Fans come out in droves to celebrate Minnesota’s PWHL title – InForum

SF. PAUL — You could forgive Natalie Darwitz for going into replays for just a second as she addressed a crowd of several thousand who had come to the Xcel Energy Center on a rainy Friday night. But as he watched the crowd there celebrate PWHL Minnesota winning its first Walter Cup title, the general manager repeated a line he had made months earlier at the first PWHL Draft.

“This is not a moment,” Darwitz said from the stage set up at ice level. “It’s a movement.”

The players, general manager and coach spoke for about 45 minutes Friday, then nearly every member of the team stayed for an hour or so, signing hundreds of autographs and posing for selfies endlessly until every fan had their moment in this motion.

The night capped a whirlwind 11 months for Darwitz, a former star on the ice at nearby Eagan High School, in college with the Gophers and at the Olympics for Team USA. Last June, she had quietly parted ways with the U of M after two seasons as an assistant coach. She took over as head coach at Hill-Murray, then resigned before the preseason began when the PWHL was formed and had a chance to make the first team in Minnesota.

Before the purple team got the first overall pick in the aforementioned draft, Darwitz had already signed key free agents like Kelly Pannek, Lee Stecklein and Kendall Coyne-Schofield. She took Taylor Heise, whom she coached the last two seasons with the Gophers, with the first overall pick and put together a roster with several names familiar to Minnesotans and a handful of seasoned talented imports.

Everything was going well with training camp underway and coach Charlie Burggraf running the show. And then, just days before the start of the season, Burggraf was fired and Ken Klee was rushed to St. Paul – missing out on a tropical vacation with his family to take over one of the six teams in the new league.

“I wouldn’t trade it for the world to get to work with these athletes,” Klee said Friday to loud applause from the fans in attendance.

Klee had interviewed for the job a few months earlier and had not received it. But when Darwitz called, he was home in Denver for Christmas with his family. After a quick chat and their blessing, he packed up his Ram 1500 pickup in about 30 minutes and made the 13-hour drive to the Twin Cities.

After a strong start to the season, Darwitz wasn’t satisfied and worked on the first trade in PWHL history, bringing former Ohio State star defender Sophie Jacques from Boston to bolster Minnesota’s blue line. All was well until March when the team hit something of a wall. They returned to the playoffs with five straight losses and were the fourth seed in the four-team postseason.

Top-seeded Toronto got to pick its opponent and picked ice-cold Minnesota, then promptly won the first two games of the best-of-five series, running Minnesota’s losing streak to seven games and claiming -is on the verge of elimination. When several thousand fans came to St. Paul for the team’s first playoff game, surely more than a few expected a funeral.

Minnesota then won six of the next eight games, culminating in a 3-0 shutout of Boston in the pivotal game five of the PWHL Finals, bringing the Walter Cup home to the State of Hockey.

In a state where none of the four major men’s teams (Vikings, Twins, Wild and Timberwolves) have brought a title to Minnesota since 1991, the Hockey State is quickly gaining a reputation as the State of Women’s Champions, following the success of the Minnesota Lynx since WNBA over the past decade and the hockey titles won by the now-defunct Minnesota Whitecaps and PWHL Minnesota.

The Coyne-Schofield team captain, who held the Walter Cup aloft as she walked onto the arena floor Friday, noted that her teammates were generally ignored when the finalists for the league awards were announced. Former Gophers forward Grace Zumwinkle is named Rookie of the Year. Minnesota was barred from all other league awards.

“It’s fine,” Coyne-Schofield said from the stage, gesturing to the large silver trophy on the stage. “Because we have the best team award.”

And with that, the crowd roared once more.

Jess Myers covers college hockey, as well as outdoor, general sports and travel, for The Rink Live and the Forum Communications family of publications. He came to the FCC in 2018 after three decades of covering sports as a freelancer for a variety of publications while working full-time in politics and media relations. A native of Warroad, Minnesota (the real Hockeytown USA), Myers holds a degree in journalism/communications from the University of Minnesota Duluth. Live in the Twin Cities. Contact Jess by email at [email protected] or find him on Twitter @JessRMyers. English speaking.