Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

[joehockey]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

From Twitter:

SCSU Women's Hockey @SCSUHUSKIES_WHK

Huskies receive transfer commitments from two Providence players... F Molly Illikainen and D Lexi Slattery. More details to follow...
5:18 PM - 30 May 2014 St Cloud, MN, United States

Lexi Slattery's brother Mitch a top hockey player has committed to SCSU. Illikainen is a huge talent for any program.

[joehockey]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

Lets Play Hockey Article

In Minnesota everyone reads Lets Play Hockey "it is the Hockey Bible". Here is a great article by Friar Allison Micheletti.

http://www.letsplayhockey.com/online...er-people.html

The Micheletti family: Great hockey players, even better people

By Allison Micheletti

In an age where the average family consists of four to five members, it is hard to imagine growing up in a family of 11. Even more challenging to think about is how to fit 11 people into a four-bedroom house. The Micheletti family of Hibbing, Minn., was up to the task.

The parents, Americo and Mary, claimed a bedroom upstairs. Jean and Andrea, the two sisters of the nine children, shared a room. The boys all had rooms in the basement, with the oldest boy in the house at the time residing in a single room to himself, and the rest of the boys sharing a larger room.

Although this sounds to me like a claustrophobic attack waiting to happen, my father, Don, accounts that it was not that bad. Perhaps this close proximity and fierce competition was what drove my uncles to exceed in sports, resulting in making the Michelettis into a well-known Minnesota hockey family.

In the hockey world, people are most familiar with the three Michelletti boys that played at the University of Minnesota: Joe, Don and Pat. However, every boy born into the family was a talented athlete that contributed to the success of the family.

Tom is the oldest, and played hockey at Harvard. Jim is the second-born and played football for the University of North Dakota. Andy is a two-time hockey All-American for Gustavus Adolphus and a member of the school’s Hall of Fame. He was the only family member to play goalie. Jerry is the fourth-born and played hockey at Air Force Academy. His senior year at AFA he was voted Best Athlete of All Sports.

Joe was the first of the three brothers to play at the University of Minnesota. He was a defenseman who played in 135 games for the Gophers, racking up 106 points in his career. He is currently listed 10th for most points by a defenseman in Gopher history.

My father, Don, came second in the line of Michelettis to play for the Gophers. Don is tied for 27th with 148 points in 127 career games. He is also ranked 16th all-time in career penalty minutes (257).

Youngest and the last to play for the Golden Gophers is Pat “The Rat” Micheletti. Pat holds amazing records at the U, being the No. 2 all-time points leader with 269 points, following short only to the legendary John Mayasich. If that is not enough, Pat also is holding strong at No. 3 for all-time penalty minutes with 403 minutes tallied. To spend that much time in the box and still have enough time to get 269 points, well, that is something else. That something else also just got him inducted into the “M” Club Hall of Fame.

The question on my mind, and I’m sure on the minds of others, is how all these athletes from one family came to be so successful.

My father always encouraged me to play outdoor pick-up hockey and told me it was the best way to hone my skills. Well, the cold and I just never got along. However, perhaps that free-for-all, wind in your face, biting cold on your hands and feet outdoor hockey is the trick to learning the game and developing skills.

My father recounted for me his youth hockey days playing for his neighborhood team, Cobb Cook. In those days, Hibbing youth hockey was split into teams by what elementary school you attended, or the area you lived in, like Kitsville, a small “suburb” outside of Hibbing. My dad and his brothers would spend hours out on the ice, day in and day out. In regard to how it develops one as player, he said, “Everyone was out on the ice at once. You had to learn to move the puck quick or you would get killed.”

If playing at the local outdoor rink was not enough, when the snow fell and became packed down onto the roads, boot hockey was the name of the game. A story that always makes me laugh when I hear it at family gatherings is the trick that Uncle Joe would play to get the advantage. When he had the puck, he would yell “Car!” and everyone would stop and look around while he made his way to the net.

In the basement, a few of the boys would strap Pat up in Andy’s goalie gear and shoot at him, pretending they were a specific pro player and would even commentate for themselves.

As for me, I grew up a child that disliked playing out in the cold and had no siblings to compete with. I may not be setting point records at the University of Minnesota, but I am happy to be carrying on the Micheletti hockey name out East where I play at Providence College. To my surprise, I still get a lot of recognition out there, even though I am 1,400 miles away from my family’s roots.

It is not the recognition that makes being a Micheletti so great. It is not the weight of success the name carries. It is not being part of a “Minnesota hockey family.” In fact, the best part of being a Micheletti has nothing to do with hockey at all. The best part is the love and support I receive from my family, and friends of the family.

If the Michelettis are not known for their success in hockey, they are known for being outstanding people. Numerous times, from absolute strangers, I have heard how wonderful my dad is, my uncles and aunts are, and what special people my grandparents were.

Never in my hockey career have I ever felt pressure from my family members to be a better player. Rather, I only get support and advice. For example, I remember calling Uncle Pat a few days before my first high school state tournament game and talking faceoff strategies with him. I can say that I do not know many other players who have that kind of hockey knowledge on tap. Or even this year while I was at a New York Rangers game, I stopped in the press box to visit Uncle Joe (he is the color analyst for the Rangers broadcasting team), and although he was in between periods, he was enthused to talk to me about my season I had just finished at Providence College.

The best thing about being a Micheletti has nothing to do with hockey or achievement; it has to do with the caliber of people I am surrounded by, their continuous support, and the unconditional love received, no matter failure or success.

GO FRIARS!

[joehockey]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

http://www.letsplayhockey.com/online...e-seasons.html

A changing of the seasons
Celebrating your next chapter in hockey

By Margaret Pendleton

As I am writing this, 143 days have passed since I last put on my skates and played in a game. One hundred and forty-three long days ago, in March of this year, I played in my final game of collegiate level women’s hockey.

Your whole hockey career, somewhere in the back of your head is the thought that it will someday end. The problematic part is that it is very much in the back of your head. And even when it makes its way to the front, as it did my senior season, processing this reality can be a strange experience.

At the Division I level, only two hockey teams play their last game with the knowledge that it is their last game – the teams that are playing in the national championship game. If every team before that goes into playoffs believing they will win the game (as all competitive hockey teams do), it means that no one has mentally prepared to play in their final game of the season. This also means that except for a few select championship game seniors, no senior player enters their last game knowing it will be their last.

You may say, ‘Isn’t this the edge we live for? Survival of the fittest is only fair, and the end is inevitable.’ It’s true that the best part about it not being your last season is that it’s not your last season. The hurt of your season-ending loss fuels your motivation to make it happen the next season.

But what happens when there are no seasons left?

It kind of feels like when you have a box of your favorite candy, and you eat the last one without realizing it’s the last one. Or maybe you have a slight idea that it could be one of the last ones, so you savor it a little more. Either way, you are forced to face the reality of that empty box, full of goodness gone. Multiply that feeling by a thousand; that’s what the end can feel like.

For awhile, that’s what the end felt like for me. I felt sorry for myself, for running out of games and for running out of seasons. Thinking about it more, I realized that this reality I was dealing with, the end of my career, wasn’t just about me.

I was the last person in my family playing, and they supported me through the whole journey. They rode the ups and downs of every season along with me for 14 years.

There are the people that I literally shared my seasons with – my teammates. Beyond wins and losses, we shared the same tough practices and pre-game excitement.

There are the dozens of coaches in my rearview mirror that made it possible for me to continue to play at different levels, and therefore they were a part of my seasons, too.

Finally, there is a group of amazing little girls who made it to almost every game of my collegiate career. They were so dedicated to our team that our seasons became theirs too.

What I have come to realize is, no hockey player stands alone. In its simplest form, by nature of the game, we need the rest of the team to play; our successes and failures are never just ours.

Then there’s the fact that we’re most likely carted around, rink to rink, by someone else who makes sure we have both elbow pads; our time and commitment are never just ours.

We also need guidance to learn the game and be grown into great players; our knowledge is never just ours.

Finally, there’s the fact that great fans make playing the game that much better; the heart and hope we carry through the games is never just ours.

Once we realize this, we can see that a season is never just ours. The intricate blend of work, commitment and heart pulls together a team of people that is so much bigger than our actual team.

If seasons aren’t just ours, surely our careers aren’t either. Any single career is the product of these unofficial teams, a mix of names that have been on the roster from day one, names that have been on the actual roster and names that have only ever been in the stands. It is a team that takes on so much more meaning than we ever could alone.

So this is for all players at all levels who are no longer playing; for all those finding themselves at the beginning of a hockey season without a season of their ‘own’ to play. Know that this is a shared game, a team game, dominated by unofficial rosters. As we move from the ice to the stands, or perhaps even from the ice to behind the bench, we can look forward to claiming new roles and joining teams that need us. I know some little girls in Rhode Island who are just starting to play on their first teams, and they need the fan love that they once gave to me.

True love of the game isn’t just for players who play, but for anyone willing to surrender their self to the greater good and the higher power we define as hockey. Once we realize this truth, we never run out of seasons.


About the Author: Margaret Pendleton is a Minn. native who grew up playing hockey in Woodbury, Minn., and continued on to play for Hill-Murray School and finally, Providence College in Providence, R.I. She graduated from Providence in May, 2014.

[brookyone]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

http://www.letsplayhockey.com/online...e-seasons.html

That was just outstanding! Really enjoyed reading that.

[wwhyte]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

http://www.letsplayhockey.com/online...e-seasons.html

That was just outstanding! Really enjoyed reading that.

+1, lovely article.

[puckskillz]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

Nice read! Way to go Pops!

[Hux]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

Two additional players signed for the coming season.

[joehockey]

Re: Providence Friars "Special Season 2013-214" - 1974 to 2014 40 Years of Leadership

Two additional players signed for the coming season.

Lauren Klein was a very top MN HS player from a good program and should contribute to the program. Looks like she is a RIT transfer.
http://www.startribune.com/sports/preps/185943372.html
http://www.ritathletics.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=9387

RIT STATS as Freshman
SEASON GP G A Pts Shots Shot% Pen Min +/- PPG SHG GWG
2013-14 38 1 4 5 25 .040 8 16 -5 0 0 0