William Howard Taft had just been elected President of the United States.

The Titanic was three years away from its ill-fated voyage in the Atlantic; and the University of Minnesota, which had been playing its hockey games on frozen Como Lake in St. Paul, was amid a nearly 20-year hiatus from competition.

But just a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, high school hockey teams from Warroad and Roseau were squaring off against one another for the very first time.

So, the origins of one of Minnesota’s greatest sports rivalries commenced long before official record-keeping began in the mid-1940s.

“Why would people say it’s the best rivalry? I think because everybody has something in the game,” said Larry Olimb, Warroad native and 1988 Mr. Hockey Award recipient. “In Warroad, everyone’s part of the hockey community, and Roseau is the same way. Then just being so close to each other, and being so competitive over the years.”

The U.S. Olympic team, as well as the NHL, have reaped the benefits of this far-north region of Minnesota.

But both hockey havens have perhaps shined brightest in youth and high school competition, regardless of the era.

“In 1999, my senior year, we won a double-A state championship,” Mike Klema said, looking back on the rivalry.

Klema, a Roseau native, went on to play four years at Yale, and is now vice president in the Roseau Youth League and coaching his two Mite-aged sons.

“I just looked back at it from my experience thinking what a great, great run of teams that Roseau and Warroad produced in the 90s,” he said. “And that’s not to shortchange any other decade, because obviously, going back to the 40s, Roseau and Warroad have had really strong histories.”

Past and present, the names are synonymous with Minnesota hockey: Marvin and Christian; Oshie and Nelson; Bjorkman, Boucha and Broten.

Both communities have consistently produced great players and even greater play on the ice.

“No matter if one program has a lot more talent than the other a certain year it doesn’t matter,” said Gigi Marvin, a Warroad native and three-time Olympian for Team USA. “It seems like everything goes out the window and you just play on character and heart and passion and so it’s a lot of fun.”

Rivalry by number
The towns are just 26 miles apart, with the population of Roseau eclipsing that of Warroad, 2,712 to 1,810 respectively.

By the numbers, as they pertain to hockey, Roseau holds the edge as well, with a series record of 107-71-5 since 1945. The two schools battled on 30 occasions throughout the 1960s, the most of any decade.

Roseau has 34 appearances in the boys’ state high school tournament, with seven championships. Two of those titles were won in Class 2A, after the advent of the two-class brackets.

Warroad has made it to the tourney 24 times, bringing home four Class 1A titles.

In the years before the 1991-92 season, schools competed in the single-class system. For Roseau and Warroad, that meant only one team would emerge from the Section 8 region and head to the state tournament.

“By the time we’re done playing each other in high school, we’ve probably played each other 30, 40 times,” said Bill Lund, a Roseau native who was part of the Rams’ 1990 state championship team.

Lund played his college hockey at St. Cloud State and later skated four seasons for Lake Charles in the Western Professional Hockey League.

“Back when we were squirts, we’d play them four times every year, all the way through,” Lund recalled. “And then obviously, in summer hockey, they used to come over to our camp.

“For a couple of weeks in the summer we got along. In the winter, we didn’t get along so well.”

The animosity was tempered for Lund after college when he played on Cal Marvin’s storied Warroad Lakers Senior A team.

“It was Roseau and Warroad guys along with a bunch of other guys playing for the Allan Cup up in Canada,” Lund recalled fondly. “It was one of the best memories ever, playing those two years with the Warroad Lakers.”

Talent throughout the decades
One common theme – regardless of era – rises above the battles: Players who competed in the rivalry still carry an appreciation for the level of competition and how it only raised their game.

“The thing about that rivalry is both teams are usually really good every year. So, that’s what makes it even better,” said Hampton Slukynsky, Warroad’s 2023 Goalie of the Year who now plays with the Fargo Force of the United States Hockey League.

“I think with having two really good teams in northern Minnesota, it makes it a lot more competitive. You want to be better than Roseau, if you’re from Warroad. Or if from Roseau, you want to be better than Warroad.”

Last season, Warroad had the unique distinction of not only having the Goalie of the Year in Slukynsky, but also Mr. Hockey Award recipient Jayson Shaugabay on their roster as well. The pair led the Warriors to Class 1A runner-up finishes the past two seasons.

For Shaugabay, the rivalry ranks as the pinnacle in his accomplished amateur career.

“Leading up to the Roseau-Warroad game has always been the most exciting time in my life,” Shaugabay said. “Even when I was 5 years old watching or, until I got to play in it, it was the most anticipated two games of the year.

“It’s pretty much just like playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but the high school version and it’s just so fun.”

Ready for Hockey Day
Warroad is primed for the three-day event, which has far surpassed earlier incarnations in size and scope.

That excitement is no doubt taken up several notches this January when Hockeytown USA hosts Hockey Day Minnesota.

“Back when it started in Baudette, Minnesota, it was mainly just a game,” said Tad Palmquist, Hockey Day Minnesota co-chair. “Now it’s an entire village. So, it’s everything. We added everything from a big snow hill for the kids to sled down. We’ve added a mini version of the skate path we have on the river.”

The village will also feature exhibits honoring Warroad’s rich hockey history and that of the region. A tribute to Cal Marvin and his Warroad Lakers legacy will highlight the event, as will a ceremonial puck drop in tribute to Henry Boucha, who died on Sept. 18, 2023.

But Palmquist is quick to point out that the weekend will highlight not only Warroad but the entire region, including Hockeytown’s favorite rival.

“We know it’s hard to get the Hockey Day way up north like this, especially in a rural town like Warroad,” he said. “So we want to celebrate all the local towns and obviously Roseau being a key part of that.”

While Warroad will travel to Roseau for their first meeting of the season at the historic Roseau Memorial Arena on Jan. 9, the main event will face off on Jan. 27, for a Hockey Day Minnesota showdown no one will soon forget.

“One thing about our rivalry is it’s not always bitter,” Palmquist said. “On the ice, it’s bitter, maybe. But it’s also built on respect.

“And a lot of these people end up being friends along the way.”

The post The Rivalry appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Warroad versus Roseau is classic

A trip to Warroad might reveal state’s biggest rivalry.

As sports rivalries go, you have the legendary Dodgers-Giants baseball duels, the Vikings-Packers pro football matches, the previous generation’s college hockey pinnacles of Gophers-Badgers, Gophers-Fighting Sioux and Gophers-Bulldogs battles. And in high school sports, you could reach way back to the days of Johnson-Harding in St. Paul, or Southwest-Edina on the West side. Up North, we could always rely on Hibbing-Greenway, which gave way to Greenway-Grand Rapids and ultimately Grand Rapids-Duluth East, which arose from the old East-Cathedral battles in Duluth in the 1960s.

But if you had to pick just one, the choice would be simple: Roseau against Warroad. Or, Warroad against Roseau. It could be in any sport, but hockey clearly was the specialty on the menu every year. The two Northern Minnesota towns are about 20 miles apart on Hwy. 11, which runs East-West, parallel to the Minnesota border with Canada, and they are close to the same size, and share similar passions about their hockey heritage.

Their games were typical of such rivalries, fitting the cliché about throwing out the records for the season, because this game was all that mattered. At least until the two met for the second time, in the other city. You could climb into your car in one town and be at the arena in the other in 20 minutes, but they were separated by much more in attitude.

In my 30 years covering all levels of hockey for the Minneapolis Tribune, one of my passions was to set aside the North Stars, the Gophers and all else going on in the world in those weeks when my calendar had the Tuesday circled to designate the next game between the two. I would almost always be road-testing a new vehicle for my auto column that week, and I would often be joined by an eager passenger — often Herb Brooks, when he was coaching the Gophers.

One year when Roseau beat Warroad to come to the state tournament, I remember talking to someone from Warroad and remarking that I was sure everybody in Warroad could set aside the animosity of their rivalry and pull for Roseau to win the state title. “Are you kidding?” he answered instantly. “No way! We don’t want to have to listen to them gloat for a year.”

Sure enough, another year when Warroad won the Region 8 berth in the state tournament, Roseau fans who had season tickets renewed annually for the state tournament had the same response. No way would they cheer for the little town of 1,700, located 20 miles East on Hwy. 11. Regional pride was no competition for the intensity of their rivalry.

After the high school league split hockey into two divisions, and Roseau chose to move up and play with the larger AA schools, I was surprised when Warroad stayed in Class A. Justification can be found in the reasoning that when the state first split into two tiers in 1992, and then revised it to Classes AA and A in 1994, Warroad had never won a state title while Roseau had five big trophies in their arena trophy case. Warroad won the first Class A state title in 1994. The decision guaranteed Warroad an almost annual trip to the state tournament, where, having done well against many AA schools all season, they often would beat other Class A teams by double-digit scores.

But the annual games between Roseau and Warroad remained classics, regardless of class designation. In fact, it might have increased the rivalry because both towns knew they wouldn’t meet again in sectional play.

Driving from the Twin Cities to Warroad is 355 miles and about a 7-hour epic, leaving room to stop for a quick lunch along the way. We’d usually take various alternatives north from the Twin Cities, winding up on Hwy. 72 Northward through the scenic fir forests up to Baudette, to connect with Hwy. 11, where we could head West to Warroad.

By the way, one of the surest ways to tell if you’re talking to a city person or a knowledgeable Minnesotan is to coax them to say the name “Baudette.” If they say “Baw-dette,” which is common phonics, based on the spelling, you know you’ve got the city person. If they say “B’dette” as though the first syllable is replaced by a short-interval apostrophe, you know you’ve got a person who knows the area, or at least has had to choose between Baudette and Warroad when they were heading for Lake of the Woods — the world’s premier walleye fishing lake.

Year after year I would make sure that my schedule worked so that I could cover one of the two Roseau-Warroad games, even trying to alternate towns. Roseau also had a neat old arena, and when they built a new one, they positioned it right next door so they could have two arenas. Also, like Warroad, Roseau gave the youth hockey players full access to the arenas whenever they were available.

One neat aside is that after Neal Broten, then Aaron Broten, and their linemate Butsy Erickson all starred at Roseau and came to play together at Minnesota, and after Neal and Aaron had their long NHL careers, there would be occasional television features on the glorious history of playing hockey on outdoor rinks in Minnesota. Invariably, they would find Neal Broten, and interview him at length, and he would willingly comply.

It always gave me a chuckle, because while he and his brother played a lot of road hockey on the frozen streets of Roseau, they never played hockey outside because they always had access to as much indoor ice as they could use. Brian Bonin skated on a backyard rink his dad made at their White Bear Lake home, all the Duluth hockey players played on outdoor rinks growing up, in Warroad the kids skated on the river or, as Henry Boucha said, on frozen-over ditches alongside roads. But while Neal Broten found it easier to talk around the question than to explain everything about the indoor arena access, the Roseau kids never skated on outdoor rinks.

Warroad star David Christian, Broten’s 1980 Olympic teammate, was the subject of a controversial switch coach Herb Brooks made that paid richly. David had been an outstanding centerman in high school, for Dick Roberts, and at North Dakota, and he later would be an outstanding NHL star as both a center and wing. Brooks, right after naming his team, informed David that he would be shifting back to defense.

The parallel goes back to when Joe Micheletti was the star center for Hibbing’s 1973 state championship team. Brooks recruited him to come to Minnesota, and moved him back to defense, because he always wanted some defensemen who were smart puck-carriers. Micheletti made the switch smoothly, and wound up as standout NHL defenseman who might not have had the same impact as a forward.

In Christian’s case, he not only made the switch smoothly, but he was often Team USA’s best defenseman in the Lake Placid games, playing with great precision against the best players the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Finland could send at him. When the year was over, David moved back up to forward and, again, made the transition smoothly to NHL stardom.

After the Olympics, I interviewed David Christian about the magnitude of beating the Soviet Union. We had a great conversation, but he didn’t say too much, and he always had this wry little grin on his face, reminiscent of his Uncle Roger. Suddenly it hit me. There was no pressure on the Mark Paveliches, or Mark Johnsons, or Billy Bakers, or the Neal Brotens, or the David Christians.

In David Christian’s case, it was not the huge challenge of facing the Soviets, it was the same as if he was in college, or high school, or on the Warroad Bantams, or in one of the near-daily pickup games he might play. He was going to play the best he could, every shift, to win that game, because it was the game he was going to play at that time of that day. It didn’t matter who the opponent was.

You can take the boy out of Warroad, but you can’t take Warroad out of the boy.

It’s worth a trip to Warroad to witness development of that attitude, but check ahead for the date when Roseau comes to The Garden (Tuesday, Jan. 30). As with numerous other home games, there might be 2,500 fans jammed into that arena on game night. Not bad, considering capacity is 1,800, and also not bad, considering the town’s population is 1,700.

The post THE RIVALRY appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.