CATBIRD SEAT: The state of hockey in Cloquet

[kniven]

first realized how important the story we did last week on the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton hockey classification was when I looked at my Twitter feed.

The Pine Journal’s story had been picked up by @followthepuck, the Twitter feed for the statewide hockey website of the same name. Only, the Pine Journal wasn’t the website to which I was directed. It was the Grand Forks Herald, which told me something.

When the CEC hockey programs think about changing classes, it’s evidently news in North Dakota.

So, let’s take a moment to consider this.

Cloquet School Board member Jim Crowley, who by every account I’ve ever seen and in every personal experience I’ve ever had with him is a thoroughly decent human being, asked Activities Director Tom Lenarz to poll the players and parents as to whether the programs should drop to Class A to bring them in line with Minnesota State High School League enrollment guidelines.


Crowley’s argument was that dropping to Class A would give more Cloquet athletes (and of course, those in the program from Esko and Carlton) a better chance to compete at the state tournament.


The girls’ program was polled first, and elected to stay in Class AA. The boys’ program, to the best of my knowledge, would rather die than drop.


I’m here to say that this is a good thing.


I tried to reach Crowley for this article but was not able to speak with him before deadline. He’s a sports parent, and as such understands the competitive element.


But when I talked with boys Coach Dave Esse last week, he struck the right note. He said that it isn’t always about getting to State.


In the early 1990s, the MSHSL wrecked the best thing going, which was the one-class state hockey tournament. Back then, it wasn’t about getting everyone to State, and the result was the most amazing state tournament anywhere in the nation. It still is — the boys state hockey tournament is the best-attended high school sports event in the United States.


But now it crowns two champions. Longtime readers of this column know my feelings about that.


For the MSHSL, it’s all about sportsmanship, unless you happen to be named Kailee Kiminski.


Esse said it best: He’d rather go to State once every 10 or 12 years and beat the best than go more often and beat lesser programs.


The fact that Duluth East is now the seven-time defending Section 7AA champion tends to put a damper on other kids going to State, but that really raises the bar for them rather than punishes them. Elk River had a marvelous team this season — in fact, one of the highest-scoring offenses in the state — but they couldn’t knock the Greyhounds from their perch. That’s something to shoot for, not something to run away from.


One of the arguments used before the school board was that the combined enrollment of the schools of 1,070 was one of the smallest in the top classes. Yet Duluth Marshall, with a 9-12 enrollment of 268 students, has opted up to Class AA for the next two years, and it’s quite arguable that the best program in the area is not Duluth East’s but Hermantown’s, with a 9-12 enrollment of 615.


Now, you can argue that Marshall as a private school has an advantage because they draw from other schools’ feeder programs instead of having one of their own. And that’s why I’ve argued in the past that all private schools should either have to opt up or have their own state tournament as a simple fairness issue. Yet Marshall, which was once the laughingstock of the Duluth hockey community after losing 21-1 to a Dave Spehar-led East team, did it the hard way. They got better. Much better. And now they are moving up.


The argument is also that Hermantown should move up too, and I’m one that subscribes to that theory too. Clearly they have nothing left to prove in Class A, and should they win the state tournament this week they will simply reinforce that point.


But good programs can be built with small student bodies.


Enrollment isn’t the issue. Hard work and pride in the product is, and the CEC programs have that in spades. Both of them. It would be a crying shame if they dropped down.


And if they ever did, it would even be news in North Dakota.