Reflections on the 2012 Tournament
Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:26 am
As we wrap up another season, I decided it’s time that I offer up a longer than usual reflection on the Tournament, for whatever it may be worth. So, here you go:
I write an awful lot about hockey, but a weekend in the press box showed me that I’m still very much on the fringes of the high school hockey media. While I felt perfectly comfortable up there, chatting easily with the guys who invited me in or the Benilde-St. Margaret’s student media, I’m still closer in age to the players than I am to most members of the press. Most of them were hard at work, with no time for some detached college kid who moderates a forum in his spare time.
Still, my time in the press box made my annual weekend of vicarious living that much more profound. It gave me a front row seat to the tournament’s pageantry and roller coaster of emotion. I would say it was a fantastic tournament, but that doesn’t seem quite right; even the most boring tournament is still a fun experience. And with a host of upsets and an individual performance for the ages in the closing act, there will be plenty to remember from 2012. It’s not often we see an upset ranked among the greatest of all time, or hear of a player’s name being thrown around with that of Dave Spehar, but both happened in the past few days.
We can’t pretend the more unsavory or controversial aspects of the Tourney don’t exist. The penalty time changes led to increased scrutiny of the referees, and the success of several private schools prompted plenty of debate, though thankfully the often shrill cries directed at St. Thomas Academy found themselves a witty, clever spokesman in Bruce Plante. Bruce brought some much-needed color to a fairly predictable Class A tournament, though there is plenty to appreciate in the feisty effort of a team like Thief River or the crisp efficiency of St. Thomas, whatever one may think of such wildly opposite schools fighting for the same title.
In Class AA it was the year of the upset, as the top seeds all went tumbling down to Mariucci. It was the deepest field in recent memory, yet the superior talent on the state’s top three was no match for Blake Heinrich’s hits, a brick wall named Michael Bitzer, or a Lakeville South team that played the perfect game. In the end we were left with two Catholic schools, but no anti-private bias could keep away a huge crowd. And with good reason: Bill Lechner’s Hill-Murray teams never cease to entertain with their speed and physical play, and Benilde’s season was almost too storybook to believe, as a dysfunctional December team rallied around the Jack Jablonski tragedy and became March’s miracle-workers.
Ken Pauly, who grew on me as the tournament went on, called it a spiritual experience. He is a fiery coach who takes no shame in ruffling a few feathers. But he never lost sight of what was truly at stake, and knew when to take his hands off and let his players reach their destiny. The end result--Grant Besse, resplendent in glory as he re-wrote the history books--captured Pauly’s panache, and a daring desire not only to win, but to do so with style, not caring what the rest of the world thinks so long as one attains that ecstasy of victory.
People often describe the Tourney as a homage to innocence, which I find somewhat ironic. Any event involving hordes of horny, hormonal teenagers has the potential to stray about as far from innocence as one can get. Those who think the players or fans are pure little saints are deluding themselves. But it’s alright that they’re not perfect. They’re at the point where they cease to be children and head out into the world. It happens gradually; a first drink here, a little love-making there, the arrival of certain new burdens. But there’s also a far more profound moment, when a kid confronts adulthood head on.
I saw it happen on Thursday, as a defeated Jake Randolph made his way out of the post-game press conference. He was absolutely devastated by East’s loss; he couldn’t even string a sentence together, nor could he remember the way back to his own locker room. The loss was more than a hockey game; it was the end of an era for a kid who had devoted his life to a mission. Just like that, it was all over. He was suddenly released from that dream and thrown into the world, and he didn’t know how to react.
Of course it had to happen someday. But that shock, that realization that the little world he’d dedicated himself to for so long, was no more--there is no way to prepare for that. The Benilde players, perhaps, did have some of that awareness; their cozy world was wrenched apart the day Jack Jablonski fell to the ice, and they knew they were a part of something bigger. But for Jake, for whom hockey remained simply hockey, there was no answer. All I could do was clap a hand on his shoulder as he stumbled by. Afterwards I kicked myself for not guiding him back towards his locker room, or offering up a few words of consolation.
So here’s the good news, Jake: the Tourney may be over, but it never really ends. No: you’re going to look back on weeks like this years from now and find that you never really can let go of those memories, or escape the allure this tournament has for so many of us. You lived it, and whether through a reunion with old friends many years down the line or simply in your own memories replaying through your head, you can always bring it back. You have the world before you now, but even though that comfort of the past is gone, you can always lean on it as an essential part of who you are.
Whether your hockey career beyond Duluth East is long and successful or comes to an abrupt halt, you were once free to chase down glory in its purest form, in the name of a community you held dear. Those who have been down that road know the feeling, and the rest of us can only imagine it. And that’s why we’ll all be back next year, ready to see how the next generation tries to balance its joy in the moment and its realization that things are about to change. And so the cycle begins anew, always circling back around; repetitive, but never short on sincerity. The Tournament brings together the traditions of the past, resolves the efforts of the present into an explosion of emotion, and opens up both the promise and the uncertainty of the future. With that sort of foundation, Jake, I suspect you’ll do alright, wherever that future takes you.
I write an awful lot about hockey, but a weekend in the press box showed me that I’m still very much on the fringes of the high school hockey media. While I felt perfectly comfortable up there, chatting easily with the guys who invited me in or the Benilde-St. Margaret’s student media, I’m still closer in age to the players than I am to most members of the press. Most of them were hard at work, with no time for some detached college kid who moderates a forum in his spare time.
Still, my time in the press box made my annual weekend of vicarious living that much more profound. It gave me a front row seat to the tournament’s pageantry and roller coaster of emotion. I would say it was a fantastic tournament, but that doesn’t seem quite right; even the most boring tournament is still a fun experience. And with a host of upsets and an individual performance for the ages in the closing act, there will be plenty to remember from 2012. It’s not often we see an upset ranked among the greatest of all time, or hear of a player’s name being thrown around with that of Dave Spehar, but both happened in the past few days.
We can’t pretend the more unsavory or controversial aspects of the Tourney don’t exist. The penalty time changes led to increased scrutiny of the referees, and the success of several private schools prompted plenty of debate, though thankfully the often shrill cries directed at St. Thomas Academy found themselves a witty, clever spokesman in Bruce Plante. Bruce brought some much-needed color to a fairly predictable Class A tournament, though there is plenty to appreciate in the feisty effort of a team like Thief River or the crisp efficiency of St. Thomas, whatever one may think of such wildly opposite schools fighting for the same title.
In Class AA it was the year of the upset, as the top seeds all went tumbling down to Mariucci. It was the deepest field in recent memory, yet the superior talent on the state’s top three was no match for Blake Heinrich’s hits, a brick wall named Michael Bitzer, or a Lakeville South team that played the perfect game. In the end we were left with two Catholic schools, but no anti-private bias could keep away a huge crowd. And with good reason: Bill Lechner’s Hill-Murray teams never cease to entertain with their speed and physical play, and Benilde’s season was almost too storybook to believe, as a dysfunctional December team rallied around the Jack Jablonski tragedy and became March’s miracle-workers.
Ken Pauly, who grew on me as the tournament went on, called it a spiritual experience. He is a fiery coach who takes no shame in ruffling a few feathers. But he never lost sight of what was truly at stake, and knew when to take his hands off and let his players reach their destiny. The end result--Grant Besse, resplendent in glory as he re-wrote the history books--captured Pauly’s panache, and a daring desire not only to win, but to do so with style, not caring what the rest of the world thinks so long as one attains that ecstasy of victory.
People often describe the Tourney as a homage to innocence, which I find somewhat ironic. Any event involving hordes of horny, hormonal teenagers has the potential to stray about as far from innocence as one can get. Those who think the players or fans are pure little saints are deluding themselves. But it’s alright that they’re not perfect. They’re at the point where they cease to be children and head out into the world. It happens gradually; a first drink here, a little love-making there, the arrival of certain new burdens. But there’s also a far more profound moment, when a kid confronts adulthood head on.
I saw it happen on Thursday, as a defeated Jake Randolph made his way out of the post-game press conference. He was absolutely devastated by East’s loss; he couldn’t even string a sentence together, nor could he remember the way back to his own locker room. The loss was more than a hockey game; it was the end of an era for a kid who had devoted his life to a mission. Just like that, it was all over. He was suddenly released from that dream and thrown into the world, and he didn’t know how to react.
Of course it had to happen someday. But that shock, that realization that the little world he’d dedicated himself to for so long, was no more--there is no way to prepare for that. The Benilde players, perhaps, did have some of that awareness; their cozy world was wrenched apart the day Jack Jablonski fell to the ice, and they knew they were a part of something bigger. But for Jake, for whom hockey remained simply hockey, there was no answer. All I could do was clap a hand on his shoulder as he stumbled by. Afterwards I kicked myself for not guiding him back towards his locker room, or offering up a few words of consolation.
So here’s the good news, Jake: the Tourney may be over, but it never really ends. No: you’re going to look back on weeks like this years from now and find that you never really can let go of those memories, or escape the allure this tournament has for so many of us. You lived it, and whether through a reunion with old friends many years down the line or simply in your own memories replaying through your head, you can always bring it back. You have the world before you now, but even though that comfort of the past is gone, you can always lean on it as an essential part of who you are.
Whether your hockey career beyond Duluth East is long and successful or comes to an abrupt halt, you were once free to chase down glory in its purest form, in the name of a community you held dear. Those who have been down that road know the feeling, and the rest of us can only imagine it. And that’s why we’ll all be back next year, ready to see how the next generation tries to balance its joy in the moment and its realization that things are about to change. And so the cycle begins anew, always circling back around; repetitive, but never short on sincerity. The Tournament brings together the traditions of the past, resolves the efforts of the present into an explosion of emotion, and opens up both the promise and the uncertainty of the future. With that sort of foundation, Jake, I suspect you’ll do alright, wherever that future takes you.