Editor’s note: Below is American News manging news-sports editor John Papendick’s column about Sunday’s state girls’ varsity hockey championship. Above at the very top of his blog is the photos he took at the state title games. Enjoy.
For the second morning in a row, I find myself writing my column for the next day’s newspaper at 5 a.m.
It is like South Dakota SportsCenter around here, 24/7. Especially from December through March. Still, 5 in the morning is a great time to write a sports columns — or milk your cows. At that time of the morning, my mind is still fresh and focused on the event I want to write about, which today is girls’ hockey.
I am very fortunate. I have a wife who loves sports. Sometimes, she hops in the truck with me to go to a game. I love when that happens. She gets me, but please, don’t hold that against her.
On Sunday, we ventured to Sioux Center, Iowa, home of Arend Wassink farms, Super Soybeans, Joe’s (sand business, I think. Again, I am just going by what the signs were saying), Dordt College and the 2010 South Dakota girls’ varsity state hockey tournament.
Yes, settle in. This story may take a while to tell.
It all started about this time of year in 2009. The young Aberdeen girls’ hockey team had just finished as state runners-up to Brookings. When I read that story in our newspaper the following morning, I thought to myself that if the Aberdeen girls made it to the championship game next year, we would have to try to get there to cover it.
Three weeks ago, our friends at the Argus Leader called. These days, so many events are going on, newspapers help each other — another column for another day. The Argus needed help covering an event and wondered if they could use our photos and game stories of an upcoming two-day event in Aberdeen. No problem, I said, but I would like them to cover the state girls’ hockey tourney championship game in Sioux Falls if Aberdeen was in it. No problem, they said.
Then, the ice-making machine broke in Sioux Falls. The tournament was moved 60 miles southeast of Sioux Falls to Sioux Center.
Problem.
Still, I had to go. The Aberdeen girls were having one of the best seasons in the history of hockey in South Dakota thanks in large part to seniors Angelina Gould, Liz Goltz, Abby Taffe and Nicole Karst. The team scored a jaw-dropping 247 goals this season, won the league with a 21-0 record and had beaten some of the best teams in the Midwest as the Cougars entered the state tourney with a sparkling 33-1 record.
I knew this group was something special. And it is.
Brookings scored with four minutes left in the game to defeat Aberdeen 1-0 Sunday. It was incredible hockey played by incredible teams.
It had high drama, heart-stopping intensity and tremendous athleticism. Your Aberdeen girls played their hearts out, and you would have been so proud of them.
It was not only by far the best hockey game I have ever seen but one of the best athletic events I have ever seen. These two teams of girls played state-championship-caliber hockey from the second the first puck was dropped until the final horn sounded.
To keep the caliber that high for that long under the pressure of a state championship game was an awesome thing to watch. Aberdeen had about 150 fans at the game compared to Brookings’ 75 or so, but I wished this game would have been played in front of one of Aberdeen’s well-known big wrestling, basketball or football crowds.
You all would have loved it. But sometimes, your newspaper is meant to be your eyes and ears. So let me share some details of the game with you:
I have never seen two goalies, Karst of Aberdeen and Cayleah Friedrich of Brookings, play like they did in the same game. Aberdeen had 41 shots on goal, Brookings, 27. The game score should have been 25-24, but the lightning fast hockey puck didn’t have a chance against the likes of those two goalies. From now on, when I read about Karst, I will think Superwoman — faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Goltz made about a thousand great plays for Aberdeen. She made three or four long, mind-blowing, picture-perfect passes across the ice.
Look up the definition of tough athlete. You’ll find a picture of the Cougars’ Abbie Drees. What an athlete she is.
The kind of pressure that Cougar teammates Taffe and Gould put on an opponents’ goalie is insane. These two are a goalie’s worst nightmare in duplicate. They not only make great decisions and can skate with the best of them, the way they can at top speeds delicately maneuver the puck with their sticks is like watching a masterpiece being created. Each scored more than 50 goals and had more than 60 assists this year to lead the state in scoring.
After the heart-breaking loss, the Aberdeen girls showed why they deserve their champion label off, as well as on, the ice. As soon as the final horn sounded, they endured watching Brookings celebrated — deservedly so. Helmets, pads, sticks and various other hockey gear were flying as the Rangers skated to a victorious dog pile in front of their net. Brookings players then changed into their pre-printed state championship T-shirts. A couple of minutes later, the teams exchanged handshakes and congratulatory hugs.
By all sportsmanship standards, that probably was enough. I don’t think anyone would have blamed the Aberdeen girls if they had retreated to the locker room. But they didn’t. They watched and clapped as Brookings collect its championship hardware.
The game had ended, but the championship character continued.
After the game, as my wife was pulling out of the Vernon Ice Arena parking lot in her official Team USA Olympic stocking cap, she was almost in tears.
“I feel so sad for the Aberdeen girls. That was my first hockey game, and if I never see another one, I’ve probably have seen the best one ever played.”
All her veteran newspaper, always-stay-neutral, tough-as-nails husband could do was stop typing his game story — which he was doing on the company computer atop the Papendick family kitchen cutting board on his lap in the passenger side of their truck.
All this guy of thousands of words daily could say, while trying to hold back his own tears, was, “You’re right, you’re absolutely right.”
John Papendick is the managing news-sports editor for the American News. Readers tell and e-mail him with stuff plus he reads all the daily newspapers in South Dakota on a daily basis. Reach him at jpapendick@aberdeennews.com. His blog: my605.com/sports.
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