They hadn't been to the NCAA final in 27 years, that amazing yet agonizing 4OT loss to Bowling Green in Lake Placid. Since then they've been WCHA fodder, that OTHER Minnesota team, two and a half hours north of the Twin Cities.
Duluth, a town that lost it's mining industry and tried to reinvent itself as a tourist destination, can be a city of hard times. It's an amazing hockey town whose University has boasted dozens of quality NHL players, like Tom Kurvers and Chico Resch and Brett Hull. But they have never won the big one, while the Golden Gophers to the south have grabbed the brass ring 5 times. It's enough to make the locals think they would never win it.
Duluth born Phil Hoene, a high school whiz that played for Duluth in the 70's before earning a 3-year stint in the NHL, never lost faith. "I knew they'd win it eventually...through I remember the OT loss to Bowling Green, the puck hit something on a dump-in and ended up in front of the net and it was over."
Twin Cities Sportscaster and Duluth native Jim Rich was losing faith over the years.
"I was there in 1984 when the Bulldogs and Bowling Green played the longest national championship game in NCAA History. The game went into the 4th overtime before the Falcons eventually skated away with the title. The next year, the Bulldogs were back (in the NCAA's), but this time they lost in triple OT to eventual national champion, RPI. Then it began to cross my mind, were thess Duluth’s only chances?
"The program began to regress; making the NCAA’s became a tougher task. UMD got back to the Frozen Four, but once again lost in OT..this time to Boston College."
Rich never said it, but as a former Bostonian I had to wonder, was this team cursed? Would they ever get out of the Gopher's shadow?
Kyle Schmidt, the only Duluth player who did not dye his hair blonde for the post season--an imminent wedding was the justification--put away a valiant Michigan squad in the first OT. Schmidt is a resident of Hermantown, a suburb 10 miles west of Duluth, but he will be a Duluthian in their hearts forever now. You always remember your first.
Duluth product John Burke, a former beer league teammate of Hoene's and now an elite PGA caddie checked in with SportsRap. "I choked on my dinner when he scored the OT goal (to beat Michigan). I remember that s*** feeling when they lost to Bowling Green in 4OT's like it was yesterday."
Burke was soon on the phone with Mark Heaslip, Duluth native and UMD alum who played 117 games in The Show. "We just got rid of 50 years of ghosts," said an elated Heaslip to Burke.
Insiders refer often to the Hockey Gods, the arbiters of "puck luck." Overtime in single elimination cannot be survived without some good fortune. At the 2011 NCAA Hockey final, either Michigan would win their 10th title and coach Red Berenson his third, or the hockey nation of Duluth could finally puff out their chest. The Gods smiled on Duluth, a town that doesn't get a lot of sunshine. In the hometown of the Minnesota Gophers, the Duluth hockey nation finally got their taste of immortality.
"You feel so light," said Hoene. "No one can take this away from you. It felt like 1980 and the Miracle on Ice."
Jim Rich checks in one last time with an observation from the Xcel Center.
"Perhaps the sight that symbolized it all, was while the Bulldogs were celebrating on the ice of the Xcel Energy Center, up in the suite level, former UMD Athletic Director and star player, now WCHA Commissioner Bruce McLeod was the only one left, looking down smiling as the school he worked so hard to get to the top, finally was there.”
