East Side Hockey, the Govies, and the Miracle on Ice

This time of year as the weather turns cold and it's halfway through the football season, I find myself thinking about hockey. Unfortunately, living out here in the Pacific Northwest, there isn't much in the way of hockey games short of traveling north to Canada to see the Canucks. Basketball and soccer are more popular in western Washington. But oh for those glory days of high school hockey in St. Paul!

I was raised on hockey, or at least on skates. In high school my mom belonged to the St. Paul Figure Skating Club, and my dad volunteered to man their record player during rehearsals at the old St. Paul Auditorium so he could spend more time with her. And they were both avid fans of Johnson High School's hockey team. This was back during Johnson's reign as a dominating power in the Minnesota state hockey tournament. The Govies won the tournament in my parents' senior year, having finished second against Eveleth in their sophomore year.

Coach Rube Gustafson and the 1963 Johnson High School Hockey Team, State Tournament Winners (photo courtesy of Vintage Minnesota Hockey)

For two decades the hockey team at St. Paul Johnson literally dominated the state tournament, with most of their battles being against teams from the Range. In fact, in their first win (1947) they bested Roseau, the team who had won the year before. If you don't believe Johnson was a major hockey power in those days, consider this:

In the two decades between their first win (1947) and their last final four appearance (1968), the Johnson High hockey team posted these placements:

• Four first place finishes

• Three second place finishes

• Three third place finishes

• Two fourth place finishes

That's twelve spots in the top four in 21 years! Not a bad record.

I think I was destined to be a Johnson Governors' hockey fanatic. They won the tournament the year I was born (1955). Sadly, their last win was in 1963 against International Falls, the first tournament game that went into overtime. The team was coached by Rube Gustafson then, and his assistant was Lou Cotroneo, who would later go on to be head coach, as he was when I was there. On the team that year were two names that would later repeat in the 70s - Rob Shattuck and George Peltier. Paul Shattuck played in my day, and it seemed like there were always Peltiers on the ice. (You can read more about the history of the state tournament and the Governors on Minnesota Vintage Hockey.)

But those glorious days were coming to an end. The following year was their last appearance in the final four. But when I started high school at Johnson in the fall of 1970, the memories of those recent wins were still fresh in people's minds, and Johnson's hockey team continued to dominate the St. Paul Conference. Back in those days our biggest conference foe was Harding High School, and I can say with great relish they never posted a state tournament win. And Coach Cotroneo took care of the guys on his team, despite their struggles to regain their former winning status. I saw a news clip recently where some of his former players would meet with him for breakfast on a regular basis. They were like family to him. What I remember of Lou is that he had a passion for the game and a big heart for his players.

I think I may have cut my teeth on the ice rink. When I was small, in the winter my parents (who had an upstairs apartment on Frank and Duluth), would pull me in a sled down to the playground at Duluth and Case, so my mom could skate. I had skates with double runners, and I think I could barely walk before she had me out on the ice. I was hooked. But I also remember being fascinated at the noise coming from the area on the other side of the rink surrounded by a wood fence. That's where the boys played hockey. (Back in those days there were no girls' hockey teams. And even when I reached high school, despite our efforts to get a girls' team going, the females had to settle for being hockey cheerleaders or play broomball. Broomball it was. And the sports section of the school yearbook and newspaper.)

At Johnson I was part of the journalism staff for two years; my senior year I was co-editor of the Governor and the Courier, and I handled the sports section in addition to others. I might not have been able to play hockey, but my status as editor got me passes to practices and games as well as interviews and photo sessions with the players. What can I say - I was a hockey addict! And just maybe that devotion was part of what got our yearbook national awards. I'd like to think that was it!

My first real date was a Johnson High School hockey game at Aldrich Arena. I wasn't yet 16, so my parents weren't real keen on the idea of dating. But it WAS a Governors hockey game after all, so I think that's what swayed them. That and the fact they were chauffeurs and chaperones that night. Fortunately my date and I were allowed to sit a couple of rows down from them so it wasn't quite so obvious that I was on a double date with my mom and dad. Being out on my first date in full view of half my high school was bad enough. Aldrich Arena wasn't heated in those days, and so thankfully I could pass off my blushing cheeks as being from the cold and not embarrassment!

My most cherished hockey memory ever, though, was sitting at the head table with Herb Brooks at our high school lettermen's banquet in the spring of 1973. I was attending the honors dinner in dual function, having received a letter in tennis (only one of two females to do so ever in Johnson's history) as well as being asked to introduce our speaker in my role as sports editor. Herb was a Johnson graduate who had played hockey there in high school and later came back as coach after college. (He had been on the Johnson the hockey team that won the state tournament win the year I was born.) Somehow I felt the stars were all aligned and that hockey was my destiny.

(In an interesting twist of fate, I learned recently that the house my husband and I bought on Ivy in 1991 just up the hill from Johnson High was just a few doors away from the duplex on Payne and Ivy that was Herb Brooks' childhood home. He was only two years younger than my parents, so they would have gone to Johnson together. They may have even known each other. Unfortunately there's no one alive left to ask, but it is intriguing to think about.)

By this time Herb had moved on from high school hockey to coach the team at the University of Minnesota. I had followed Herb to the U of M and cheered on the Gophers during many games in Mariucci Arena. He took them to the winner's podium in the national championship in 1979, just two years after I graduated. And just one year later, on February 22, 1980, he would lead the U.S. Olympic hockey team to its epic win over the Soviet team. Twelve of the 20 players on that team were Minnesota native sons, and 9 of them had been Gopher players coached by Brooks. The Olympic win was essentially another championship for the Gopher hockey team. (Johnson High came close to being part of that moment in history. Les Auge, a former Governor hockey player, was the last one to be cut from the team. He was playing for the U when I attended.)

That game became known as "the Miracle On Ice," and the Lake Placid arena where the game was played was later fittingly renamed the Herb Brooks Arena. I remember sitting in a bar in Bloomington watching that game. I still love hockey - it's my favorite sport. I tried to get my husband, a Kentucky native, to catch on when we first moved to Minnesota in the late 1980s, but he had a hard time grasping the rules. I gave up trying to educate him about icing and why it wasn't a good game unless there was a little blood on the ice. I tried to explain why the refs let the fights on the rink go on for a few seconds but when the gloves hit the ice the players hit the penalty boxes. Hubby prefers basketball and he thinks his wife is just a little weird because I think the fighting is part of the appeal of the game. And even though he didn't understand why it was so important, he found the money in our budget when I insisted our son had to play youth hockey when we lived in Duluth.

Until I moved out of state in 1980, I regularly attended games at the U and an occasional state tournament game for good measure. I lived out in Bloomington and was a regular at North Star home games. A friend knew some of the players on the upstart 'other' professional league and tried hard to support the St. Paul Fighting Saints since he got free passes frequently. And then I had the misfortune to live in places where hockey was relatively rare, so I had to settle for TV games. I moved back to St. Paul in late 1988, but eight years later the Stars got sold, and Minnesota went without an NHL team until the Wild played their first game in the 2000-2001 season. My grandson is an ardent Wild supporter, attending his first game at the ripe old age of 4. Rink-side seats (a gift from Grandpa and Grandma) made him a fan for life, I think.

Minnesota hockey still gets me going. I have fond memories of sitting in that cold auditorium in St. Paul for many games. I have a good friend from the Iron Range who still lives in Minnesota and shares the links on who gets voted in for Mr. Hockey Hair. Another friend is a White Bear Lake alum who delights in letting me know who is in the tournament each year ("Not Johnson," he always says).

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Update: Since I published this article, the Seattle area has since acquired an NFL hockey team, and the Kraken hit the ice in October of 2021. As a part of the expansion draft, they acquired a Minnesota Wild player. I have yet to see a game in person, but I do watch them occasionally on TV. And my husband has become more interested in the sport. We even went to a bar last year together to watch some of the Stanley Cup games, so I figure there is hope for him!