Patrick Reusse: Hockey season will be special for Minnesota faithful

Patrick Reusse, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Sep 7, 2025

Published in Olympics

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MINNEAPOLIS — The nickname for Cortina d’Ampezzo is “Queen of the Dolomites,” which is a sellable title for a winter paradise in the mountains of northern Italy. Cortina was the home of the 1956 Winter Olympics, when there were far fewer events and demands for venue excellence were minimal.

The hockey competition was conducted outdoors, inside a wooden stadium that also was the site for the Opening Ceremony.

Cortina has a permanent population of 6,000 that soars during the long winter season for skiing and other activities. The Olympics are returning for the first time in 70 years in February — although only for a few events, with the hockey (now for men and women) hours away in modern arenas in Milan.

This does not change my opinion on a first choice if allowed to go back in time to cover a sporting event:

It would be early in the morning of Feb. 1, 1956, and I would have sent by telegraph a gamer, a column and a sidebar on the United States’ 4-1 victory over Canada, and now I’d be following in the path of Yanks coach John Mariucci as he celebrated in quaint bistros the win over his main rivals.

“Maroosh,” as coach of the Minnesota Gophers, had been waging his battle against teams built on Canadian juniors taking over U.S. college hockey — to the point he had Minnesota boycotting games vs. Denver, even with the two teams being in the WCHA.

The politics would have mattered not to me … it would have been hanging out with Maroosh, belting down a few, watching the legend of Eveleth enjoy this moment in his gregarious style.

These Cortina tales have been relayed to me through the decades by two witnesses who were star players and also Eveleth legends: Top scorer John Mayasich, still with us but now retired from curling, and the recently departed Willard Ikola, named the top goalie in Cortina.

And now to bring it to the end of the current quarter-century, it must be said that this has the makings of perhaps the most hockey-focused season we’ve had since 1980, when Herb Brooks’ Olympic team rode the hot goaltending of Jim Craig to a gold medal in Lake Placid, N.Y.

The Vikings might be required to cooperate with mediocrity, but if there can be the puck luck of an 8-9 type of season for the Purple — the world junior tournament here starting in late December becomes Story A for a couple of weeks, and then comes the Olympic tournament for 2½ weeks in February, with Wild hockey boss Bill Guerin having been in charge of selecting Team USA.

I’m not sure Guerin could match Maroosh’s joy in beating Canada and bringing home a silver medal seven decades later, but I do believe Bill has been known to enjoy a cocktail.

And this time if the Yanks get past Canada, there will be no Russians to take the gold (as was the case for the Communists’ first time in Cortina ’56), since the evil ways of Vladimir Putin have his country banned in international hockey — meaning both our world juniors and the Olympics.

It was in later August that Guerin, his assistants and USA Hockey had a three-day camp for 44 NHLers that are under consideration for the 25-player Olympic team.

Six of those players participating were chosen prior to the camp as Olympians: Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk, Quinn Hughes and Charlie McAvoy.

As for the entirety of the squad — even a hockey sideliner such as myself was blown away by the depth of talent that the USA is sorting through nowadays.

This won’t resemble Herbie’s youthful miracle men; it won’t even resemble the silver medalists on which Guerin played for Brooks in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

“It’s going to be difficult to go from 44 to 25,” Guerin said this past week. “And I also left so many outstanding players off my ‘invite to camp’ list.

“When choosing the team, we’ll have to think defensively. It can’t be just pure talent; it’s answering the question, ‘What if we need this?’”

I took that to mean some tough character who is going to win the Yanks a faceoff when sitting on a one-goal lead (or deficit) with two minutes left — Guerin and Co. might need him over another big goal scorer.

Astoundingly, there are four recent Gophers among the 44 candidates: Defensemen Brock Faber and Jackson LaCombe, and forwards Matthew Knies and Logan Cooley.

I asked Gophers coach Bob Motzko if he shared my surprise to see LaCombe on the list.

“Faber’s transition to the NHL was seamless,” Motzko said. “He’s an athlete, and he knows what he is: a linebacker. LaCombe, it took a little longer, but once he got going … he was very good for Anaheim last season. Jackson is going to be a star.”

World juniors in the Twin Cities; then an Olympic team with a Wild and Gophers twinge.

It’s going to be a full-focus hockey season for Minnesota’s sporting public, as long as the Vikings can prove the performance against the Rams last January was not a fluke.

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