The timing wasn’t perfect when St. Cloud Cathedral’s athletic director Emmett Keenan learned he needed to find a new hockey coach for the upcoming season.

But there was another void St. Cloud Cathedral High School needed to fill when Eric Johnson stepped down from his coaching position. It was July and the school needed to replace Johnson’s teaching position as well.

Luckily, the guy who inquired about the coaching vacancy was also interested in taking Johnson’s spot in the classroom, teaching American History.

“It was the right time in my life to make a move and I don’t regret it at all,” said Cathedral’s first-year coach Derrick Brown.“I’d never taught (American History) but it was an area I wanted to teach.”

Brown, Luverne’s boys' hockey coach for six years, interviewed for each position and was awarded both.

Growing up in Milaca, Brown played hockey at Princeton, an hour east of St. Cloud.

“The difficult timing of it was, it was in the summertime and a lot of teachers had already signed contracts for the next year,” said Keenan.

“Fortunately, Luverne was willing to let Derrick out of his contract when we decided we wanted to make him our hockey coach and have him teach social studies.”

Year 1 in St. Cloud has seen its challenges as Brown acclimates to his new players, but the team is 13-6, ranked in the top 10 in Class 1A and is competing for one of the top seeds in Section 6.

The Crusaders, ranked eighth in Class 1A, had won eight out of their last nine games going back to Dec. 18, before it fell 7-4 to No. 4-1A Mahtomedi Tuesday in St. Cloud.

“I think (Brown) is going to take our program in the right direction,” said senior defenseman Trevor Cornelius, who recorded a hat trick in the loss for the Crusaders.

“He’s a younger coach with a lot of good ideas. He’s always willing to talk about hockey, school or anything in life.”

In St. Cloud Cathedral’s situation, playing in a three-team conference (Granite Ridge), the Crusaders are forced to take on the type of schedule an independent team would play.

That affords Brown the opportunity to fill up the schedule with Class 1A’s toughest opponents.

“It’s really prepping us for the playoffs,” Brown said. “Other than Hibbing, we’ve played the top five teams in Class 1A.

“Luverne’s location is an obstacle. You just weren’t going to get teams to drive three hours to play you. Cathedral has built up a little more credibility and Luverne is getting there.”

Brown finished his six-year run in Luverne with a 122-36-5 record and was named Class 1A Coach of the Year in 2014 when he led the Cardinals to the state tournament.

He coached multiple players from Luverne who have made the junior level, and Jaxon Nelson, a sophomore forward scoring machine for the Cardinals, who played as an eighth-grader and has committed to the University of Minnesota.

“What I liked is that he went to Luverne, took a program that wasn’t great and built it into a state tournament team,” Keenan said. “We felt he had put in his time there and was ready to take the next step.”

That’s what attracted Keenan to the idea of bringing in Brown. Moving closer to home and a new challenge made the St. Cloud Cathedral job (or jobs) too hard to pass up.

“It was a tough decision,” Brown said. “Luverne hockey was the best thing that ever happened to me. It allowed me to coach great kids and the parents did a wonderful job.

“I just went with my gut feeling.”

First Report

Tommy Strelow's hat trick paced Mahtomedi to a 7-4 win over St. Cloud Cathedral Tuesday night.

Joe Forciea added a goal and two assists for the Zephyrs, ranked No. 5 in Class 1A by Let's Play Hockey, who improve to 13-5 overall. Mahtomedi goaltender Will Swanson made 29 saves.

The Zephyrs led 4-0 in the second period before Cathedral's Trevor Cornelius scored the first of his three goals.

The No. 8-1A Crusaders (13-6) cut the deficit to 4-2 early in the third period before Mahtomedi scored twice to put the game out of reach.

Jake Levinski made 27 saves for the Crusaders.

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