Rotary Minutes Sept 7, 2023.
President Heidi kicked off the meeting at 5:15. Carolyn Will was our Inspirational speaker today and she had a lot of Hockey things to say. But Jeff Olson said it best: from the great one Wayne Gretsky: You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take “and “I pass the puck to where the player should be!“
Beth Naughton introduced our speaker: Jeff Olson. Jeff spoke about HOCKEY in Minnesota! It was a rousing speech. We have many players from Minnesota that were in the NHL. Almost as many as Canada! Dave Langavin has 4 Stanley Cups in a row. He who is from WBL and played at Hazel Park. From 1977 to 1982: we had 18 players from Minnesota playing in the NHL. Reed Larson, Mike Anotonovich, Bob Paradise, Bill Butters, Warren Miller, Tom Youghans, Dave Langavin etc. In 1982 and 83, Minnesota had 31 players in the NHL. This was our Golden age in Hockey, with Neal Broten, Bob Johnson, Kenny Yackel. Why? Because from 1960 to 1982 we had more indoor ricks (we went from 7 to 131), better to excellent coaching; we had High School teams, The Boys State Hockey Tourney was established, College hockey was big, and the NHL arrived in Minnesota in 1967 with the North Stars. We can thank Lou Nanne, John Mariucci, and Herb Brooks. Radio coverage, newspapers reporting the scores and all other media helped play Hockey up. By 1977 we had 132 indoor arenas to play hockey. The next great wave was 2002 to 2009 with 18 players in the NHL: Spehare T.J. Oshe, Kyle Oposso , Tim Sheehy, and Nyrob. And of course Herb Brooks and his Minnesota team beat the Russians for an Olympic gold medal. In 1982 there was Phil Housley from South St. Paul. He had 1232 life time points. He was a career scoring leader. Reed Larson had by far the hardest shot in all of hockey and he was from Minnesota. Jeff had his book there for sale. A very Minnesota and a very hockey speech! Micheal Jon was the greeter, DALE Quigley introduced visiting Rotarians and guests, and our fantastic tech team of: Ken Crabbe, Matt Majers, Nobel Orji, and Al Zdrazil.
Laurie Murphy, Scribe.