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Minneapolis team goes from upstart to state tournament contender

By DAVID LA VAQUE, Star Tribune, 02/07/22, 11:15AM CST

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Coach Joe Dziedzic said this is the most hockey-focused group he has seen in his 10 years at the helm.


Jack Hanson (19), his skills honed in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League, stickhandled away from Breck’s Nate Miller during a recent game. Photos by JEFF WHEELER, Star Tribune

Alex Lamont skated with his Minneapolis varsity hockey teammates two years ago on an outdoor rink at Parade Stadium, surrounded by television cameras on Hockey Day Minnesota, the downtown skyline in the background.

The game was unforgettable for the players, but it came during a losing season. This year, Lamont and his teammates are building one of the best campaigns in recent program history. A Minneapolis team without a nickname, drawing players from public schools within the city, holds a 16-4-1 record and Class 1A’s No. 5 ranking in the latest Let’s Play Hockey coaches’ poll.

The team is situated better than any recent predecessor to put Minneapolis back in the state tournament for the first time since 1994.

Hockey Day Minnesota is a chance to make lasting memories. The state tournament, however, is every young puck chaser’s dream.

“Being there on Hockey Day Minnesota, standing on the ice when it’s snowing — that’s kind of sick, I’m not going to lie,” said Lamont, a senior goaltender. “But that was just one game. This season, we’ve got a chance to accomplish even more. It’s definitely more satisfying.”

Led by the largest group of hockey-centric players coach Joe Dziedzic said he has seen in his decade at the helm, Minneapolis leads Section 2 with a 6-1-1 record. The team gained attention for January victories on the road against Delano and Orono, teams that repeatedly have eliminated Minneapolis in the postseason.

“Before it was, ‘Let’s skate with them. Let play with them.’ It was winning small battles instead of winning the overall war, for sure,” junior defenseman Drew Pitts said. “Guys would come into the locker room happy if we were playing a team like Delano and we were only down 1-0.”

Said senior forward Zander Zoia: “It’s always been, ‘We can beat these guys,’ but we didn’t really believe it. We didn’t have that real heart and drive to win. This year, we have those things.”

Approach changes

More rigorous training transformed players’ self-worth on the ice. Zoia is one of about a dozen Minneapolis players who train at MAP (Minnesota Advancement Program) Hockey’s South or West campuses. Brothers Jack and Joel Hanson participated in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League last fall. Lamont works with Pete Samargia, a former goalie for the Gophers and Augsburg, at Attitude Goaltending.

Battling alongside players from traditional suburban power programs raised not only the city boys’ level of play but their confidence as well.

“The guys coming through treat hockey more like the big private schools do,” Pitts said. “They are really serious.”

During the season, players with higher levels of hockey intelligence are turning what were once more basic practices into honors classes.

“I’ve got kids asking questions at a more advanced level,” said Dziedzic, the 1990 Mr. Hockey Award winner out of Edison High School who later played for the Gophers and in the National Hockey League. “You can skip over some of the more simple things and work on different drills. It’s more satisfying as a coach because they are so engaged in wanting to become better hockey players.”

Oftentimes after practice, players satiate their hockey hunger by playing on backyard rinks, ponds or playgrounds.

“These guys aren’t just one-hour hockey players,” Dziedzic said.

Where it starts

Players’ higher expectations owe in part to improvements at the youth level. Minneapolis Hockey Association Board President Tim Hanson said his group has become “more intentional about better programming” to players from younger ages. Since 2009, the numbers of combined boys’ and girls’ players grew from fewer than 400 to more than 750.

Retention is a continuing challenge. Hanson said about 45% of those youth players are enrolled in surrounding private schools from the time they are in elementary school. Handfuls of those players elect to play hockey for private high school varsity programs each year.

Tim Hanson hopes the success of Minneapolis this season convinces future players to stay with the program into high school. Hockey is available to skaters in all seven Minneapolis public high schools, though most players hail from Southwest and Washburn.

“It’s easier to get kids excited when we can say, ‘Look at them. They played here growing up,’ ” he said.

Minneapolis is close to locking up a No. 1 or 2 seed for the Section 2 playoffs. The past eight seasons, the team never drew better than a No. 4 seed and never won a semifinal game. Just like on Hockey Day Minnesota, eyes throughout the state’s largest city will be on this team. 

“We’re held to a certain expectation now that we know we have this capability to do these things,” Lamont said. “Compared to other years, where we had to hunt teams instead of being the team people tried hunting down.”

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