Brighton Trip North Always Unforgettable
January 22, 2018
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
It starts before dawn on a chilly Thursday in Brighton.
Cases of water and sports drinks, a bucket of pucks, water bottles, 20 hockey bags, five dozen or so sticks, luggage for players, parents, coaches and others, bags of oranges and apples – all are loaded in the belly of a chartered bus.
On the bus, computers are temporarily stowed away. Blankets, pillows, school books and a couple of coolers full of bottled water and sports drinks and another bag of nutritious snacks are loaded in the front seats for consumption on the 540-mile drive to Houghton.
The bus leaves at 7:45 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 4, bound for Michigan’s Copper Country and returning Jan. 7. It’s a trip Brighton hockey teams have been making since the 2002 season.
THURSDAY
Hockey teams like to refer to themselves as family, but it was more traditional family ties that led to Brighton making the trips north in the first place.
Pete Sturos, who had three sons who played for Brighton at various times, went to coach Paul Moggach and asked if he had ever considered playing Houghton, Hancock or Calumet.
Moggach did some research and decided to follow up on Sturos’ suggestion in 2002.
The Bulldogs promptly were swept. But the time spent together by the players helped the team to gel that much faster, and the trip became a permanent part of the team’s schedule.
Until last year, Brighton and Novi went up every year, with Novi playing at Calumet on Friday and Brighton on Saturday.
Hancock and Houghton rotated facing the visitors each year until 2017, when Orchard Lake St. Mary was added, pitting three Lower Peninsula powers against the three Upper Peninsula schools.
“It’s been an incredible experience,” Calumet athletic director Sean Jacques said. “The relationship has gone on so long with Brighton and (Bloomfield Hills) Cranbrook and (Detroit) U-D Jesuit. It’s been a great experience and always good hockey, and I think the fans appreciate seeing these top-notch programs on a given weekend.”
Birmingham Brother Rice has made a trip north this season as well, along with Rochester United and Traverse City Central.
The competition during this trip was as high-quality as ever. This week, Brighton is ranked No. 3 in Division 1, while Calumet is No. 3 and Houghton No. 4 in Division 3.
“Any time you get to play a strong team from below the (Mackinac) Bridge, everyone gets excited for that,” Houghton coach Corey Markham said. “We have some great competition with Hancock and Calumet, (but) it’s nice to play other teams and see how we stand with the top of the bunch.”
10:30 a.m.
The bus has stopped at a rest area south of Gaylord and unloads to allow passengers to use the bathroom.
The players, to varying levels of disgruntlement, make a jog of about a quarter-mile in temperatures of five below zero.
“It’s to get them off the bus and doing something, so we don’t sit on the bus and vegetate,” Moggach said. “It’s easier riding in a bus than a car, but it’s still a long trip. We’re coming off the Christmas break, and some of these guys didn’t have a lot of activity during the break.”
12:30 p.m.
The bus stops at the Cut River Inn, located in Epoufette along US-2 between St. Ignace and Engadine, and it marks the halfway point of the bus ride.
The itinerary has evolved over the years. The team used to stop in St. Ignace, and players were able to go to whichever fast food restaurant they preferred.
That ended when the team began to emphasize nutrition as part of its off-ice regimen. Players resisted at first, until the results were too obvious to overlook.
Moggach, a Northern Michigan University grad who vacations near Marquette each summer, put the restaurant on the itinerary about a decade ago. The first year there, a player offered this in prayer: “Lord, we thank you for this food, which I’ve been told is pretty good. ...”
Up to this point, the bus has made good time in sunny if cold weather.
Shortly after returning to the road, snow blows in from Lake Superior, covering the roads. The bus maintains a steady pace, winding its way on M-28 through Munising, where what appears to be a group of students is playing on the ice a few yards out from Munising High School. It’s a first glimpse of Lake Superior.
3 p.m.
Another stop, optional for non-players, mandatory for players, to stretch their legs along a section of old M-28 between Munising and Marquette.
Assistant coach Kurt Kivisto and his family, including his wife and two preschoolers, bound off the bus while Moggach keeps up with them.
The players take their time, with numerous snowball fights, added whooping and hollering.
One year, about a decade ago, the bus was covered in Pistons logos, with pictures of Allen Iverson, et al, on the side. When it stopped to discharge its passengers, some residents came out, wondering if it was a Pistons team bus that had taken a few wrong turns.
“The walk (along) Lake Superior is a hidden gem to me,” Moggach said. “I vacation there and I know that spot. Maybe I’m sharing with them the love I have for Lake Superior and the Upper Peninsula.”
Moggach claims the walk is about three-quarters of a mile, and smiles a Cheshire Cat-like grin when a reporter challenges the claim, believing it’s longer. A subsequent Internet search finds no evidence one way or the other, but one conclusion is unassailable: It’s still cold.
6 p.m.
The bus arrives at the hotel in Houghton. Passengers unpack the bus, get settled in their rooms, and the players and a few others get back onto the bus for a skate at the MacInnes Student Events Center on the Michigan Tech campus.
“We’ve been doing this 2-3 years,” Moggach said. “It gets them off the bus with something to do. I think it’s an important start for when they get up there. These guys are hockey players. They love to skate. This is what they love to do. We get off the bus, (skate) and have pizza afterward. Those are two things they love and are rewarded with.”
While on the bus, the players did some studying, worked on a Brighton history quiz administered by Kivisto, and watched a movie on the DVD player.
In the early years of the trip, some Brighton teachers objected to student-athletes missing two days of school, but the team’s grade-point average, which is around 3.10, never suffered for it, and the objections faded away.
“There’s a player here or there who isn’t as academically gifted as others,” Moggach said. “But you want them to understand and be around those who put a lot into it and expect a lot from themselves. I think that experience, too, while understated, is really big, that they see how these other kids study. On a day-to-day basis, they come to practice, they do their off-ice conditioning, they go home and have dinner, they study by themselves. In this environment, they see others doing the same thing.”
FRIDAY
At 9 a.m., the team and several parents climb into the bus for the trip to the Calumet Colosseum, the second-oldest operating hockey arena in the U.S.
And it’s cold. Cold enough to where drops of water freeze as they run down your coat.
One of the team managers abandons all pretenses and wraps a blanket around her so tightly only her left eye is visible.
The Bulldogs will play in another icebox, the Dee Stadium, later that night when they take on Houghton.
“I think they’re two of the neatest rinks, with tradition and history, in high school hockey,” Kivisto said. “It’s a good experience for our guys to go into these rinks, these barns, to go against these teams that have been around a lot longer than the Brighton High School hockey program has. Hopefully someday in the future we’ll have the history these guys have up here. It’s a neat experience that a lot of high school programs don’t get to see on a year-to-year basis.”
11 a.m.
The skate lasts an hour, with a lunch served in a meeting room at the rink.
At the same time, parents are curling at the nearby Copper Country Curling Club’s rink in what is called The Drill House.
The building, which is more than 130 years old, once manufactured and maintained drills used in nearby copper mines. It’s drafty, like a barn, and except for an interior room built two years ago, is unheated.
Curling was added to the itinerary in 2011, when a parent spotted a sign and went to investigate. Such are traditions born.
The parents compete while the players skate, then adjourn to a nearby tavern while the players get their competition in.
In years past, long explanations of curling and its rules preceded the competition. These days, it’s a shorter explanation of dos and don’ts, and they let the players have at it.
“They aren’t listening anyway,” one of the CCCC representatives says with a smile.
No one is the worse for wear, and the bus returns them to the hotel.
“I think it’s especially good for the new guys,” Moggach said of the curling competition. “It gets them bonding again and having some activity, so it all fits.”
2 p.m.
The team has a study hall for a short time, and the players are then excused for a little down time.
“The change we’ve made this year is more nap time,” Moggach said. “This trip takes a lot out of you. It’s 10 hours on the bus with the walk and the run and the skate on Thursday night, and that’s before anything really starts. I’m learning, and by watching them I believe they need more rest and sleep.”
5 p.m.
After a pregame meal, the bus takes the team to the Dee Stadium, which was built on the site of the first professional hockey game in America played more than a century ago.
Before the game, bus driver Phil Haag drew a round of applause after he announced his daughter had given birth to his first grandchild.
While the players on their respective teams warm up, Moggach, Kivisto and Markham catch up, talking about their seasons and their outlooks for the second half of the season.
Markham is enthusiastic about having Brighton on his schedule.
“It means a lot to us,” he said. “To play an opponent the caliber of Brighton does nothing but help as we get ready for the second half of the season and for playoff time. You can’t say enough about how great a job Paul and Kurt do with the program they have. The state championships they’ve won states that. For us, we can’t ask for anything more than to play such a quality team on our home rink. It helps our program and helps our players get better.”
For Brighton, it’s a chance to get back on track. The team ended 2017 with a four-game winless streak, losing the last three and scoring only one goal over those three games.
There’s an adage Moggach endorses that says scoring is contagious.
“I would like to see that happen,” he said. “I don’t care how it goes in. Just get it into the back of the net.”
Moggach, who usually wears a sports jacket, has on a thermal jacket for the game.
“But I do have a tie on,” he says, laughing.
After a scoreless first period, sophomore Will Jentz scores twice in the first period for Brighton, which goes on to a 5-1 win.
“It feels good,’ he said. “Our power play hadn’t been that good. We’d scored one goal in the last three games. It felt good to get five tonight.”
“It was huge to get our confidence back as an offensive unit,” senior captain Sam Brennan added.
It had snowed all day, and the traffic had helped pack it, making the roads slick.
That complicated things for Haag, who made progress up the hill from downtown Houghton to the hotel, only to have the bus slow to a stop.
After sitting for a few minutes, a Houghton County sand truck pulled up in front of the bus. Both vehicles backed up a short ways, then moved forward, and the traction provided by the sand was enough to get the bus going again, to another round of applause.
SATURDAY
11 a.m.
After breakfast and a study hall, the team gets back onto the bus for a morning skate at Michigan Tech.
But after about 20 minutes, all but two of the players are sent off the ice to help conserve energy,
“The thing is, they would have loved to stay out there,” Moggach said. “They would have stayed out there for two hours if we had two hours’ ice. But we had 50 minutes, and it’s pulling them back, so they get a taste of it. They got through a couple of things, and that’s all we needed.”
The two players who remained on the ice were goalie Cade Groman and forward Noah Stanko, who are sitting out the first semester due to the transfer rule. Kivisto stays with them on the ice and puts them through a workout.
“Kurt loves to compete himself,” Moggach said. “And he loves to let them compete, so he had them out there a good 15-20 minutes. They really worked hard. We have a goalie and a forward, and it worked out perfectly.”
After returning to the hotel, lunch was served and the team had another study/nap break.
The Bulldogs take their meals in a conference room at the hotel. They are coordinated, this year, by Mary Erkkila, whose son Tim is a defenseman on the team.
“I can’t give enough thanks to Mary Erkkila and her husband, Dave,” said Christa White, president of Brighton’s Blue Line Club, the organization in charge of the trip. ‘They have made our lives so much easier. They have family up here, and they know what food to order. It’s fabulous food. It’s hot. It’s ready, and it’s very enjoyable.”
It also disappears quickly, and leftovers are usually distributed to Brighton students, most of them former hockey players, who are studying at Michigan Tech.
4:45 p.m.
After a win the night before, the team is in a relaxed mood.
Everyone is on the bus except Moggach.
He arrives at 4:48, to some ribbing by adults up front. Then a voice pipes up from the back.
“Coach?” the voice asks.
“Yes?” a grinning Moggach says.
“Bus is at 4:45,” the voice replies as players hoot and laugh.
With all aboard, the bus leaves for the Colosseum.
Brighton has played Calumet in all 17 trips it has made to Copper Country.
At first, the reception was a little frosty.
“Jim Crawford was the coach at Calumet for a lot of years,” Moggach said. “When we first went up there, we had no relationship. He was a cantankerous guy, but over time, we developed a relationship. He’s (retired), and the new coaches we have good relationships with.”
The success of the series has helped lure more schools north, which Jacques says has been a boon for the Copper Kings.
“It spices up the schedule quite a bit,” he said. “If you look at it year-to-year, a lot of the teams we see up here are the same teams playing for a state championship on a yearly basis.
“We’re incredibly happy it goes on,” Jacques added. “Every year I dread the phone call that maybe someone’s not coming, but every year teams keep coming back. I think it’s the experience of the trip and the snow and the old building and the tradition. Kids seem to love it, and we sure love having it.”
There also is the family factor.
Bob Erkkila, who has been active in Calumet hockey for decades, has a grandson playing for both teams – Tim, the Brighton defenseman mentioned above, and Sam, a forward for Calumet. Both are juniors who wear No. 8 for their teams.
“Bragging rights to next year; that’s a long time to wait to get back at ’em,” Bob Erkkila said. “So they play hard against each other. They’ve had that rivalry going since they were little kids. They know each other and have grown up together, even though they’re a long ways apart much of the year.”
A bit of wisdom, perhaps gained from past pick-up games in the Keweenaw Peninsula, pays off on this trip.
“Some of the boys were kidding Timmy Erkkila for switching from his bubble (mask) to a cage up here,” Kivisto said. “I think it was a smart move. He’s not getting the condensation, the frost on his mask like some others might. It’s a veteran move by Timmy.”
The Bulldogs never trail in the game, but have to hold off a furious flurry in the final minute when Calumet pulls its goalie for an extra skater. Brighton holds on for a 5-4 win.
10 p.m.
Back at the hotel, a final meal, and several players jump into their swimsuits and hit the pool.
As parents watch from the lobby, some players emerge, head outside with steam pouring off their bodies, and return with giant chunks of snow, to much whooping in the pool.
Moggach has suspended his curfew, sticking to a promise that the players could stay up as long as they wanted.
“It’s so much fun,” Brennan said on the bus ride home. “It’s kind of funny, but I look forward to the night after the second game almost as much as the games themselves. It’s just so much fun.”
The pool party ends when the lights go out a little before midnight.
SUNDAY
6 a.m.
The bus is loaded again for the drive home.
Players, some who were up all night, help pack the bus and then find sleeping spots on the floor.
Before the bus leaves Houghton, it’s mostly silent except for Moggach, who reviews a stat report compiled by team statistician Tom Brennan.
As the team begins its journey, it begins to snow again. Moggach checks with driver Haag, but mostly is lost in his own thoughts.
“There were some nice surprises that we got, and some come-on-you-have-to-pick-it-up kind of things,” he said. “We came in not having won in our last four and we picked up two wins against two good teams. I think there’s a positive energy we’ll take back, which is really good. I take the first 100 miles, before we get to Marquette and the sun comes up, to think about everything.
“I love that time,” he continued. “It’s probably one of my favorite times of the year. I’m not by myself. I’m with people I love, but it’s a time I can reflect on them, on us, and life in general, so it’s a pretty cool time for me.”
A walk back to the restroom on the bus involves navigating a maze of legs and torsos of players sleeping on the floor, requiring care in foot placement reminiscent of the old game “Operation,” where you had to remove the body part without setting off a buzzer. Here, the idea is not to step on anyone.
The snow intensifies east of Marquette, and by the time the team makes a stop for brunch, visibility is about 100 yards.
But Haag, who has made several trips with the team, is up to the challenge.
The snow begins to let up as the bus reaches St. Ignace, and once back in the Lower Peninsula it fades away as passengers sleep, contemplate and read.
Despite the snowy conditions, the bus reaches the Kensington Valley Ice House about 4 p.m., and in the next half hour, the bus is unloaded and participants depart, with a couple of wins under their belts and another unforgettable weekend concluded.
Sam Brennan finished his fourth and final U.P trip.
“It just means I spend more time with the boys,” he said. “It gets more fun every year. This year is more special to me, because I’m a senior and last year I was injured. But every year, it gets more and more fun.”
“When you get 20 athletes together on a trip like this, especially when the parents are along and others like you and our bus driver, it’s all about the life experience that they have,” Moggach said. “I’ve been texting a couple of guys who are alumni of the trip, and they loved this trip. It’s a life experience they’ll never forget.”
Tim Robinson is a longtime radio voice of Livingston County athletics and the former longtime editor of the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus. He currently writes for the Livingston Post and contributes to Second Half.
PHOTOS: (Top) Brighton assistant coach Kurt Kivisto runs his players through drills at the Calumet Colosseum. (2) The bus is loaded full of gear before the sun comes up. (3) Brighton takes in a quick skate at Michigan Tech. (4) The Bulldogs get some competition in against each other on the curling sheet. (5) An adult hockey game finishes up at Dee Stadium before Brighton takes on host Houghton. (6) Bulldogs coach Paul Moggach works with his defensemen at the Colosseum. (7) Brighton players, coaches and managers at the curling rink enjoy a break during their annual trip to Michigan’s Copper Country. (Photos by Tim Robinson.)
Hockey Owns Long History in Michigan HS Lore
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
March 2, 2019
By the fall of 1974, there were 80 “bona-fide high school teams” playing hockey in Michigan.
Growth since 1972 had been spectacular. During the 1972-73 school year, according to Michigan High School Athletic Association assistant director Warren McKenzie, there were 32 high school teams playing varsity schedules. In 1973-74, there were 56.
With increased popularity came the desire for championship competition. By late 1972, several school administrators were clamoring for the MHSAA to consider adding a postseason hockey tournament to its sports menu.
In May, October, and November 1973, the MHSAA Hockey Study Committee gathered in Lansing to explore that possibility, and examined the pros and cons of a tournament, the need for a standard set of rules, for limits on number of games in a season and to establish a uniform time of season.
“We see that hockey has come a long way, and due to recent growth, we wish to provide a state tournament,” said McKenzie later that school year. “Before we can provide a state tournament, there must be uniform rules.”
With things in order, in November 1974 the MHSAA announced plans for the first championship tournament, sketching out details for a two-tiered postseason, scheduled for March 1975.
To little surprise, high school hockey has a rich history in Michigan. In self-christened “Hockeytown,” the sport dates back to the late 1920s in the Detroit Public Schools.
With the largest enrollments in the state, Detroit schools offered a wide array of athletic options to students. The Greater Detroit Prep Hockey Loop in these early days played games outdoors, on public rinks at Kronk and Bradley Parks in Detroit, Redford Park in Redford, at Playfair Park in Hamtramck and in Highland Park. Of course, this being Michigan where winter weather is far from predictable, Mother Nature could play havoc with a season.
Schedules were mapped by week of play, but the actual days and times of the games weren’t announced until weather conditions dictated if and when actual play could occur.
Hockey arrived at Detroit Catholic Central in 1934, started by Father Robert Lowrey. Also dependent upon outdoor rinks in those early years, games were played with Country Day School, Cranbrook School and area club teams. During the 1940s and 1950s, if outdoor conditions were poor for ice, the varsity Shamrocks would sometimes travel to Canada for practice and games at Windsor Arena. Built in 1924 as the Border Cities Arena, the wood-constructed stadium sat 6,000 and for a season served as the original home of the NHL expansion Detroit Cougars, later renamed the Falcons, then finally the Red Wings. Equipment costs, as well as this need to rent indoor ice time, meant the sport was expensive. Still, hockey was among Catholic Central’s most popular athletic offerings.
Hockey was also a fixture during the 1920s in the section of the Upper Peninsula known as Copper Country. There were only four indoor rinks in the Upper Peninsula at the time: the Palestra in Marquette, Gouin Street Arena in Sault Ste. Marie and two of the oldest continually operating rinks in the nation, the Calumet Colosseum in Calumet and the Amphidrome (later renamed Dee Stadium) in Houghton. But the popularity of basketball in the U.P. led to the disappearance of high school hockey by the 1940s.
Hockey vanished in the Detroit Public Schools in the late 1930s, but still remained strong in the Detroit Catholic schools.
Poking around newspaper archives and old yearbooks, one will inevitably unearth the name James O’Reilly Enright. Sports fans in the metro Detroit area knew him best as Father Enright, C.S.B., head coach of the varsity team for 21 years at Detroit Catholic Central and a longtime assistant with the school’s baseball teams.
Born in Detroit, but raised in Toronto, Enright earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario, then joined the staff of Detroit Catholic Central in 1948 as an algebra teacher and head coach of the hockey team. In 1949, he went to Texas, working as a history and English teacher at Houston St. Thomas. While at St. Thomas, Enright revived a dormant hockey program and served as the school’s coach during his two years there. After completing his theological studies and entering the priesthood in June of 1951, he rejoined the staff of Detroit Catholic, where he again became the school’s hockey coach.
“We had been playing hockey at Catholic Central for several years, but we were forced to play only exhibitions inasmuch as no league was in operation,” Enright told the Detroit Times in 1960. “We would play some of the high schools in Windsor and Chatham, Ontario, where hockey is a varsity sport. Or anyone who would play us.”
In the fall of 1958, with the help of Fr. John Lee, the two worked to create a proper high school league. In its initial state, the International High School Hockey League was comprised of eight charter members: Catholic Central, Detroit Catholic schools St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, and Benedictine, Harper Woods Notre Dame, the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills (with its own rink, opened in January 1957), and Ontario schools Windsor Riverside and North Essex.
Catholic Central won the league that first season finishing play with a 13-1 record while topping Notre Dame in the standings. The coming years saw entrances and exits by schools. North Essex departed after the first year. St. Anne of Tecumseh, Ontario, was briefly added to the mix.
The International League was split into two divisions, first and second, and in later years, North and South. Each February beginning in 1962, teams would compete in the annual Mayor’s Cup tournament, hosted at Cobo Arena near the Detroit riverfront or at Olympia, the old red barn, that served as home for the Red Wings. Without an MHSAA postseason hockey tournament in place, an IHSHL playoff was hosted each March. Winners often would lay claim to state championships. Catholic Central annexed state titles in 1959, 1961 and 1968.
Ann Arbor High School joined the league in 1962-63. A season-opening crowd of 3,500 was on hand at Michigan Hockey Arena on a Saturday in late November for the team’s debut. The Pioneers wore varsity football jerseys in that opener against Detroit Catholic Central (and for the early part of the season), as they didn’t yet have regular hockey uniforms. George Wolski posted a hat trick, scoring three goals for the Shamrocks, as Fr. Enright’s squad defeated Ann Arbor, 5-3.
Detroit Cathedral Catholic also joined the league beginning with the 1962-63 season. A strong team, the Wildcats fell to the Windsor Riverside Rebels, 2-1 and 3-2, in the league’s best-of-three championship series at Windsor Stadium in the 1963 playoffs. It was the second consecutive IHSHL title for Riverside.
By the mid-to-late 1960s the teams from Canada had departed, but continued growth of hockey programs in the Metro area led to additional expansion.
Headed by Hockey Magazine prep All-American Phil Wittliff’s 37 goals during the 1964-65 regular season, Port Huron Catholic posted an 11-2-1 regular season mark in its first season of varsity play in the IHSHL. Finishing second in its division, the team then rolled past leader Ann Arbor, with 4-3 and 7-6 wins in a best-of-three series, to advance to the league championship game. Before a crowd of nearly 700 at McMorran Sports Arena in Port Huron, the Warriors topped Cathedral Catholic, 7-4, to claim league and state championships in a contest that was ended early because of several fights. Wittliff, a junior, finished the year with 47 goals including three goals and three assists in the season finale. Following graduation, he played hockey at Notre Dame and in hockey’s minor leagues, then became head coach and team executive with the Milwaukee Admirals of the old International Hockey League.
“There are more than 200 amateur hockey teams in the Detroit area and the figure could easily double if there were enough playing rinks to go around,” stated the Detroit Free Press in March 1965. “The organized leagues begin with the Squirt Division for boys under 10. The Pee Wee under 12 group follows and then the Bantams. The Juvenile and Junior Division cover the high school age group.”
Ann Arbor (winner of IHSHL tournament titles in 1966, 1967 and 1971), Detroit Benedictine (champion in 1969 and 1970), Detroit Cathedral Catholic, St. Clair Shores Lakeview, Ecorse, Fraser and others emerged as strong opponents during the seasons and showcased their skills in tournaments hosted at Olympia Stadium, Cobo and various suburban rinks sprouting up during that span.
“High school hockey was abandoned in the Upper Peninsula some 25 years ago,” noted The Associated Press in an article from November 1969 announcing that Calumet, Hancock, Marquette and Houghton were prepared to sponsor the sport. That winter, the schools joined Eagle River, Wis., to form the Lake Superior Hockey League.
Sault Ste. Marie began play in the winter of 1972-73. Too far from Copper Country for competition to be practical, it joined the Schoolboy High School League “with seven Canadian teams across the (St. Marys) river.” Beginning in 1972, Alpena operated the V.F.W. Allstar Midgets hockey team, playing older teams, with the goal of adding hockey as a varsity sport with the 1973-74 season.
In Flint, Ainsworth, Bentley, Carman, Kearsley and Powers Catholic high schools joined Grand Blanc and Mt. Morris to launch teams and form the Genessee County High School Hockey League during the 1972-73 school year. Games were played at the Flint IMA Sports Arena and strongly supported by fans. Attendance averaged 1,500 per contest, with 3,500 packing the arena for the league championship between Powers and Grand Blanc. Flint Northern and others followed with programs the next winter, bringing league membership to 20 schools spread across two divisions.
“In February of 1973, there was no indoor ice in Grand Rapids. A year later… there are two indoor rinks, 18 youth teams, 18 men’s teams and close to 500 participants.” wrote United Press International reporter Richard Gosselin while covering the rapid growth of amateur hockey in Michigan in early 1973. “Saginaw was much the same way…From zero hockey last year, Saginaw now has a program of 17 teams with over 300 players.”
According to a series of articles written by Howard Hoffman for the Port Huron Times Herald in 1974, four high school hockey leagues existed in Michigan, each operating with its own set of rules.
Besides the Lake Superior Conference in the U.P., and the Genessee County League, high school-sponsored teams played in the Suburban Hockey League and the Michigan Metro League. The SHL began in 1972-73 and included “four Livonia schools, two from Southfield and Wyandotte Roosevelt.” The Metro League was the former International High School Hockey League. It had been rechristened following the departure of the Canadian schools and, according to Hoffman, now included 21 teams, “mostly private schools in Detroit and suburban schools in affluent cities such as St. Clair Shores, Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills.”
Four additional club leagues, each without high school sponsorship, operated in Saginaw (six teams), Kalamazoo (six teams), Lansing (eight teams) and Grand Rapids (10 teams). In Lansing, the club teams were sponsored by the Metro Ice Arena, which paid coaches and officials, and supplied the equipment to the teams. In the Kalamazoo and Saginaw areas, the squads depended on families and/or friends of players to fund operations. Grand Rapids teams operated with funding from the local Amateur Hockey Association and the Grand Rapids Ice Arena.
In January 1975, the MHSAA finalized the field for that first postseason. Director Allen Bush stated that club teams, not officially representing a high school, would not be eligible for the playoffs.
In this first year, all teams immediately advanced to regional action. Eligible teams were grouped into two classifications, based on hockey experience, size of the school and type of feeder programs in the area. Tier I, featuring 47 more experienced teams, would play semifinals and finals rounds at University of Michigan’s Yost Arena. In Tier II, 33 teams would battle it out for the right to compete in the semis and finals to be played at Veteran’s Arena in Ann Arbor.
“It was the best way we could figure out to get started and it seems to have worked out well,” said McKenzie. “At least there haven’t been too many complaints.”
St. Clair Shores Lakeview downed Calumet 5-1 behind a hat trick by Keith Zoldak in the Tier I championship, to finish the season with a perfect 31-0 record. Calumet ended the year at 25-3. Greg Tignanelli and Dan Reeder also scored for the Huskies, while Duane Nordstrom scored the lone goal for Calumet. In a time when most college hockey players came from Canada, Zoldak would later star at Ferris State and Tignanelli excelled at Northern Michigan, then was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens.
In only its second year of existence, Lansing Catholic topped previously unbeaten Portage Northern for the Tier II title, 5-3 before a crowd of 1,200. The Cougars ended the year 28-2-1, while Northern, which had beaten Catholic earlier in the year, finished 20-1. Junior goalie Buddy Heagen stopped 44 shots as the Huskies outshot Lansing Catholic, 47 to 27. Randy Williams, who finished the year with 52 goals, scored in both the first and second periods to lead the Cougars. Trailing 4-2, Northern cut the lead to a goal with 3:49 remaining on a Doug Eckert goal, but winger Cam Corn sealed the victory “when he backhanded a rebound past goalie John Wright” with just over a minute to play.
“It was a success, a real success, said McKenzie to the Lansing State Journal on Monday following the tournament. “The entire tournament went through without one major problem. We had no major altercation on the ice. I think we proved you can play hockey without fighting, without violence. We had the true hockey fans. They got excited, they cheered…their fans were perfect ladies and gentlemen. They paid the respect due to a winner. They applauded…it was a great example of sportsmanship by the players, coaches and fans alike.”
“The (roughness and fighting) was a big concern in those early days,” said Rex Luxton, hockey coach at St. Clair Shores Lakeview for 19 years. “There was always concern about that. For one year at Lakeview we had a kid fresh out of college coaching the hockey team. He was too close in age to the kids playing to (control it). I had been the football coach, so the athletic director came to me and said if we don’t clean it up the school will shut us down. I didn’t know anything about hockey, although I had a young son playing recreation, but I was a disciplinarian. I recruited a Canadian from my neighborhood, and he helped me to run things for two years.”
The MHSAA Tournament returned in 1976, with a few minor tweaks. This time 94 schools sponsored teams and Michigan State University played host to the final rounds. Again, competition was split into two classifications based on experience, with 45 teams placed in Tier I and 49 in Tier II. Eight regionals were held in each tier, with winners in Tier I scheduled to play the semifinals and finals at Munn Arena, and Tier II victors booked for games at MSU’s Demonstration Hall.
Trenton downed Lakeview, the reigning titlists in Tier I, 4-2. It was Trenton’s third victory over Luxton’s Huskies on the season, and avenged a 7-6 loss to Lakeview in the tournament’s semifinals in 1975. A crowd of 2,107 attended the championship contest. Matt Dubois finished with a goal and two assists for the winners, who ended the year with a 28-2-1 mark.
Lansing Catholic Central repeated as Tier II champ, downing Flushing, 4-1, to finish the season undefeated with 29 wins and two ties. The Cougars’ last defeat dated back to January 1975.
The tier format was also used for both the 1977 and 1978 tournaments. In 1977, the Tier I final rounds were again hosted at Yost in Ann Arbor, while Tier II played out at the IMA Sports Arena in Flint.
Marquette, behind a pair of third-period goals by Ted Sharkey and top-notch goaltending by Dale Carrier, earned Tier I honors, downing the reigning champs from Trenton 3-2. Marquette finished with a 21-4-1 record, while Trenton ended the year at 23-5-2. Jackson Lumen Christi blasted Flint Ainsworth 10-2 in Tier II. Tim Comperchio and Chris Dykstal each finished with two goals and two assists for the winners.
Travel, ice time and equipment expense inherent to the sport continued to mean fluctuations in the schools competing during those days, as some dropped hockey while others added it to their athletic offerings. For the 1977-78 season, the MHSAA moved the Tier I semis and finals to Michigan Tech at Houghton. This time just 38 schools were assigned to the state’s top class.
John Manzella scored two short-handed goals and notched a third for the hat trick as St. Clair Shores Lakeview seized its second title in three visits to the Tier I championship game with a 9-2 victory over Sault Ste. Marie.
“That was an interesting trip,” recalled Lakeview coach Luxton. “Those were the days when the quarterfinals were played on Wednesday. Our athletic director was on top of things, so we headed north to the U.P. on Thursday. That was a long trip. We played the semis on Friday and the finals on Saturday night and then left for home. The bus driver never turned off the bus the entire trip – the engine ran the whole time.
“We had hockey cheerleaders then. The wind was blowing strong when we started heading across the bridge – the Big Mac – about two in the morning. When the bus started to list with the wind, the girls were on the bottom of the bus with their coats over their heads. Then by the time we got close to home, the bus engine started missing. ‘I guess we need fuel,’ the bus driver said. Fortunately, he found a place. We almost had run out of diesel by the time we got back on Sunday.”
The final rounds of Tier II remained at the Flint IMA. Robert Thomas scored a Finals record four goals as Lumen Christi topped Ecorse, 6-4, to repeat as Tier II champion. Tom Mourgut scored twice for Ecorse, which finished with a 17-10-0 mark. A total of 59 schools had been assigned to Tier II action.
With the sport still growing, and with four years of existence under its belt, the MHSAA’s Ice Hockey committee chose to use enrollment numbers to break the tournament into Classes for the 1978-79 season. A total of 53 of the 102 schools that indicated sponsorship of the sport fell in Class A. The remaining 49 were grouped into a second Class B-C-D grouping. The format would serve the sport for the next 21 years.
Enright had retired following the 1973 season. In 1974, Detroit Catholic Central claimed the last of the state’s pre-MHSAA titles and in 1983 the Shamrocks made their first appearance in an MHSAA championship game. In 1994, they won their first MHSAA postseason hockey title.
Just after the completion of the 25th annual tournament, the MHSAA announced that tournament play would be reclassified into “three nearly equal divisions of approximately 43 schools each” starting with the 1999-2000 school year.
“The rapid growth of ice hockey as an interscholastic sport in recent years, particularly in Class A, has necessitated the addition of a district level to that tournament,” said the State Association. “The reclassification will return the ice hockey tournament to a regional-final round format, with most regionals consisting of five teams.”
Twenty years later, that postseason format remains strong and nearly 150 teams – many co-operative programs with students from multiple schools – filled the MHSAA Tournament field as playoffs began last week. This season’s championships will be decided Saturday at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Jackson Lumen Christi takes on Ecorse in the 1978 MHSAA Tier II Final. (2) The Detroit Times named its all-city team in 1936, left, while Hancock celebrated its winning team in 1926. (3) James O’Reilly Enright, left, played a major role in growing Detroit Catholic Central’s hockey program. (4) Port Huron Catholic’s Phil Wittliff scored against Detroit Cathedral during a 1965 league final. (5) Houghton and Calumet square off during the 1969-70 season. (6) St. Clair Shores Lakeview, top, and Lansing Catholic Central earned the first MHSAA hockey championships in 1975. (8) Rex Luxton, far right, let St. Clair Shores Lakeview for 19 seasons. (Photos collected by Ron Pesch.)