Third trip to state hockey sets Blake seniors apart
By Nick Clark
Sun Newspapers
March 13, 2008
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Getting to St. Paul and the Xcel Energy Center for Class A state tournament hasn't been a problem for the Blake boys hockey team the past three years.
However, finding a way to stay in the capital city has been.
In each of the past two state tournaments, Blake met up with small-school powerhouse Duluth Marshall, and the Hilltoppers disposed of the Bears in both of those quarterfinal match-ups.
This year, it was St. Cloud Cathedral that sent Blake packing for Minneapolis and Mariucci Arena, home of the Class A consolation round.
The Crusaders upended Blake 3-1 last Wednesday in the nightcap at Xcel Energy Center.
The Bears would then lose to Little Falls the following morning 5-0, ending their year. But, it's where they ended it that Blake was taking about when it was over.
"Getting to the state tournament is such a big deal, and that's what we'll take out of this," said senior captain Jack Barnes, who set up Josh Birkholz for the Bears only goal in their two tournament games.
"Every year you learn more and more that a state championship is quite an accomplishment, but winning a section title is right up there."
Barnes would know. He's been a part of each of the last three, as have a number of the seniors in Blake's lineup.
Including Barnes, nine seniors helped get this team to its third state tournament.
That group vaulted the Bears into a tie with Breck for the fourth-most among Class A schools, since the small school was added in 1994.
More impressively, the three straight trips is a streak matched by only six other schools in Class A history.
Considering 42 teams have skated in the tournament over the past 14 years, that's pretty good. And it's a mark that made it easier for the group to swallow the two losses it suffered in last week's tournament.
"We certainly celebrated all of the seniors on our senior night towards the end of the season, and that is a good chance to reflect upon their contributions, of which they have had many," said head coach John Hamre. "The younger players certainly respect and see the traditions that they've been a part of, and those seniors passed the torch on to the younger players now in the program."
That said, the senior class, and the team as whole, was visibly disappointed with how this year's state tournament played out, especially early.
Just 1 minute, 6 seconds into the Bears quarterfinal match-up with St. Cloud Cathedral, junior Nick Brunette went down after a violent knee-to-knee collision with one of the Crusaders.
Brunette, who was Blake's second-leading scorer heading into the tournament, never returned, and he watched the Bears consolation semifinal loss to Little Falls while holding himself up on crutches.
Hamre said Brunette was going to get an MRI performed late last week, and the coach admitted the junior's presence in the lineup was missed.
"Every stride we talked about taking for Nick's behalf," Hamre said. "Certainly it affects our team. He's a key to a lot of parts of how our team plays the game He's a warrior that would lay it on the line for his teammates, so we tried to play the game thinking that every shift was for his behalf, and that would inspire us."
Added Barnes, "No excuses, but losing Nick really impacted our team. His first shift, he goes down, and we had to change our lines, change a lot. We had some stuff going, and I feel like we had a lot of success in sections because every guy is maybe only so good, but we have lines that when all three guys were out, they played better than if they were on different lines. We lost that after Nick went out."
Whether that cost the Bears both games in the tournament will never be known, but the one thing that was acknowledged when it was done was that Blake played a pair of teams that know what they are doing.
St. Cloud Cathedral ended up placing fourth in the tournament, losing in overtime to Warroad in the third-place game, and Little Falls went on to capture the tournament's consolation championship with a win over Mankato West.
The Flyers, who lost their quarterfinal game to St. Thomas Academy 5-3, were also the only team in the field to give the eventual state champion Cadets a game, as STA outscored Little Falls, St. Cloud Cathedral and Duluth Marshall 19-6 on the way to the school's second Class A state championship.
"We played two very good teams, so I give them credit for their game and execution," Hamre said. "As a coach and an athlete you look in the mirror and you take responsibility, and in a competitive sense, we didn't play well enough in those two games to win the games. You give credit to the opposing teams, they did good jobs, and I am proud of how our guys played these two days, it just wasn't enough."
Reprinted with permission Sun Newspapers
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