September 24, 2009
By Dave McMahon
Special to USAHockey.com
Pass the puck.
It’s a difficult concepts to teach some young hockey players, and it’s equally challenging to get the young players to do it correctly.
 | The Blades take passing a puck possession to a new level. |
The Minnesota Blades U-14 team has found passing to be the magic formula in their incredible success over the past two summers. The Twin Cities-based Blades have won 36 games in a row in the U.S. in that span, and have come away with titles in each of the seven tournaments they’ve entered.
Save for a handful of players who departed to attend school at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, the same group of Blades went 5-0 at the Sherwood/North American Hockey League Future Prospects Tournament Sept. 16-19 in Blaine, Minn. The Blades outscored their opponents 34-7 at the Showcase. The Blades led the tournament in both goals for and goals against. Of the top 11 scorers in the tournament, eight played for the Blades. Here’s a look at their tournament titles over the past two years:
- 2009 Nike Bauer Selects Regional Tournament Champions
- 2009 Easton Cup Champions
- 2009 Golden Walleye Classic Champions
- 2009 NAHL Future Prospects Tournament Champions
- 2008 Minnesota Meltdown Champions
- 2008 Golden Walleye Classic Champions
- 2008 Chicago Mission Friendship Champions
Seven players have been with the team since its origin, and 10 have been with the squad for at least three years.
Coach Scott Steffen, who will add the 2000-born team next season to his duties next season, is in his second year as coach of the Blades. Steffen is known as a top strength and conditioning and skating coach, but never dabbled in coaching behind the bench. Until now.
“I’m a hockey training specialist,” Steffen said. “I had never really thought of coaching. But the Blades gave me an opportunity to come into coach a nice group of players. They felt they needed somebody with my professional training background to get the best out of these kids.”
It’s hard to argue with Steffen’s mentors. Bill Lechner, head coach at Hill-Murray High School, is one of the Minnesota high school hockey coaching greats. Former University of Minnesota assistant coach and current USHL coach Mike Guentzel drew up some of the practice plans that Steffen uses to this day.
“Those are the two guys I model my coaching after,” Steffen said. “Mike runs the best exchange and flow drills that I’ve ever seen, and Bill has had a lot of success at Hill-Murray. He holds the kids accountable as students, not just as hockey players. His goal is to turn them into nice gentlemen. And I use a lot of [Blades assistant coach Jamie Huffman’s] strategies from coaching at the junior level.”
Blades manager Terry Moore noted that the 17 players on the roster come from 15 different local youth hockey associations. When the winter season starts, they’ll play either Bantam or high school hockey. Next spring, they’ll be off to the Prospects Tournament in Toronto.
The claims to fame for Blades’ players are minimal. Jeff Lindquist, head coach at Bloomington Jefferson High School, and Tino Lettieri, former goalkeeper with the Minnesota Kicks soccer team, have sons on the team.
“We win a lot of games because mostly because the players are further along in the development curve than other kids their age,” Moore said. “And that’s because Scott has pushed them that way. Scott has been so good for these guys.”
The Blades average more than seven goals a game, but those don’t come without plenty of work.
“Every player on the team is the best player on their youth hockey team, so you don’t have one MVP, you have 17,” Steffen said. “So getting them to play together is the main thing we work on. We’ve been compared to the best AAA teams ever assembled in Minnesota, but it’s that way because we have different guys on the board every night.”
“The key is to get them to buy into making them move the puck. You won’t find a [1995-born] team move the puck like we do. We dominate puck possession every night.”
T.J. Moore (Edina, Minn.) led the Blades at the Showcase with 12 points (5 goals, 4 assists). Daniel Labosky (Edina, Minn.) had a pair of power-play goals en route to 11 points (5 goals, 6 assists). Vinni Lettieri (7 goals, 1 assist) and Zach Hartley (5 goals, 3 assists) tallied eight points apiece.
Goaltenders Patrick Munson and Johnny Dugas split time in net. They combined for a pair of victories, a 1.40 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage.
“I attribute our success to team play,” Steffen said. “We have some very, very skilled players, but the key is getting them to play together. We do a lot of spacing drills, trying to get the guys to move to open ice. We play an offensive-minded, free-flowing game, and on any given night, you’re going to see some highlight reel-type goals.
“We have potentially seven or eight Division I players on this team, and there’s a very good possibility that there are some NHL players in that group.”
Even so, the Blades rely on hard work to get onto the ice.
“Every night, if you want it, you’ve got to earn it. If you want more playing time, you’ve got to earn it,” Steffen said. “We stress that nobody is above the team. I told the guys when I was putting this squad together, there were some other great players in the state that were not going to be on this team. But I was looking for the right guys, maybe not the best guys.”
The Blades begin their practice at the St. Louis Park Rec Center with skating drills.
“We just skate for the first 25-30 minutes,” he said. “We do what I call dynamic skating techniques — edge drills, balance, hops and jumps. Basically what you would see at an NHL development camp.”
Then it’s on to passing.
“Our drills aren’t one-to-one passes,” said Steffen, who owns Steffen Hockey Training and the Minnesota Superleagues, a 4-on-4 offseason league for high school and pro players. “It’s 4-5 passes with a couple of exchanges. We work on space and flow, always at a high pace. We never stray from the main goal of developing players for the next level.”
The Blades typically practice twice a week, but playing other sports is encouraged.
“This is summer hockey,” he said. “Some practices we do make mandatory, but at the highest level, the best athletes are the best hockey players. Baseball, golf and soccer are important to these kids, too, and they need to play those sports. These kids playing one sport by the time they’re 9-10 years old — that’s the completely wrong way to do it. We have some varsity baseball players as ninth graders, some varsity soccer players.”
Steffen seems to have fit in well with the Blades in a short two years.
“When you say 1995 Minnesota Blades, people are pretty familiar with us,” Steffen said. “The majority of them are ninth-graders, but the scouts were there and they put on an impressive performance in Blaine. The scouts won’t be calling me yet, but I bet a lot of guys had their names jotted down somewhere.”
Next year’s 2001 Blades team will be coached by Tom Chorske and Lance Pitlik.
“And they’ll become part of the tradition that John Arko and Terry Moore have built with the Blades,” Steffen said.
Blades U-14 team members are T.J. Moore, Daniel Labosky, Vinni Lettieri, Zach Hartley, Travis Wood, Hudsen Fasching, Andy Jordahl, Garrett Riebling, Matt Perry, John Wittala, Dyler Adler, Jono Lindquist, Parker Reno, Jordan Gross, Patrick Munson and Johnny Dugan.
Story courtesy of Red Line Editorial, Inc. |