From rejected program to state champs

Joe Wieners remembers the day when a proposal was brought to the Kasson-Mantorville School Board to start a girls high school program, along with a boys team.

Wieners still can only speculate on the reason, but the boys team was approved, the girls team was rejected.

One theory for at least some unsupportive board members was taking away from a talented girls basketball team. Misogyny, and straight up being cheap are all theories Wieners had.

It’s not lost on Wieners as he reflected in an interview after the girls hockey team won its first ever state championship, defeating Warroad in the state championship game.

“You’d like them to acknowledge that maybe they made a mistake,” he said.

Building a Rink

About 30 years ago, there were funds available through the state, for local communities interested in building indoor ice rinks to tap into.

At the time, Wieners was County Attorney, and was president of the youth association.

It was decided to put in for a grant.

“In Kasson there were a few of us that thought that would be a good idea,” he said.

It included support from Kasson, Dodge Center and Mantorville, along with the backing of the County.

The original grant was turned down, but in the next year, the proposal was stronger with not only public support, as well as pledged donations from the private sector.

“That’s really the start of the program,” Wieners said.

At the time about 50 kids in Dodge County played hockey, and only two were girls.

By building the rink, Wieners said, the youth program was able to get started.

“That was the key first step in building a youth hockey program,” Wieners said.

For the first year, the girls team played as a U19 team, and was rejected to play at the high school level year, on a board decision.

The team played another year at the U19 level, before the team finally had enough votes to play at the high school level.

Wieners said the 1997-1998 girls high school team’s record was poor, and his daughter, the starting goalie, had 50 or 60 shots on goal against her every game.

From his perspective it looked like the whole program was going to “collapse” if they didn’t form a youth program.

He knew in order to build a winning team it would take depth, and experience, something other programs had.

“That’s when I and a couple of others started the U12 program for girls,” Wieners said.

Aside from the success on the ice recently, Wieners said? he views the success of the rink by the numbers of cars there on any given winter night, and the number of players who went on to play at the next level.

“I’m damn proud of the number of kids who have been able to participate beyond high school…and none of that would happen without that rink,” Wieners said.

Winning Wasn’t Expected

Kate Pappas and her sister Alaina Pappas-Mitchell were on skates from the time they were young, but it was the learn to skate events organized by Weiners and others that got their attention into the sport.

The program was simple; get youth girls on skates, and teach them a little bit about hockey, in order to try to recruit enough girls to form a youth program.

Pappas and Pappas-Mitchell reminisce about their experience from the concourse of the Xcel Energy Center, in between periods of the state championship game.

“It’s so cool, the amount of work the coaching staff has put in and the community,” Pappas said.

Pappas was in fourth grade when she started hockey, and by the time she was in middle school she and others in her class were playing at the varsity level due to not having enough players to field a JV team.

At the same time current Head Coach Jeremy Gunderson took over the high school program.

“As soon as Jeremy took over coaching he got real serious,” Pappas-Mitchell said.

At first the team still wasn’t good, and not many teams would play them, forcing the team to play schools as far as Windom, and Fairmont, on Saturdays.

Wieners said winning wasn’t taken for granted back then. He recalls the first tie they had had at the youth level “it was like winning the seventh game of the Stanley Cup.”

“When we started, just winning a game was a big deal,” he said.

Just how much of a difference the team is compared to the years when getting a bus was hard can be summed up with Pappas’ experience now.

She said growing up, people would ask her where Dodge County was, and now she plays in a women’s league in the Twin Cities.

People know about the program.

“Now it means something,” Pappas said.