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
Cloquet grad Dylan Johnson (14) celebrates with his Wilderness teammates after a recent goal.
CLOQUET - The Minnesota Wilderness junior hockey team bucked a month-long trend by sweeping the Brookings Blizzard last weekend at home. Scores at Northwoods Credit Union Arena were 5-0 Friday and 5-4 Saturday in front of 1,600-plus fans both nights combined.
Wilderness head coach and general manager Dave Boitz credited "solid special teams and goaltending" and "a lot of balanced scoring" for the victories.
Dating back to the weekend of Oct. 5-6, the Wilderness had been splitting each two-game series with opponents. The Wilderness sit in fifth place in the NAHL's Central Division, well ahead of last-place Brookings and only two points behind fourth-place Bismarck and five points behind third-place Aberdeen.
"The division is extremely good," Boitz said on last Friday's edition of "The A-Squad" on WKLK 96.5 FM. "Every team we've played in the last month ... teams like Bismarck and Richfield, they've all been tough. We're right where we need to be. There's a lot of parity in the league right now."
The Wilderness has a healthy dose of local players on the team to keep the area fan base interested. Dylan Johnson, Gavin Rasmussen (a high schooler who saw some ice time last Saturday) and Ryan Nelson all hail from Cloquet. "The Cloquet Connection" all scored goals last weekend against Brookings.
The team also boasts Luke Dow and Ashton Altmann from Duluth and a trio from Hermantown in Peter Grytdahl, Jacob Herter and Tyler Watkins. The rest of the roster is mostly Minnesotans, with a smattering of out-of-state players, a Canadian and a few Europeans.
The next two opponents for the Wilderness will feature home and home series. The first is this weekend against the Chippewa Steel (Friday away, Saturday home), then Nov. 23-24 against the Minnesota Magicians out of Richfield.
