The Maverick M*A*S*H Unit

Bruised, battered and broken, the Minnesota State women's hockey team enters the WCHA playoffs with a host of players fighting through injury - or not playing at all.

by Dan Myers
March 02, 2006

You can’t help but feel bad for Minnesota State head women’s hockey coach Jeff Vizenor.

A year after enduring a tough nine-win season last season, Vizenor hit the recruiting trail hard and landed a trio of Minnesota’s best high school players, and perhaps the greatest line in the history of women’s high school hockey. South St. Paul’s Ashley Young, Maggie Fisher and Felicia Nelson were the most heralded recruits to set foot in Mankato, perhaps ever.

In any sport.

Throw in a talented group of returning underclassmen like Amanda Stohr, Shera Vis and sophomore goalie Brit Kehler, and nine wins by January looked to be disappointing.

But before the puck had even dropped Oct. 7 in the season opener at Mercyhurst, the Mavericks were feeling the effects of the injury bug.

If you’re looking for damage, look no further than than Vizenor’s prized class of recruits: Four freshman, 81 games missed.

Young, one-third of the freshman SSP trio, could barely hold a hockey stick. Damaged from a previous injury, Young’s shoulder was so sore she didn’t even make the trip to Erie, Penn. to take on Mercyhurst.

Her debut came the following week at All Seasons Arena against North Dakota, a game that may live in injury infamy. The appearance by Young was her only of the season.

Nelson also limped away from the game, dislocating her kneecap and suffering cartilage damage that has lingered throughout the season. After playing on and off until two weeks ago, Nelson will miss the remainder of her freshman season, tallying 10 goals in just 26 games.

Another pair of freshmen, Jenna Hewitt and Andrea Herold, sustained shoulder injuries during the season. Hewitt was lost for the season during the second game of the Mercyhurst series. The injury, although different from Young’s, had the same effect; both missed more than 30 games in this, their freshman seasons. Herold has missed eight games with her injury, but is back on the ice as the season winds down.

“If you ever said this was going to happen, I don’t know if anybody would believe you,” Vizenor said. “I can’t find any specific reason why, I guess it’s just one of those things that happens.”

Even leading scorer Maggie Fisher has suffered her share of bumps and bruises. The freshman has not missed a game, but has missed large chunks of some; with injuries spanning from bumps and bruises to a sprained ankle – which she is currently fighting through.

“You can’t go out there and play differently,” Fisher said. “We just go out and play. We can’t worry about if we are going to injure ourselves.”

The injuries have also given team trainer Elizabeth Hughes a little more work this season. Last year, on average, the second-year trainer would work about 20-25 hours per week. With all of the injuries this season, her numbers are near 35 hours per week, sometimes more. But for Hughes, she says getting her players back on the ice and healthy is her primary concern.

“There have been a lot of injuries this season, but also a lot of dramatic ones,” Hughes said. “You will get your sprains and strains, but these have been major injuries where people are out for a long time with surgeries.”

And of course, it’s never good when your athletic trainer is the busiest member of the team.

“It’s just been crazy this year. It seems like every weekend, someone new is getting hurt,” Hughes said. “It’s like ‘Oh my gosh, how many more?’”

Up a class, fellow SSP graduate Amanda Stohr hurt her shoulder during warm-ups for a game in Duluth Dec. 2. She missed only four games, but was assisted by the fact that after the series in Duluth, MSU played host to Minnesota followed by a four-week lull in the schedule because of winter break. Had the injury occurred early in the season, Stohr’s loss would have been huge, as teammates and coaches consider the sophomore as the heart of the team.

Another injury that happened at the right time was the concussion suffered by Shera Vis. Because of the timing, Vis was able to make it back in time for the second half of the season, and has not missed a game this year.

The freshest injury of the bunch belongs to another second-year player, Jodi Helminen. Helminen was injured Saturday against Minnesota-Duluth after she was hauled down and awkwardly slid into the boards. Post-game x-rays would not tell the entire story, but she will, in all likelihood, miss the entire playoffs, no matter how far MSU goes.

“A kid like Helminen gives up her body every game, and maybe you’re just bound to have some bad bounces or have an injury when you play that hard,” Vizenor said. “I’d rather have our kids play hard and risk injury than play soft and be healthy.”

The injuries have forced Vizenor into some unique line combinations. During the last Duluth series, Vizenor dressed only three healthy forward lines and two healthy lines of defense. After the Helminen injury, the Mavs were down to eight usable forwards. A team at full strength rotates through 12 forwards, and has at least two or three more that would be healthy scratches.

Vizenor has had to go to drastic measures just to make sure he has enough firepower up front to create healthy lines. After a rash of midseason injuries, Vizenor asked Lyndsay James, a senior who hadn’t played on the team in over a year, to come back. He also shifted defenseman Andreanne Thibault from the blue-line to forward, a challenge that was a difficult adjustment for the sophomore.

“It’s a completely different game,” said Thibault, one of just eight players to appear in every game. “There is less pressure playing forward and you have to skate all the time and be fore checking.”

The defensive core has also seen its share of tough luck this season, losing three players to injury or off-ice issues.

Among them, Lindsay McCulloch’s wrist injury, which has knocked her from action for a second-consecutive season. The senior assistant captain missed all of last season with the injury and played in only half the games this season before submitting to the pain once again. The loss was big for the young Mavericks, who have missed McCulloch’s steady leadership on the ice.

McCulloch’s loss on the blue-line has been amplified also by the losses of juniors Megan Jedinak and Autumn Conway. Jedinak suffered a concussion two weeks ago against Wisconsin and is questionable for this weekend’s series at Minnesota. Conway was lost for the season for personal reasons, joining junior Alycia Wilson, who played in 15 games before leaving the team.

“This whole season has just been a strange situation,” Vizenor said. “I don’t ever foresee it ever happening again, but I guess you never know.”

By the end of the season, injured players will miss more 120 games, a stat that has Vizenor and other coaches shaking their heads.

“I think they feel bad for me,” said Vizenor. “They just can’t believe we are that banged up.”