UMD battled back for a goal by Quinn Olson to cut the deficit to 5-4, but Jack Ingram made it 6-4 with 2:56 remaining. The Bulldogs weren’t about to concede, and with 1:48 to go, Gallatin scored his second of the game to cut it to 6-5. But the Bulldogs, who never led, couldn’t get the equalizer and went down to extend their exasperating streak to 0-7-1 in their last 8 games.

A look at the men’s hockey conference standings
With their early growing pains providing valuable experience, the Huskies sit in first place alone with a 6-0 conference record, leaving North Dakota (4-0) second in NCHC standings. North Dakota, however, can take satisfaction from moving up to the No. 1 rank in the U.S. College Hockey Online rankings.

St. Cloud State stays at home on its Olympic-sized — 200 x 100 feet — ice surface to take on Michigan, which like Minnesota, is finding it a challenge to string victories together in the Big Ten. The Wolverines, bristling with new talent, is only 2-4-2 in the Big Ten. The top three in the Big Ten are Michigan State (5-0-1),Wisconsin (4-2) and Notre Dame (3-1-2). Michigan State, definitely the surprise team in the Big Ten, swept Wisconsin 4-2 and 3-2 to make the Badgers’ stay at No. 1 short as they plunged to No. 6. The Spartans visit Mariucci Arena this weekend to face Minnesota.

In the CCHA, the standings show nearly everybody tangled up and deadlocked. Bemidji State lost 5-1 at Minnesota State Mankato. In their second game, Bemidji State came back to rally from a 5-2 first-period deficit to cut the deficit to 6-4 after two, then rallied for three unanswered goals late in the third period to escape with a 7-6 victory. Jackson Jutting scored at 13:58 and Lleyton Roed tied the game at 14:48 before Jutting scored the game-winner at 15:46. The three goals in the span of 1:48 was enough for the victory and the hop into first place in the CCHA.

It doesn’t get easier for Bemidji State, as the Beavers make a Thanksgiving weekend trip to its closest Hwy. 2 rival — North Dakota. Another pair of CCHA highlights this week show Michigan Tech at MSU Mankato, and St. Thomas is at home to face Lake Superior State.

Women’s hockey updates
In the WCHA women’s competition, Ohio State swept Wisconsin in a battle of undefeated league-leaders, winning 3-0 and then 2-1 on Hannah Bilka’s short-handed goal at 1:17 of overtime. Jennifer Gardiner, who scored the first goal in the second game, had two goals in the 3-0 opener.

Minnesota swept two games at Duluth, both by 3-1 counts, with Abbey Murphy scoring a goal in both games and Peyton Hemp scoring an empty-netter with 0:15 left. Hemp also scored the final goal in the second game. 

The WCHA gets a chance to flex its power this weekend with an array of games against Eastern foes. UMD stays home in AMSOIL Arena to take on Colgate, which is ranked No. 2 in the country behind Ohio State.St. Lawrence is at Ohio State. Minnesota and St. Thomas travel to Washington D.C. for a weekend tournament. The Gophers face Harvard on Friday afternoon and Cornell on Saturday afternoon. Flip-flop those opponents and days for the Tommies as they face Cornell and Harvard.

The post Hockey Over The Holiday appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Peyton Hemp, Jamie Nelson and Gabby Krause combined for 159 points in the regular season, making them one of the best lines in the state.

So it didn’t take long for them to help Andover to a 7-1 win over the Farmington Tigers at the 2019 state tournament quarterfinal round. After Nelson netted the first goal at the 5:48 mark, Krause found twine twice before the first period ended.

“I feel like there’s telepathy,” said Hemp after the win. “It’s weird to say, but playing with Gabby, somehow I just know to cycle it to her because I just know she should be there. And same with Jamie, I just know she’s going to be there.”

“The biggest thing I like to see is they move the puck so well unselfishly,” said head coach Melissa Volk. “So it’s really cool because the other kids below see it, and say, hey keep moving the puck, keep moving the puck; then I can be individually successful.”

What’s more impressive is the line will likely be leaving their mark in high school hockey for years to come. Both Krause and Hemp are sophomores, while Nelson’s a junior.

All three ended up scoring goals and the three finished with nine total points in the victory.

Even though their top line is impressive, it’s still a team effort that’s carried Andover this season.  All in all, six different players lit the lamp for the Huskies who are now just two wins away from a state title.

Farmington’s young roster

It wasn’t the result the Farmington Tigers wanted, but the experience of being at the state tournament was a special moment. Farmington has the youngest roster in this year’s field. The majority of their roster is made up of underclassmen and playing in the tournament will make them hungrier to return.

“Being so young, we had one of our assistant coaches who said in the locker room who was a part of that Red Wing boys team that lost 10-3 to Warroad in 1996,” said head coach Jon Holmes. “And they came back next year to win the state tournament. So a lot of things you can take from it. At the same point it’s tough, but we’re young and we fully expect them to bounce back tomorrow.”

The post Andover’s top line impresses in quarterfinal win appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.