Editor’s note: Throughout November, the Pucks and Recreation staff will alphabetically recount every state’s most memorable all-round hockey calendar year. The final installment of the five-part series covers South Dakota through Wyoming. In descending priority, we will take into account achievements by major professional, college, minor professional and junior teams plus players born or raised in a given state.
South Dakota: 2010
In their only championship campaign to date, the Rapid City Rush clinched all three series at home. They sweetened the ride by finishing two of those sets on an overtime goal.
The two-year-old franchise clinched its first series with a 7-6 sudden-death decision versus Missouri. It improved to 2-0 in overtime and 5-0 all-time in the postseason by bumping Bossier-Shreveport, 5-4, to open the semifinals.
The Mudbugs flexed enough formidability to break Rapid City’s perfection. But the Rush ran away with Game 7, stamping their passport to the Central League final. There they won their fourth and fifth overtime tilts, including a 4-3 Game 6 thriller to finish the Allen Americans. – Al Daniel
Tennessee: 2017
The Nashville Predators leaped into the national spotlight this year when they reached the Stanley Cup Final. Their unique traditions and fan support struck a chord with NHL enthusiasts everywhere. Many of the eliminated teams’ fan bases got behind them late in the run.
Expectations were high entering 2016-2017, as Nashville banked on a bevy of young talent and new blue-line anchor P.K. Subban. The Predators had an initially harder time fulfilling those predictions, but saved their best for the spring.
Upon eking into the playoffs, Nashville swept Chicago in the first round, then upset St. Louis en route to their first conference final. A subsequent series win over Anaheim gave the franchise its first Campbell Bowl. – Zach Green
Texas: 1999
The Turner Cup and the Stanley Cup have both gone to a Lone Star State team but once. Those titles came two weeks apart.
On June 5, 1999, the Houston Aeros edged the Orlando Solar Bears, 5-3, in Game 7 on home ice. It was their second straight winner-take-all triumph, following a 4-1 thumping of the incumbent champion Chicago Wolves.
As it happened, the night before Houston’s clincher, the Dallas Stars nabbed their own 4-1, penultimate-round Game 7 victory. Upon ousting Colorado, the repeat President’s Trophy winners carried on with unfinished business. They made their last checkmark in Buffalo on June 19 (technically the wee hours of June 20). – A.D.
Utah: 1996
The Salt Lake Golden Eagles had previously aggregated five playoff titles in the Central and International Leagues. But only the 1996 Grizzlies had to win four rounds to bring Utah a title.
The opening series constituted a rematch of the previous Turner Cup championship, which the Grizzlies won while representing Denver. The Kansas City Blades nearly had their redemption, but Utah won back-to-back elimination games in the best-of-five set. From there, the Grizzlies took another do-or-die contest against Peoria, upset Las Vegas in six and swept Orlando.
Meanwhile, Utah had one NHL player among its natives. As it happened, Steve Konowalchuk had one of his most prolific seasons in 1995-96. The longtime Washington Capital posted 45 points that year, and would only surpass that bar once. – A.D.
Vermont: 1996
Is the first of something always the sweetest? Vermont’s hockey annals lend that notion ample credence.
John LeClair, the state’s first native son in the NHL, peaked circa 1996. That spring, the St. Albans native and former Catamount capped a career-best 97-point season with Philadelphia. The subsequent fall, he began another 97-point campaign, an output he would never again match.
In between, his successors in Burlington — including Martin St. Louis and Tim Thomas — delivered the program’s first passport to the Frozen Four. Capitalizing on a first-round bye, UVM edged a dying dynasty from Lake Superior State, 2-1.
The Catamounts would lose their subsequent semifinal in Cincinnati, but not before pushing Colorado College to double-overtime. – A.D.
Virginia: 2012
From Feb. 10 to April 15, the Norfolk Admirals notched 28 consecutive victories to secure first place throughout the playoffs. They were the only AHL team to break triple-digit points that season with 113.
The Admirals cooled off a tad in the first half of the postseason. They needed four games to win a best-of-five set versus Manchester, then six to knock off Connecticut. But they regained their steamrolling groove, sweeping St. John’s and Toronto in the conference and Calder Cup Final, respectively.
Following an offseason affiliation change, Norfolk sputtered the next season. Even so, between the winter, spring and fall, the brand went an aggregate 64-25-2 in 2012. – A.D.
Washington: 2008
Along the Spokane Chiefs’ road to their second Memorial Cup, all four Washington teams had at least one intrastate series. In all, there would be three of those in the 2008 Western League playoffs.
The top-seeded Tri-City Americans eliminated the fourth-place Seattle Thunderbirds from the Western Conference semifinals. Spokane got there by sweeping the Everett Silvertips in the first round.
Upon edging the Vancouver Giants, 4-2, Spokane joined Tri-City in a grueling, heart-stopping set. Five of the conference-final games went to overtime, including two to double-overtime. But even after losing three of those sudden-death bouts, the Chiefs took Game 7 on the road, 4-1.
Standing as their state’s last representative, they swept the Lethbridge Hurricanes for the Chynoweth Cup. Spokane extended its win streak to the national tournament, taking all three round-robin tilts before beating another host, the Kitchener Rangers, in the final.
As a bonus, Everett native T.J. Oshie turned pro after finishing his junior season at North Dakota in 2007-08. He would make the St. Louis Blues out of training camp the next fall. In addition, Spokane product Patrick Dwyer (Carolina) became the ninth Washington Stater to see NHL action Nov. 2. – A.D.
The presence of the Wisconsin Badgers added to the intrigue when Milwaukee last hosted the Men’s Frozen Four. The same building would host another hockey championship two months later. (Photo Credit: Tom Dahlin/Rich Gabrielson/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
West Virginia: 2016
Having joined the Buffalo Beauts this season, Moundsville’s Kristin Lewicki is the first major-league hockey player born in West Virginia.
Throughout the previous calendar year, Lewicki saturated scoresheets for Adrian College’s Division III program. In the second semester of her junior year, she posted 31 points in 19 games. To start last season, Lewicki logged 27 points in 11 outings.
Her total for the calendar year: 58 points in 30 games, ice chips shy of an even two-for-one median.
Meanwhile, West Virginia’s lone reliable mainstay among professional franchises had its best playoff yet in 2016. The ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers reached their second Kelly Cup Final, and first in the tournament’s four-round era. – A.D.
Wisconsin: 2006
Milwaukee hosted two hockey championships while Madison hosted two championship receptions.
The Wisconsin Badgers women’s team — led by Patty Kazmaier winner Sara Bauer — built the spring’s first memory on enemy ice. With a 3-0 shutout in the final, they denied Minnesota a three-peat at Minneapolis’ Mariucci Arena. It was the first of four national titles in six years for Mark Johnson’s capstone class.
Johnson’s former teammate from the ’70s, Mike Eaves, followed his act two weeks later at the Bradley Center. The Badger men repressed Boston College, 2-1, delivering the NCAA crowd-pleaser the Gopher women could not.
Three weeks later, the building saw its full-time hockey tenant, the AHL’s Admirals, down Iowa in Game 7 of the West Division semifinals. Milwaukee subsequently swept Houston and Grand Rapids for its second Calder Cup Final berth in three years.
The Hershey Bears derailed the dream of another title, clinching in Game 6 at the Bradley Center. But never before or since have two, let alone all three of Wisconsin’s AHL, Division I men and Division I women’s teams reached a final round in one year. – A.D.
Wyoming: 2001
Wyoming’s hockey scarcity is self-evident, as the top formal teams in the state compete at the Tier II junior level.
For the best moment in the state’s hockey history, though, look to the college club ranks. The 2000-01 University of Wyoming Cowboys won their first and only ACHA Division III national title over South Dakota State.
That same year, the junior team that later became the Yellowstone Quake began its own championship campaign. Before coming to Cody, the Northern Pacific League’s Kootenai Colts claimed the Cascade Cup in neighboring Idaho. – Z.G.
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