St. Paul Johnson’s Phalen Ice Arena is the home of Herb Brooks.  Brooks played hockey for the East Side association and played hockey for Johnson High School.  Phalen is a small arena that struggles to hold more than 300 people in the lobby, but it has a small town atmosphere and the midst of a Twin Cities area that is the most populous (3.5 million) urban area in the United States.

Last night, there were about 300 fans at the game.  Phalen is old school when it comes to hockey and Johnson hockey games still show the community involvement.  Johnson supporters were all over the rink, most dressed in old Johnson jerseys, doing things fro their team.

The rink area (it has a single sheet), has a nice feature.  Fans standing at the end boards view the game at eye level.  Most other venues look down at the action.  At Phalen, they look slightly up.

It has created a social gathering of Govs’ fans.  They all know each other as they line up along the boards to watch the game and socialize.  As a result, the bleacher seats never fill, the fans are all standing along the boards behind the Govs’ net.

The fans standing only had to remove their hats during the national anthem.  But instead of the national anthem being played, the organizers played Kate Smith singing “God Bless America”. 

There is some hockey history associated with that song in Philadelphia.  The Flyers in the 1970’s had Kate Smith singing that song for the national anthem.  The “Broad Street Bullies” won the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 1975 with her singing at their games.  But that is not the version that was heard by this corner of YHH.

The song was an older recorded version similar to the one introduced by Kate Smith in 1938 on Armistice Day (November 11).  It was introduced as a “peace” song prior to World War II and often sung during World War II to stir America’s resolve to end the war victoriously.  It fits with the atmosphere at Phalen on a winter’s night of hockey.

Like an old Irish brawl

Things started slow last night.  Like John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in the “Quiet Man” it took most of the first period for the two teams to warm to the task at hand, beating an old rival.  Once the niceties were over, a physical game was played all over the ice.  John and Victor took half the movie to decide that.  North St. Paul and Johnson took the first period.

The play was ragged in the opening minutes.  Both teams had nice passes only to lose control of the puck and turn it over to the other team.  Both team had bad passes.  More than once, each team succeeded in passing to open opponent in their zone forcing both goalies (Johnson’s Sam Moberg and North St. Paul’s Steve Orme) to come up with big saves.

Each team drew a single penalty in the opening period.  NSP got the first power play at the10 minute mark, but couldn’t beat the Govs penalty kill.  Johnson got the power play at the 4 minute mark and almost gave up a breakaway shorthanded Polar goal, but the shot went wide.  The period ended in a 0-0 tie.

Everybody Pays

The teams came out of the locker fired up.  The fans paid to come in the door, the players paid on the ice especially in the second period.  On one shift in the period, five good physical checks were thrown, three by Johnson.  The next shift produced three good hits and when the third shift took the ice on the faceoff, one could almost hear someone saying “again”.

There was no eruption of cheers on the hits.  It was expected, it was East Side hockey.  No penalties were called in the second period.

North St. Paul’s Jack Murnane scored in the opening two minutes of the period.  A Polar forward came up with the puck behind the right side of the Govs’ net and fed Murnane open on the weak side.   He beat Johnson’s goalie Sam Moberg’s sliding leg pad save attempt scoring to put the Polars up 1-0.  Justin Oliver and Adam Hildebrandt got the assists.

Two minutes later, the Polars’ Oliver scored again off a melee in front of the Gov’s net to put North St. Paul up 2-0.  This time, Nathan Rubbelke and Travis Zappa got the assist.  And the physical play continued.

At the 11 minute mark, Johnson’s Benny Lyons scored to cut the Polar lead to 2-1.  Justin Howell and Jesse Solheid got the assists.  After that goal, North St.Paul started to control the game and the physical play continued.  More and more of the game was played in the Govs’ zone.  The Govs defense held, but as the second period ended, the Polar forwards were on the edge of breaking down the Johnson defense and totally dominating the game.  The second period ended 2-1 with North St. Paul leading.

Third Period Johnson Blues

Johnson opened the third period trying to change the momentum of the game.  They came out of the locker room and played more aggressive offense, dumping the puck into the Polar corners and sending their wings in low to establish puck control in the Polar zone.  They were having some success and the score was still 2-1 when the Govs took a 5 minute major.

A North St. Paul player slowed going after the puck in the right corner of the Polars’ zone.  He was trying to pick the puck up with his stick and turn back up ice when a trailing Johnson player collided with the Polar driving him head forward into the boards.  No one was injured because the Johnson player had slowed before the collision.  Still he had made enough contact to get the 5 minute major and a game misconduct.  No one booed the penalty.  That penalty took the Govs’ initiative away.

They killed the first two minutes of the major, but could not stop a Justin Oliver breakaway shot.  Justin is one half of the Oliver twins that skate for North St. Paul.  Tyler did not suit up.  Justin had a wicked shot as a peewee.  As a senior, it is a blazing fast shot and he used it to beat one of the top goalies in the state, Moberg, firing the shot from the left faceoff into the upper right corner of the net.  The Polars led 3-1.  Hildebrandt got the assist.  The Govs were still faced with three more minutes on the penalty kill.

The Govs killed the rest of the major penalty and then had to kill another minor penalty called at the 10 minute mark.  In a third period should have been a barnburner, the Govs played shorthanded for seven of the first 9 minutes.  It cost them.  And their fans knew it.  The Govs struggled after that, trying to mount an attack, but the Polars were in control.  After playing the first half of the game even, the Govs were outshot 28-5 (YHH count) in the second half of the game.

The Polars’ Murmane scored an empty net goal for the Polars to end the scoring 4-1.

The Players

The game figured to be a battle between the Oliver twins, North St. Paul’s leading scorers last season and Sam Moberg.  It was disappointing that Tyler Oliver did not suit up.  Moberg is a 6’2” sophomore this season.  As a freshman last year he played every game for Johnson, posting a 8-16-1 record while giving up 3.5 goals a game and stopping 86% of the shots on net.  Last summer, he made the trip to St. Cloud as a Select 15 player resulting in him being considered a top prospect in the state.

For the past few years, Johnson’s youth hockey program has been combined with Como.  The Johnson/Como teams have competed at the peewee A and B levels in District 8.  Last year, the Johnson/Como Devils peewee B team lost to Edina in the peewee B state championship game.

North St. Paul has alternated playing at the peewee A or the peewee B levels.  Two seasons ago, they skated peewee B, last season they skated peewee A, and this season they are skating peewee B again.

In last night’s game, fifteen of the North St. Paul seniors and juniors were on the association’s two 2008-2009 peewee teams.  Eight of the Polar players were on the North St. Paul peewee A team; seven were on the peewee B team.

The Govs had three players off their 2008-2009 peewee B team that season (Benny Lyons, Justin Howell, and Jesse Solhied) and they had Sam Moeberg and five players of players from the Johnson/Como 2010-2011 team.

The Polars’ Oliver Twins (Justin and Tyler) have played Polar hockey from peewee A on up.  They were wings on the Polars’ East Regional Peewee A entry that played at St. Louis Park in March 2009.  Their center was Zach LaValle, one of Hill-Murray’s top players last season.  The twins are fun to watch playing on the ice together.

What’s next?

St. Paul Johnson plays Minneapolis at Parade this Thursday.  North St. Paul (4-1) plays Tartan (5-1) in a key early Classic Suburban Conference game at Tartan on Thursday.

Johnson was selling, game worn, St. Paul Johnson jersey’s at Phalen last night.  Someone wanted me to pick up a couple jerseys.  He said he would wear them and even though he is a south of the Minnesota River hockey fan (Burnsville, Apple Valley, Lakeville).  He said he always like the Govs.  He added, that if Johnson had to eventually drop hockey, he would frame them.

Things change and sometimes no matter what we want, the change can be a disappointment.  The hope here is that his prognostication is wrong.  He wanted me to get #5, Herb Brooks’ number.  All the #5 jerseys were gone.  They should be.