A Great Skate

Minocqua, Wisconsin is a small northern Wisconsin town located on an island that is known for its beautiful lakes, resorts, and other tourist attractions. Minocqua is also the home of the Lakeland Hawks Ice Arena that hosts a Tuesday and Friday night skate year round for anyone above the age of eighteen. Most towns that are fortunate enough to have an ice arena host open hockey sessions, but what is unique about Minocqua’s small town skate is the caliber of  players who come on a consistent basis during the summer or during spring break.

The most notable of them all is Gary Suter who is a retired NHL seventeen year veteran who was just most recently inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame. Gary was a Calder Cup (NHL’s top rookie) trophy winner in his rookie year with the Calgary Flames and was also a Stanley Cup champion in 1989. Suter enjoyed success at the international level as well, most notably on the US Olympic team which earned a silver medal in the 2002 winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. The NHL shield does not stop at Gary Suter at the Lakeland Ice Arena, though. Patrick Dwyer, a former CCHA rookie of the year with the Western Michigan Broncos, is now a full time NHL player with the Carolina Hurricanes and just recently got selected to Team USA for the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden. Brad Winchester, who was a former player on the US National Development team and the Wisconsin Badgers, currently plays for the San Jose Sharks in his seventh NHL season.

The college game also makes its presence known at the old timers skate in Minocqua. Lakeland Union High School graduate Brent Gwidt, who is currently playing for Division I Nebraska-Omaha of the WCHA, skates during his off time in the summers and Christmas break. Brent was an NHL draft pick of the Washington Capitals in 2006 and also served as the captain for the Clark Champion Indiana Ice in 2009. Jake Suter just finished up his freshman season with the UMASS-Lowell Riverhawks and he is the son of Gary Suter. Jake, however, is making a name for himself as he was a mainstay on the blue line for the Riverhawks who had their most successful season in the program’s history going 24-13-1 and making it to the final eight of the NCAA tournament. Before going to UMASS Lowell spent a season with the Sioux City Musketeers in the USHL. The list does not end here with the high quality hockey players that come to Minocqua on a Tuesday or Friday night but these are the players that come consistently.

You mix these top players in with some former high school players from the area and some forty+ year old guys who have been playing the game since they could walk and you have a pretty impressive skate. The great thing about these guys who are at the top or near the top of the hockey world is you can sit next to them in the locker room or on the bench and you would never even know where they played or what they accomplished in their careers; they are just “one of the guys” who comes for a good skate and to go have a beer at the Yacht Club afterwards.

Are the NHL Playoffs the Best there is?

The first round of the NHL playoffs is almost complete, and it makes me beg the question, is there anything better in the sports world than the NHL playoffs? I know that I have a hockey bias and have a great appreciation for the two month grind that these athletes go through in order to put their name on Lord Stanley's cup, but I think that any person involved with sports can look at the journey to the Stanley Cup and say there is nothing in sports more difficult to accomplish. In the NFL you can go 6-7 in 80 percent of the season, get hot at the end by winning your last three regular season games and then win four straight playoff games to be crowned world champions. I understand that a lot more may go into an average football game compared to a hockey game, but having to get up and get ready to play in a crucial game is both physically and mentally demanding, regardless of the sport. In the MLB, teams have the toughest time getting in to the postseason, but let's be honest, once you get in, a team like the the Kansas City Royals could go on a run to win three baseball series in a row and be considered the best team in baseball. The NBA playoffs can be very entertaining in the later rounds as superstars face off against one another, but the early rounds are almost unwatchable because you will see a team like the Miami Heat dismantle a team that belongs in a different league like the Milwaukee Bucks. Parity in the NBA is what hurts the playoff excitement because you can pretty much map out the first two rounds with almost no problem. The NHL on the other hand is the total opposite as we have already seen an eight seed knock off a one seed, the other one-eight match-up is going to a game seven, and a two-seven match-up is going to a game seven. The best part of the NHL playoffs is the amount of overtime hockey we get to see. Almost every series sees multiple overtime games, with a few, like the Phoenix-Chicago series, involving overtime in five out of the six games. All playoffs are great in professional sports, but when it comes down to pure accuracy on who the best team is, the NHL has the best way of making sure at the end of the season they are crowning the true champion of the league.