A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
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The Minnesota Wilderness closed out the first half of the season playing its best hockey of the campaign, completing a two-game sweep of the Kenai River Brown Bears and stretching its winning streak to a season-high five games. The Wilderness (14-13-3) also moved back above .500 after their 7-4 and 6-1 victories Dec. 13 and Saturday over Kenai River (11-15-3) in Cloquet. Minnesota is now idle until Jan. 3-4 at home against Anchorage. A balanced offensive attack led the Wilderness to victory Dec. 13. Seven players scored goals for Minnesota.... Full story
Explorer Ponce de León was on a quest to find the mythical fountain of youth in Florida in 1513. President John Kennedy inspired the United States in its quest to have a person walk on the moon in the 1960s. Although maybe not quite as daunting, Dan Rosen, formerly of Cloquet, set out on a quest to golf in every calendar month in Minnesota in 2024. On Dec. 7, he accomplished his goal. Rosen, a part of the formidable golfing family, grew up near the entrance to the Cloquet Country Club. He was... Full story
The Minnesota Wilderness had its best offensive output of the season in a weekend sweep of the Janesville Jets. The Wilderness combined for 12 goals over the two-game series, with a 5-1 victory Friday and 7-2 win Saturday. Jakeb Lynch led Minnesota with seven points, combining for two goals and five assists over the weekend. This marks Minnesota’s second road sweep of the season and extends its winning streak to three games. After Janesville opened the scoring Friday night, the Wilderness responded with five straight goals. Sullivan Miller n... Full story
On Nov. 15, two months of sleepless nights, searching, agonizing, and waiting for the phone to ring came to an end for Cloquet's Anne Gullion. Her 23-year-old horse Taz, which had disappeared from the Cutfoot Sioux Horse Camp in Itasca County in mid-September, had been found. Without her horse, her world had become a blur. Gullion and a group of friends had been at the camp northwest of Deer River, in the Chippewa National Forest, as they had done many times before. Taz had somehow come off his...
Two close games led to a split between the Minnesota Wilderness and Springfield Jr. Blues this weekend at the Nelson Center in Springfield, Illinois. Springfield captured Friday’s contest, 4-2, while the Wilderness skated away with a 2-1 shootout victory Saturday. Minnesota erased one-goal deficits twice Friday before the Jr. Blues sealed the win with two third-period goals. Zach Homer scored in the first period to even the game at one. The Wilderness needed only two rounds in the shootout Saturday. Ferry Netusil and Nate Murray scored in t... Full story
A five-goal burst in the third period helped push the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton boys hockey team to an impressive 7-1 opening game win over Bloomington Jefferson at Northwoods Credit Union Arena on Saturday afternoon. "Every year we play them, they give us a good game and I thought this is one of the better teams they've had as of late," said CEC coach Shea Walters. "They came out hard in the second period, but we weathered the storm and then we really got things going in the third period." The... Full story
After four straight games against the Wisconsin Windigo, the Minnesota Wilderness are still looking for their first victory of the season against their rivals from across the border. The Windigo swept a weekend series last week in Cloquet, a week after winning both games at their home in Eagle River. The Wilderness scored a first period goal Friday night, but after that, the game belonged to the Windigo in a 5-1 final. Zach Homer scored the lone Minnesota goal with 9:01 remaining in the first after a turnover was forced in the offensive zone. N... Full story
The Wilderness have had a rollercoaster ride both on and off the ice this season. Off the ice, head coach Colton St. Clair decided to step down as coach in early October and then the Wilderness hired Zach Stepan as the head coach for the team based in Cloquet. Stepan was not new to the organization, as he was already coaching the NA3HL Wilderness team based in Eveleth. “It’s been busy trying to get through the transition of new systems while not having had a full training camp for them to lea... Full story
The Minnesota Wilderness headed back to the Lower 48 after completing its second weekend of its first Alaska trip of the regular season. In the three-game series at Anchorage, the Wilderness were victorious in the Friday opener, 4-2, and fell in Saturday’s game, 6-3, before dropping the Sunday finale in overtime, 5-4. The Cloquet-based team went 3-2 over the two weekends away....
The first leg of an Alaska trip was a sweep for the Minnesota Wilderness last weekend in 6-3 and 5-2 wins over Kenai River. Ferry Netusil posted his second hat trick of the season in leading the Wilderness to victory Friday. Five players scored Saturday night to lead the Wilderness to a 5-2 victory and the sweep over Kenai River in Alaska. Netusil was named the NAHL Midwest Division Star of the Week. The native of Prague becomes the first forward in the NAHL to earn multiple weekly honors this season. Minnesota stays in Alaska for two games...
The Minnesota Wilderness got a Nate Murray goal in the final round of a shootout Saturday to capture a 2-1 win over the Chippewa Steel, Minnesota’s lone win in a three-game series. The Wilderness lost 4-3 in overtime Thursday night and 3-1 Friday night. Thursday’s game was in Wisconsin and the weekend games were in Cloquet. Earlier in October, the Wilderness saw head coach Colten St. Clair leave for another coaching opportunity. The team hired Minnesota native Zach Stepan as the franchise’s seventh head coach since it entered the league in 20... Full story
Our society is far removed from the Great Depression of the 1930s. Nevertheless, some government programs instituted to aid in the economic recovery left their marks on the northern communities of Minnesota. One of the most familiar is the Works Progress Administration, established in 1935 to employ millions of people to build public projects such as town halls, bridges, schools and park structures. These buildings and bridges are widely known, and the WPA letters are seen stamped somewhere on... Full story
The Minnesota Wilderness dropped two games at home last weekend by 4-3 scores against the Springfield Jr. Blues. The Wilderness held leads of 2-0 and 3-1 Friday before the Jr. Blues scored three unanswered goals. The first goal, coming just 18 seconds in, was scored on a redirection by Brady Zugec off a shot taken by Zach Howard. That was followed by Zach Homer firing in a rebound at 3:54 to make it 2-0. After a Springfield goal made it 2-1 midway through the first period, the Wilderness restored its two-goal advantage thanks to a Frantisek... Full story
The Minnesota Wilderness remain at .500 after a slate of games in the North American Hockey League’s Showcase Tournament in Blaine last week. The Cloquet-based team is now 3-3-1 on the season. The tourney began Wednesday, Sept. 25 against Northeast. The Wilderness held leads of 2-0 and 3-2 but could not hold on in a 4-3 loss. Just 34 seconds after Lucas Jendek posted a second-period goal to give Minnesota a 2-0 advantage, the Generals got on the board to make it 2-1. Northeast then scored early in the third to tie the contest at 2. Minnesota b... Full story
Wisconsin teams swept the Minnesota Wilderness last weekend, with one game at home Friday night and then the team’s first road game Saturday. The losses put the Wilderness at 2-2 on the season. The Wisconsin Windigo edged the Wilderness at home in Cloquet Friday, 5-4. The loss spoiled Frantisek Netusil’s first two-goal game in his junior career, both in the third period. His 6-on-3 power play goal came with 39 seconds left. Also scoring goals were Avery Anderson and Cloquet native Karson Young, who recorded his first in his third game at the ju... Full story
Cloquet city councilors set the 2025 preliminary tax levy at just over $3.9 million Tuesday, an 11.23 percent increase over the 2024 levy. Once a preliminary levy is approved, the figure can go down before it gets final approval in December, but it cannot be increased. City administrator Tim Peterson said the reason behind the jump is easy to pinpoint: wages. Salaries and benefits make up just over $6 million of the entire general fund budget of $9.5 million, he said. The total wage increases...
Marlys Mae Simons Fuller died at home on Aug. 7, 2024, surrounded by family. She was born May 28, 1930, to Edwin "Wes" Wesley and Pauline Standal Simons in Butte, Montana. Her family moved from Montana back to Minnesota when she was very young. They lived at a ranger station outside of Cotton until she finished the seventh grade. She was confirmed in St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Canyon. Her family then moved to Cloquet. Marlys graduated from Cloquet High School and the University of Minnesota... Full story
It looked like Cale Prosen was going to end his 42-day kayaking trip around Lake Superior paddling in pouring rain through the Duluth Ship Canal. But the rain lifted and, just like that, part of a rainbow appeared on the horizon. "There are some gnarly currents," the 20-year-old told his dad, who was standing above him on the Aerial Lift Bridge, as the waves roiled between the concrete walls of the canal. Cale handled it easily. After all, he'd had six weeks of practicing navigating in his sea... Full story
For the fourth straight year, the Minnesota Wilderness will open its season at home. The North American Hockey League has released its schedule for the 2024-25 regular season. The Wilderness will play 59 regular-season contests, with all 28 of its home games at Northwoods Credit Union Arena in Cloquet. The opener will be Sept. 13 against Fairbanks. The Wilderness will also play three games in the NAHL Showcase tournament in Blaine, Minnesota Sept. 25-28. The first road contest is Sept. 21 at Chippewa Falls. The Wilderness will again host a...
Pull into Tamarack, 36 miles west of Cloquet on Highway 210, and it’s easy to locate the publicly traded mining company that wants to extract nickel from deep beneath the grassy swamps that surround the town. Visible from the city park, what’s notable about Talon Metals headquarters is that it’s located in a small yellow house. Across from the office on Warren Street, there’s an open garage where workers process the company’s core samples. For a mining company, it looks an awful lot like a co... Full story
Four new defensemen have been inked for the Minnesota Wilderness for next season. The Wilderness announced this week that Karson Young of Cloquet, Owen Smith of Maple Grove, Charles Antrilli of Oaklyn, New Jersey, and Talan Del Signore from the Esmark Stars program in Pennsylvania have signed tenders for the 2024-25 season. Both Young and Smith come to the Wilderness after playing last weekend with the club’s 18-and-under team at the Prospects Challenge in Blaine. The team won the championship, finishing unbeaten with a 5-0 record. Both p...
City planner and zoning administrator Al Cottingham received a round of applause during Tuesday's Cloquet City Council meeting - a meeting he hopes will be his last. Cottingham is retiring June 6, after 12 years with the city of Cloquet. "I will very very much miss seeing you here every day and keeping the rest of us on point," said city administrator Tim Peterson. Cottingham said he will miss the people, the job not so much. "It's time to retire and go do some things that I've been putting on...
The Minnesota Wilderness North American Tier 3 Hockey League (NA3HL) team has added 11 players over the last few weeks to its roster for its first season under new ownership. The Wilderness made two selections in the NA3HL draft held April 24 and followed that with nine player tenders. The first player added to the franchise was Cloquet-Esko-Carlton forward Ryan Jones. The 18-year-old Jones was the second-round, 49th overall selection. Jones played 23 games for the CEC Lumberjacks in his senior season, recording six goals and six assists. Mark...
The Minnesota Wilderness rallied Friday only to end the season the next night with a 6-2 loss to the Anchorage Wolverines at Northwoods Credit Union Arena in Cloquet. The Wilderness, which trailed the five-game playoff series 2-0 coming into the weekend, extended the season Friday by beating the Wolverines 4-1, but Anchorage bounced back Saturday to win and take the series 3-1. "After winning on Friday night I think we were maybe emotionally drained," said Wilderness coach Colten St. Clair.... Full story
The Minnesota Wilderness returns home fighting for its playoff lives this week, trailing Anchorage, 2-0, in their best-of-five opening round series. The Wilderness lost 4-0 and 2-1 in overtime last weekend in Alaska, and would need to win three straight home games this weekend to advance in the Robertson Cup playoffs. Game 3 is 7:15 p.m. Friday, with games 4 and 5, if necessary, at 7:15 p.m. Saturday and 5:15 p.m. Sunday. The Wilderness got 31 saves from Wassau, Wisconsin’s Adam Prokop last Saturday, but Tyler Hennen scored 3 minutes, 48 s...
