There he was, No. 2, digging a hockey puck out of the wooden bottom of the plexiglass board in the third period.
The first teammate Adam, a wing/forward, looked for was his 9-year old twin brother, wearing No. 8, playing the same position. The night before, Eli (at times also a defenseman) had scored two goals.
“He’s looking for his brother,” said my youngest brother Mark, as the two of us stood in the second floor watching the action on, yes, an Olympic-sized rink with other fans as the Midsota Threat played a more athletic team from Brookings, South Dakota, last Saturday during a youth tournament at Sioux Falls’ Scheels Ice Plex.
At the time Adam dug his stick into the ice, the Threat trailed 6-0. The first goal they allowed came seven seconds into the start of the game. Brookings, which looked a heck of a lot bigger than fourth graders, scored four first-period goals.
The Threat, based in the central Minnesota town of Paynesville, are among 24 Minnesota teams playing AAA Northland hockey. The organization also has squads from the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Missouri, Montana, Wyoming and Manitoba.
Eli’s stick grabbed the puck, but two taller defensemen didn’t give him much space to operate. He passed awkwardly in search of a teammate as the puck turned over.
Like I told Mark, his wife Mary and a few of the Threat parents I had met, this was the first hockey game I had seen for years. The last one, I had covered on March 29, 2019, at Sioux City’s Tyson Events Center as Martin Pospisil scored on Bobby Brink’s third assist of the game at the 3:07 mark of overtime as the Musketeers edged the Tri-City Storm 4-3. I remember the day well because it was my last day of a 17 ½-year stint at the Sioux City Journal.
The Threat gave me an opportunity to actually cheer at a sports event and I thought once, I was going to lose my voice. I was rocking out to Journey’s 1981 Escape LIVE CD as the white Ford Escape traveled at an 82-MPH clip on I-29, singing hits like “Line of Fire” while on my way to son Bret’s home in Sioux Falls as his wife Christine also watched the game.
I was amazed at the encouragement Mark was giving his boys. He sounded just like a coach. Actually, he does a little bit of volunteer coaching for this team, even without ever playing the sport.
The Thrust are based about 48 miles from the twins’ home in Sauk Rapids, a suburb just across the Mississippi River from St. Cloud. This was the third game Adam and Eli had played.
It’s their second year of hockey. Their older brother Andrew played lacrosse and naturally, their little brothers gave it a try. They’ve also played basketball and baseball. Mark and Mary have become hockey parents and are still learning names. Mark said the boys will not play baseball this summer because to them, “it’s too slow.”
We preferred to stand on the second floor rather than sit in the stands. I even took a few pictures with my cameraphone. I texted my uncle Gerry, a retired Lutheran pastor from Eagle Lake, Minnesota: “Here is possibly a first … a Giese playing hockey!”
The Threat played a really good third period. All my little brother wanted was a goal to break the shutout and he got two. None of them came from his boys, but Adam was whistled for a tripping penalty. I don’t think he looked that sad as he watched his teammates score a shorthanded goal, not long after the refs made the call.
“There you go. Look what (Adam) started,” said Bret, standing next to me.
I was so proud of my nephews, who sound very committed to what has to be Minnesota’s state sport. Yeah, they were down after the 7-2 loss and surprisingly, Adam was more upset than Eli, though both were quiet as they stood next their parents, both tired from all the skating on the endless rink of ice. Usually, it’s the other way around.
Mark thanked us for coming. To me, this hockey trip definitely highlighted a month where I thought I could escape the newspaper world and possibly visit elderly aunts and uncles plus a few friends in the “Gopher State,” but feature stories and the upcoming Moville Record Spring Sports Issue prevented that from happening.
I was proud of Mark as well. Received a text from him Sunday night while Nancy and I were watching “Suits LA.”
“Well, we lost all four games,” he said. “But last night and today were very competitive. They really showed energy and worked so hard. Learned a lot this weekend.”
Go Threat!
Jerry Giese is a sportswriter for the Moville Record, but works in Le Mars with the Sentinel staff. A 1984 graduate of South Dakota State University, he’s in the midst of his 40-year sportswriting career, which included a stint from October 1990 to November 2001 as the sports editor of the Le Mars Daily Sentinel.
