Hockey Day 2018: St. Cloud co-op embraces chance to showcase play

A team with no name will be looking to make one for its hometown when all the glitz, glamour and prestige of Hockey Day Minnesota descends upon the often overlooked hockey hotbed of St. Cloud later this month.
"We just want to spotlight St. Cloud a little bit because we're not really Northern Minnesota and we're not the metro," St. Cloud coach Pete Matanich said. "We're in that bubble, Central Minnesota, so it doesn't really get a lot of hockey attention, except for St. Cloud State, so it's good for us from a high school perspective to be on the map a little bit."

Matanich sees the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as a chance to showcase what his relatively new team can do when it clashes with cross-town rival St. Cloud Cathedral Jan. 20 on the shores of Lake George.
What the second-year team, formed out of a co-op between St. Cloud Apollo and St. Cloud Tech high schools, has already demonstrated it can do is win games, even at its new Class 2A level.
After some early growing pains, the team without a nickname compiled a 15-8-2 record in its inaugural season, including a 10-2-2 mark in the Central Lakes conference and a runner-up finish behind Brainerd. The schedule included a 4-2 win over Cathedral.
One factor in the short-term decision to go without a nickname was to make a potential shift back to two teams easier. Due to lower numbers in the St. Cloud youth system, Apollo players would have been left without a place to play in 2016-17 had the two-year co-op agreement not been approved.
"It was kind of tough at first," Apollo senior forward Carter Rieland said. "We knew each other, but it was kind of hard coming together after playing as different high schools first and then coming together and playing as one high school. A little different at first but once you get along it works out well."
As Rieland mentioned, the players' familiarity with each other as both foes and teammates in the St. Cloud youth program eased the transition to a degree.
"It would be a little different if we were combining with kids we didn't really grow up with," Tech senior forward Brad Amundson acknowledged.
St. Cloud returned its top five goal and point scorers, five of its top seven and 8 of its top 10 among a whopping 16 seniors from last season.
"Our goaltender, too," Matanich said of junior netminder Soren Falloon. "Having all those guys back in our lineup has been huge for us just from a confidence perspective. I know as long as we play our game we're going to be competitive with pretty much anybody we play.
"I'm not saying we're going to win, but we'll give teams some pretty good games and be a really competitive team."
Falloon and St. Cloud rang in the new year with an 8-2-0 mark facing a schedule featuring the likes of Bemidji, Brainerd, Minneapolis and St. Michael-Albertville leading up to Hockey Day.
"It's going to be absolutely awesome," said Tech senior forward Nick Portz whose 45 points (24-21--45) led St Cloud last season. "There's a lot of hype going on, a lot of positive energy. It's obviously something I'm going to remember my whole life so I'm pretty excited and I know my whole team is too."
The rink will be situated in the shadows of St Cloud Tech, near a band shell scheduled to house
live band performances
, a first in the 12-year history of Hockey Day Minnesota.
"We go to school right outside where the rink's going to be so it's been cool seeing them getting ready to put it up," said Amundson, the team's leader in goals (13) and points (24) entering 2018.
A St. Cloud native, Matanich coached Class 1A Apollo to two of its three all-time state tournament appearances in 2013 and 2015 (the Eagles also qualified back in 1984 when it was a one-class tournament) in seven seasons behind the Eagles' bench. The Apollo alum, whose playing career was cut short by injury in the USHL, spent nine years as a Tech assistant before arriving at his alma mater.
The event brings Matanich back to his childhood growing up in what's affectionately known as the Granite City and he's paying it forward.
"My dad made a hockey rink for me every year and,to this day, I make a rink for my kids with boards," Matanich said It's just kind of a tradition I've kept for my kids, how important it was for me growing up to have that local place to go play."
Tradition is not solely reserved for St. Cloud's coach as his players maintain a pond-hockey presence.
"I put up a rink in my backyard," Amundson said. "It's not big enough for the whole team to skate on so we kind of split it into groups and some guys come over one night and some others the next night. There's a pond in our neighborhood that we skate on too."
Not all ponds are created equal, however, with some sacrificing romance for reliability.
"I didn't really have a pond," Apollo senior forward Noah Bissett said. "My dad is the manager over at the St. Cloud (Municipal Athletic Complex) so I could go over there anytime I wanted and skate. Usually in elementary school, I would go there before school and skate with my brother and that's really how I got into hockey, just open ice and I'd take it."
Bisset will be joining his teammates outside soon enough but, according to their coach, none of them will be able to grasp the magnitude of Hockey Day Minnesota until they step on the ice.
"They don't understand what's coming, they don't understand the hype," Matanich said. "They think they do but it's like any other kid; until you're there, I think it's going to really hit them that day when they're out there."
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