It was announced last week, with a terrible jolt to the central nervous system, that Johnson High School was ending its hockey program and will merge with Highland Park High School to form a combined team. Highland Park? Highland wasn’t even a gleam in anybody’s eye when Johnson ruled the city.
As far as the history of hockey can be written in St. Paul, it might as well have been announced that the Statue of Liberty no longer has a torch or that the faces on Mount Rushmore have been scrubbed off by the wind.
In the beginning, 1945, there was Eveleth, which won five of the first seven tournaments played. This was at the St. Paul Auditorium, which held about 8,000 and smelled of a smoke ring haze because we hadn’t raised our consciousness yet. Those northern teams came down here and we shook in our boots until Johnson became the hope and the prayer of the city, St. Paul, the host city then and now.
In 1947, Johnson won its first title, beating Roseau 2-1. Johnson won a second title in 1953, knocking off Warroad 4-1. The boot-shaking stopped. And another title in 1955, beating Minneapolis Southwest 4-1, but it wasn’t until 1970, and a Southwest victory over Edina, that a Minneapolis school won the trophy.
No, in the beginning it was all Johnson. They were called, by sportswriter Grantland Rice, “The Grand Army of the Phalen.” They featured Herb Brooks, who became somewhat famous, Wendy Anderson, who became a governor, Lou Controneo, who became a pillar of goodwill and happiness in downtown St. Paul. They were in 22 tournaments in all and won their final one in 1963 over International Falls, 4-3 in overtime. Rob Shattuck got the winning goal, the first player to score an overtime goal in a championship game.
Shattuck, as in Crupi, Hughes and Shattuck, Mike Crupi and Greg Hughes. Every kid on an East Side playground rink wanted to be one of them. In 1964, Johnson and the Falls had a rematch in the title game. The tournament was televised by then, probably earlier, but a fellow would bet the ratings went through the roof. The Falls won 5-3.
Lou Nanne was found the other day in Vancouver, caught walking between a hotel and a restaurant. Nanne was the color man on the early broadcasts, learning the ropes. I can still see him asking a question of a player with the microphone held to the player and then returning it to himself for the answer. Lou was playing at the University of Minnesota at the time and also coached the freshman team.
“I had all three of them,” Nanne said, meaning Crupi, Hughes and Shattuck. “Fantastic players came out of that school.”
“What did you think when you heard the news?”
“I couldn’t comprehend it,” Lou said, “I can’t comprehend it. John Denver or somebody said the times are a-changing.”
“That was Dylan.”
“Dylan,” Lou said. “Boy, are the times ever changing.”
The Grand Army showed up twice more on the win, place and show ticket. Johnson lost to Greenway of Coleraine in the 1967 title game and the next year won third place.
No one is claiming Johnson had a dynasty. Eveleth and Edina fought for dynasty headlines. But Johnson was the pride of the city for the longest time, gritty and accomplished, back in the day when you went to your neighborhood school that was probably named for a governor, a president or a point on the compass.
And you learned the game playing outside, walking to the rink with your skates carried on the stick over your shoulder, a little grunt in the Grand Army of the Phalen.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.
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