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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It was one of those picture-perfect fall days. Cerulean blue sky, the slight, wet waft of decaying organic matter, the hillsides seemingly turning orange and red and yellow in the moment. On Dunlap Island last Thursday, there was also the chattering of teenagers and outdoors experts as more than 200 ninth-graders from Cloquet High School spent the day exploring the natural world. They were in canoes on the St. Louis River. They were under the Minnesota Highway 35 bridge collecting aquatic...
A strong power play and a three-goal lead was not enough for the Minnesota Wilderness Saturday, as it dropped its final game of the NAHL Showcase in Blaine to the Aberdeen Wings. The Wilderness built a 3-0 lead early into the second period after cashing in on its first three man-advantage opportunities. Aberdeen then battled back with two goals in the second and two more in the third to secure a 4-3 victory. The loss means Minnesota finishes the showcase with a 1-2-1 record and will resume its Midwest Division schedule next weekend with a...
The long summer without ice at Cloquet's Northwoods Credit Union Arena is coming to a close, with delivery and installation of a new cooling tower completed earlier this week. Facilities manager Justin Harriman expects to have ice within two weeks, which should allow the Minnesota Wilderness junior hockey team to come back home and youth and high school hockey seasons to progress as normal. Harriman said the cooling tower works like a giant car radiator, cooling the freon after it passes under...
The Anchorage Wolverines scored in all phases of the game and received some solid goaltending in a 5-1 win over the Minnesota Wilderness Saturday night. It was the home opener for the Wilderness, played at the arena in Proctor while the arena in Cloquet undergoes repairs. Duluth native Cole Christian led Anchorage with three points, posting one goal and two assists, while rookie goaltender Jozef Zilinec held off the Wilderness on 31 of 32 shots to earn a victory in his first Junior A game. Oliver Stümpel scored the lone Wilderness goal....
Thumbs down to preconditions on consolidation discussions with Wrenshall by the Carlton school board. It’s not really a good faith negotiation if the precondition limits the options to one plan. Carlton officials stipulated that a joint school needs to be at South Terrace, where the city’s elementary school is currently located. The school board members say it makes no sense to have two buildings, referring to previous consolidation discussions that included starting a high school in Wrenshall and elementary school in Carlton in existing bui...
Preseason training camp began Wednesday for the Minnesota Wilderness’ 2023-24 campaign. A roster of 29 players took to the ice with the first three days of practice set for Wessman Arena on the University of Wisconsin-Superior campus in Superior. Beginning Saturday, Aug. 26, the team will skate at Proctor’s St. Luke’s Sports and Events Center. The Proctor facility will also be the team’s home for its single pre-season home game, and first three regular-season home contests, due to an ice plant breakdown at its home venue — the Northwood...
Due to an ice plant malfunction and a delay in receiving replacement parts at its home arena in Cloquet, the Minnesota Wilderness has signed an agreement to hold its first three regular season contests, plus its lone 2023 preseason game, at the St. Luke’s Sports and Event Center in Proctor. Practices are scheduled to begin Aug. 22. That will be followed by a preseason contest vs. the Austin Bruins on Sept. 2, the regular season-opener on Sept. 9 vs. the Anchorage Wolverines, and a series vs. the Springfield Jr. Blues on Sept. 28-29. N...
The call was unmistakable and perked the ears of a Jay Cooke State Park staff member: "Help!" a person cried. Within moments, a response was developing. The Carlton County Sheriff's Office came with its drone team, and the fire departments from Carlton and Esko descended onto the park with four-wheelers and rope rescue kits. "Ultimately, nobody was found in distress," Chief Deputy Dan Danielson said. "And nobody ever reported any loved ones missing. It could have been a self-rescue." Jay Cooke...
Due to a delay in the manufacturing of a new cooling tower, Cloquet won't have ice through September, according to city public works director Caleb Peterson. Northwoods Credit Union Arena has been without ice since June, when refrigeration workers found the main cooling grid in the cooling tower outside the hockey arena was leaking severely. That's been pushed back to Oct. 1, Peterson said. The delay means the Cloquet-based Minnesota Wilderness junior hockey team will make a temporary home at...
Walker Orenstein MinnPost.org Talon Metals has submitted its plan for an underground nickel and copper mine in Aitkin County to Minnesota regulators, launching the environmental review of a project that could become a domestic source of metals for electric vehicles but which has also drawn skepticism from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. While the submission is just the first phase of what could be a lengthy process, it's nevertheless a milestone for Talon and what it calls the Tamarack Nickel... 
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A father and his two sons canoeing on the Nemadji River in southeast Carlton County Saturday called in a report of human remains found on the river bank east of Minnesota Highway 23 and south of the Soo Line Trail. This week the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office was making an identification effort after a laborious effort to remove the remains from the remote area. The Carlton County Sheriff's Office received a call at 1:30 p.m. about the find. Sheriff deputies and responders from Wrenshall and...
The North American Hockey League will stream its games beginning next season, launching NAHLTV as “the new destination to watch exclusive streaming content related to all games played … beginning in the 2023-24 season,” said a news release this week. The platform will include all live games and other exclusive content, which includes all preseason, regular season, playoff, Showcase, Top Prospects, All-Star, and special event games in all three leagues. The Minnesota Wilderness of the NAHL make their home in Cloquet and are based out of North...
There is some hockey to be had this summer, but fans of the Wilderness will need to travel to Superior to see potential junior hockey team players in action. Because of the mechanical issues at Northwoods Credit Union Arena in Cloquet, the Wilderness organization is hosting its main open summer camp at Wessman Arena on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Superior. The week culiminates in free intra-squad games set for 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Sunday at Wessman. The five-day camp included specific goalie work on Tuesday and Wednesday, where 24...
When Justin Harriman went to check on the hockey arena over Memorial Day weekend, he knew immediately something wasn't quite right. "I went in and checked on things and found an issue with the ice plant," said Harriman, the facilities manager and association director for the Cloquet Amateur Hockey Association, which operates both the Northwoods Credit Union Arena and the older Pine Valley Arena next door. He got on the phone to Jay Koenig from Gartner Refrigeration. "After they were able to get...
The Minnesota Wilderness drafted 13 players and added another through a trade in the 2023 NAHL Draft held last week. The new additions include one goaltender, seven forwards and six defensemen. Eleven of those acquired hail from the USA, while the team also brought in one each from Switzerland, Latvia, and Canada. Goaltender Loris Uberti from Martigny, Switzerland, became the Wilderness’ first pick when he was selected 14th overall in the first round. The Wilderness acquired that pick from Anchorage due to a trade completed last February. At ju...
It didn't take long for the Minnesota Wilderness to fill its coaching vacancy. The Cloquet-based North American Hockey League franchise announced Colten St. Clair as the sixth head coach in team history in a news release late last week. His hiring comes just one week after Brett Skinner departed to lead the coaching staff of the Fargo Force of the United States Hockey League. St. Clair, 30, has spent the last two seasons as associate head coach of the USHL's Sioux City Musketeers. In his first s...
Brett Skinner is headed back to the league where he began his coaching career. After leading the Minnesota Wilderness to a Midwest Division playoff championship in his first season as a head coach, Skinner has accepted the same position with the Fargo Force of the United States Hockey League, a Wilderness news release said. In his lone season behind the Wilderness bench, Skinner finished with a 35-18-7 regular season record. He then led the squad on a playoff run that extended to the Robertson Cup championship, where it fell to the eventual lea...
The road to the Robertson Cup ended abruptly for the Minnesota Wilderness last weekend, coming with a two-game sweep to the Oklahoma Warriors. The series started promisingly for Minnesota, which took a 2-0 lead into the third period of Game 1 on Friday at Fogerty Arena in Blaine, Minnesota. But Oklahoma was the North American Hockey League’s top scoring team in the regular season and fought back accordingly, winning 4-2, before seizing a 3-1 series-clinching win on Saturday. The Cloquet-based M...
The Minnesota Wilderness are two big steps away from their first North American Hockey League championship since the 2015-16 season. But they may need to summit those steps without their best player. Kevin Marx Norén's status is unknown for the next round of the playoffs beginning Friday after he was injured during a high-speed collision on the ice in the team's most recent game. "We don't know yet - it's TBD," Wilderness coach Brett Skinner said Tuesday. "He lost some teeth, so he had to go...
Winning on the road is a key to success in any playoff series, and the Minnesota Wilderness managed that last weekend during their best-of-five Midwest Division finals. The Wilderness split with the top-seeded Wisconsin Windigo, winning 1-0 on May 5 before falling 3-2 in overtime the next night in Eagle River, Wisconsin. The Wilderness' quest to advance in the North American Hockey League's Robertson Cup playoffs continues with games 3 and 4, scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Northw...
An unlikely goal-scorer lifted the Minnesota Wilderness to a playoff sweep last weekend, closing out the Kenai River Brown Bears in Soldotna, Alaska, with a 2-1 overtime win in Game 3 of their opening-round playoff series. Michael Quinn’s goal 51 seconds into overtime catapulted the Wilderness into a best-of-five Midwest Division final against the regular season champion Wisconsin Windigo starting this week. “The puck kind of got locked up on the draw, kind of squirted out, and (I) just got to the puck, made a move, and just kind of bla...
Leading their best-of-five playoff series 2-0 following wins last weekend, the Minnesota Wilderness flew to Alaska this week in their attempt to close out the Kenai River Brown Bears and advance to the Midwest Division finals. "The next game in front of you is the most important game of the year," coach Brett Skinner said of what he's telling the team. "That's the same mentality we've had for a while now." A two-seed in the North American Hockey League's 16-team Robertson Cup playoffs, the Wilde...
Kevin Marx Norén scored two third-period goals Saturday, April 15 to send the Minnesota Wilderness soaring into the Robertson Cup playoffs following a sweep in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Norén scored three times over the weekend, leading Minnesota to 2-1 and 6-3 wins over the Chippewa Steel. For his scoring exploits, Norén was named the Midwest Division’s Bauer Star of the Week earlier this week by the North American Hockey League. He also became the team’s all-time leading single-season goal scorer, with 33 goals. The 20-year-old forwar...
The Minnesota Wilderness tuned up for the upcoming Robertson Cup playoffs by exorcizing a demon last week. Following eight straight losses to Midwest Division regular season champion Wisconsin Windigo, including a 1-0 loss April 6 in Cloquet, the Wilderness pulled out a 3-2 win on April 7. The team scored a goal in each period, from Kevin Marx Norén, Oliver Stümpel and Sawyer Scholl. Isak Posch tied the team record for wins by a goalie, getting 25 saves for his 24th victory of the season. P...
With a split in Janesville, Wisconsin last weekend, the Minnesota Wilderness secured a playoff berth for the eighth time in its 10 seasons in the North American Hockey League. The Wilderness lost to the Jets, 6-1, on Friday, March 31, before winning, 3-0, on Saturday to secure a top-four position in the Midwest Division and a spot in the upcoming 16-team Robertson Cup playoffs. One day after getting pulled in the first period for allowing three goals in Janesville’s first eight shots, Minnesota goalie Isak Posch, of Umeå, Sweden, collected hi...
