Most hockey coaches tell their players to ignore everything that’s going on beyond the boards and glass surrounding the rink. They expect a focus solely on the sheet of ice, and the work that needs to be done there.

In the final game of his initial season at St. Thomas Academy, Cadets coach Mark Strobel took a decidedly different approach.

Before playing for third place in the 2025 Class AA state tournament at the arena then known as Xcel Energy Center, Strobel flashed back to his time on the ice for Hill-Murray and winning the 1991 tournament (the final one-class affair) at the old St. Paul Civic Center.

“I remember even in the third-place game we get to see Edina, and it was going to be a war. We had beat them twice last year and they were probably not happy and there’s some crossover of kids,” Strobel recalled before a recent preseason practice. “And I said, ‘Just do me a favor in the warmups. Just look around a little bit, and just have fun with this. And then once I get into crazy coach mode, then we’ll dial in. But you have to enjoy that.’”

There was plenty to enjoy for the Cadets last season, as they went 24-7-0 and got back to the state tourney for the first time since 2021, beating Cretin-Derham Hall in a tight section finale after falling in the same round in each of their previous two shots under former coach Mike Randolph.

With a core of offense returning, and at least two good options to choose from in goal, tryouts and final cuts were tough for Strobel and his staff this season, most notably with nine potential hockey players on the football roster at STA, which went to the state semifinals.

The Cadets open the 2025-26 season this week with most prep hockey watchers ranking them in the state’s top three for Class AA, and the players aiming for nothing less than the program’s first state title since the Cadets won five Class A championships between 2006 and 2013, then made the jump to the higher-enrollment class a decade ago.

“We’ve been there, right on the doorstep and finally took the hill, as coach Strobel talks about a lot,” said Cadets senior Cole Braunshausen, the team’s top returning scorer after notching 60 points in 31 games last season. “It really ignited the fire and gave us a taste of what we really want to achieve this year. We’ve still got two more games to win, so I’m looking forward to that.”

Strobel came back to the prep ranks after a dozen seasons as a college assistant coach at UMD, Omaha, Ohio State and his alma mater, Wisconsin. With the Badgers, he put together a forward-heavy power play unit, and while waiting for a puck-moving quarterback type to emerge for the Cadets, expects to install something similar this season, at least early on.

“We’ve got some guys that are very good defensively, and they’re going to be stalwarts and they’re going to be able to block shots and get the puck north,” Strobel said. “I don’t know if we got like a super dynamic defenseman there. We had five forwards on our power play last year and it was like 36%, so I think I might start with that this year.”

Offensively, things will run through Braunshausen, who brings a level of energy that sometimes masks his undersized frame.

“He’s our battery. He’s our engine. He goes all the time,” Strobel said. “He’s not afraid to play physical on the bigger kids. His compete is off the charts.”

There’s no questioning the size, or compete level, from Peter Murray, a 6-foot-2 senior forward who was on the radar of NHL Central Scouting per their most recent report. Speaking at the team’s arena across the street from their Mendota Heights campus, Murray said he is prepared for the extra attention that could be paid to him, and to the Cadets, this season.

“I worked hard his offseason and made a big jump, so I think that’s all just a result,” Murray said, recounting a summer spent focusing on strength training and work with a skating coach. “But it’s a result of the coaching and the people who helped me get here.”

Having played for Hill-Murray, and then at Wisconsin, Strobel said he is used to hearing boos when his teams have taken to the ice at rinks in the Twin Cities. It’s no different for STA, which — like most private schools — has been tagged with a reputation of being privileged wealthy kids.

Raised in a single-parent family on St. Paul’s East Side, Strobel recounts learning the game with his twin brother Mike at Frost Lake Park, and doing custodial work after school to help his mother afford private school tuition. Indeed, the rink’s student parking lot at this single-gender school where military uniforms are the everyday dress code has its share of Land Rovers and other high-end vehicles. But the coach stresses character as a way to combat preconceived notions about who the Cadets are.

“In the end, how you play and how you conduct yourselves will truly determine if they’re warranted in what they’re saying,” Strobel said. “And if you guys go out and you don’t take stupid penalties and you play hard through the blue lines and see a guy is down and you help him up on the other team, then they’re going to start changing their mentality. But we embrace what that is because, again, not everyone knows what goes on here.”

The players hear the boos, too, and have taken a slightly different attitude, embracing the dark side of opponents’ perceptions of the Cadets.

“We have a saying that we’ve had for a while: ‘Be the villain,’” Braunshausen said. “Everyone’s going to have a hero. We kind of decided, no one really likes us, so good. We kind of like it that way.”

STA opens the season with a pair of Metro East Conference road games, visiting Tartan on Thursday and Simley on Saturday before their home opener on Tuesday, Nov. 25 versus Holy Angels.

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The Trump administration is calling its new immigration sweep in North Carolina’s largest city “Operation Charlotte’s Web.”

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But the granddaughter of E.B. White, the author of the classic 1952 children’s tale “Charlotte’s Web,” said the wave of immigration arrests goes against what her grandfather and his beloved book stood for.

“He believed in the rule of law and due process,” Martha White said in a statement. “He certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons.”

White, whose grandfather died in 1985, works as his literary executor. She pointed out that in “Charlotte’s Web,” the spider who is the main character devoted her life on the farm to securing the freedom of a pig named Wilbur.

The Trump administration and Republican leaders have seized on a number of catchy phrases while carrying out mass deportation efforts — naming their holding facilities Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, Speedway Slammer in Indiana and Cornhusker Clink in Nebraska.

Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official now on the ground in Charlotte, was the face of the “Operation At Large” in Los Angeles and “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, two enforcement surges earlier this year. As the Charlotte operation got underway, Bovino quoted from “Charlotte’s Web” in a social media post: “We take to the breeze, we go as we please.”

By AAMER MADHANI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he will sell F-35 advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia on the eve of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Washington visit, as he praised the kingdom for its long partnership with the United States.

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“I will say that that we will be doing that,” Trump said when asked if he would sell the jets to Saudi Arabia. “We’ll be selling F-35s.”

The crown prince, who is set to make a White House visit Tuesday, had been expected to arrive with a wish list that includes receiving formal assurances from Trump defining the scope of the U.S. military protection for the kingdom and an agreement to buy U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets, one of the world’s most advanced aircraft.

The Republican administration, however, has been wary about upsetting Israel’s “qualitative military advantage” over its neighbors, especially at a time when Trump is depending on Israeli support for the success of his Gaza peace plan.

Another long-standing concern, which also derailed a potential similar sale to the United Arab Emirates, is that the F-35 technology could be stolen by or somehow transferred to China, which has close ties to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

A long-time Twin, a lifelong Twins fan and the son of one of the Twins’ greatest managers of all time are three of the new coaches on Derek Shelton’s first staff at the helm of the Twins.

The 12-man coaching staff, which features a mix of returning coaches and newcomers, feels like his own, Shelton said Monday as he enthused about how the group came together “better than any group I imagined.”

“It was very encouraging that we highlighted and targeted a group of people and we were damn near spot on,” he said.

Shelton himself is the first manager that the Twins have hired with previous major league managerial experience since Gene Mauch in the mid-70s. Alongside him will be new bench coach Mark Hallberg, who spent the past six seasons on the San Francisco Giants’ coaching staff.

Hallberg spent his childhood in the Middle East — he was born in Saudi Arabia — as his parents worked in international schools. But despite living so far away, his Twins roots run deep. His grandfather took Hallberg’s father, Monti, to the 1965 World Series. And in 1991, as a young child in Saudi Arabia, he remembers waking up early to watch the Twins battle the Atlanta Braves in the Fall Classic.

The family would travel back and spend their summers in Wisconsin, and Hallberg attended Barron High School about 90 miles northeast of Minneapolis. After college, he returned to Wisconsin and earned a Masters of Business Administration and a bachelor’s degree in health and human performance from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

“The amount of passion, pride and humility I’m going to approach each day with when I walk in, just like I would do anywhere, but when it’s that connected to your home and where you grew up and helped shape you … this means a lot to me,” Hallberg said. “I’m going to give my best every single day.”

The Twins also added Mike Rabelo as assistant bench coach. Rabelo is the only coach Shelton brought with him from his time in Pittsburgh, noting he thought it was important to add someone to the staff that he had prior experience with.

St Paul Saints manager Toby Gardenhire against the Indianapolis Indians at CHS Field in St. Paul, Tuesday April 12, 2022. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

He also said he felt strongly about adding someone who would be familiar to the group and was impressed during the interview process by Toby Gardenhire, who had previously served as the Triple-A Saints’ manager, and his ideas for what he thought was going well and how the Twins could improve. Gardenhire will serve as the major league field coordinator.

“He has relationships with our young players, and we’re going to be a young group,” Shelton said. “He’s someone I’m going to be able to lean on.”

Another newcomer that Shelton has experience with is bullpen coach LaTroy Hawkins, who had a 21-year-playing career, the first nine of which were spent in Minnesota. Most recently, Hawkins had been serving as a special assistant in the organization while also appearing on the team’s television broadcast. He now joins returning pitching coaches Pete Maki and Luis Ramirez.

“It’s been really impressive … his willingness to learn and grow and how he has embraced all the new things and is applying them with the other experiences he had,” Shelton said.

Shelton said he targeted Hawkins and Grady Sizemore, who played for the Cleveland Indians when Shelton was a hitting coach, “right off the bat” because it was important to him to add coaches with major league playing experience.

Sizemore comes to the Twins after spending the past two couple of years with the Chicago White Sox, serving as their offensive coordinator last year after a brief stint as their interim manager in 2024. Sizemore will be the Twins’ first-base coach and work with the outfielders while Ramon Borrego will move from first base to third base and will continue to coach the infielders.

On the hitting side, the Twins have brought in Keith Beauregard from Detroit to work with assistants Trevor Amicone and Rayden Sierra. Shelton praised his energy, passion and his ability to break down swings and relate to players. Beauregard is the Twins’ third new lead hitting coach in as many years.

“My belief is to meet guys where they’re at individually and speak their language,” Beauregard said. “Our goal as a staff is to help these guys identify and build a profile that matches who they are.”

Shelton said he learned from his experience building a staff in Pittsburgh and this time around, he said, his staff has more diversity in terms of skill set and experience as the Twins.

“(I’m) really excited about this group,” Shelton said. “It’s diverse. It is thoughtful. It’s a learning group, and I think Twins fans are really going to grow to like this group of coaches.”

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