This is Chris Anderson’s first year as head coach for the White Bear Lake boys hockey team, but he has been on the Bears’ staff for 16 years in total.

And he’s never seen a season like the Bears have experienced in regards to their health — or lack thereof — this season.

Anderson rattled off six varsity players who missed multiple games during the regular season. That includes junior first-line winger Jack Stanius and top-tier defenseman Blake Eckerle.

It’s difficult to be at your best without your most productive players. It’s also tough to establish cohesion when the lineups are, out of necessity, constantly shuffling.

“When Stanius got hurt, I swear I had a different line every single week,” White Bear Lake senior center Nolan Roed said. “Because we were trying to find something that would fit.”

Still, White Bear Lake managed to finish atop the Suburban East Conference standings alongside Stillwater. But it wasn’t until late in the season, right before the sectional tournament, that the Bears truly felt they started to hit their stride. Specifically, that moment came when Stanius returned to the lineup.

“He kind of created a spark the last week. So getting healthy was the turning point. And then the guys, at the same time, they were buying into our system, buying into our process,” Anderson said. “But now, with Jack back, understanding the focus goes up at the end of the year. Between getting healthy and buying in, and then just enjoying the process, that’s kind of been the turning point. It came late. It’s what you want. You want to peak at the right time, and we’re starting to do that.”

White Bear Lake was a wrecking ball in the Section 4 tournament. The Bears won their two most recent games, against Stillwater and Hill-Murray, by combined score of 8-1 to get to state, where they’ll open as the No. 4 seed with a quarterfinal date at 8 p.m. Thursday at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul against fifth-seeded Grand Rapids.

Hill-Murray outshot White Bear Lake, but Anderson noted a majority of the Pioneers’ shots came from the outside. That’s a product of White Bear Lake’s deep, talented defensive core which, when healthy, can truly limit an opponent’s Grade-A chances.

“And you add Leo in there, it really makes it difficult for other teams,” Anderson said.

Leo, of course, is White Bear Lake junior Leo Gabriel, one of the state’s top netminders. Gabriel pitched a 35-save shutout against Hill-Murray.

“Obviously with Leo in net, we have a chance to win every game,” Roed said. “I think everybody in the state and on our team knows that, so that gives us a lot of confidence.”

Anderson said every year White Bear Lake’s expectation is to reach the state tournament. That was true this year, as well, even after the Bears graduated such a talented senior class from a year ago.

Roed credited this year’s group for buying in and carrying a high-level want factor. That, he said, is why the Bears will be at the X on Thursday.

Confidence is something the Bears are bursting with heading into state. As (seemingly) almost everyone knows by now, White Bear Lake has dropped 19 consecutive state quarterfinal games in this event over the years. But the stars seemed to have aligned for the Bears to make some real noise this weekend in downtown St. Paul. The defense and Gabriel are playing lights out. The offense has hit another gear with Stanius back in the lineup.

The White Bear Lake team right now is simply on a different level than the one that competed earlier this season. And everyone in the state will get a reintroduction to this group on Thursday.

“It’s a team that is confident they’re finding ways to win. They bought in, they’re playing for each other, they’re playing for the right reasons,” Anderson said. “And while they don’t have any state tournament experience, they’ve got a ton of game experience now. Now that we’re healthy, they’re going to make a good run.”

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Christian Ramirez was eager to play against Minnesota United at Allianz Field on Saturday, but the Columbus Crew forward was surprised his substitution into the match came at halftime.

“I had a bit of chills coming on,” said Ramirez, who scored 74 goals for MNUFC from 2014-18. “The ovation. … A flashback to hearing my name being called and the crowd, hearing a familiar voice (public-address announcer Tony DeLorenzo) doing it. It was special.”

Ramirez nearly contributed to a goal in an opening sequences of the second half and had his one shot attempt blocked by Loons defender Micky Tapias in the 85th minute of a 1-1 draw.

Ramirez had not played in Minnesota since being traded to LAFC in summer of 2018. He had been looking forward to his return for years and gave prayer signs to the supporters in The Wonderwall after the tie.

“It was special,” Ramirez said. “I wanted to full go over there, but some of the logistics of it don’t let me. But hopefully I get to do that in the future. They know how special they are to me and how special to finally be able to come back was.”

Ramirez came back to Minnesota with his wife Valerie and two daughters, Zara and Nova.

“I’m thankful for this city and the opportunity to not only Dr. Bill (McGuire) gave me, but Manny (Lagos) and Carl (Craig) and everybody that has been a part of it,” Ramirez said. “Just seeing everybody was really special.”

One Loons fan in particular reciprocated that thankfulness. She made a collage of the pictures she had taken with Ramirez during his time in Minnesota and wrote: “Ramirez: You are the reason I fell in love with soccer in 2015.”

Salute to Alonso

Recently retired midfielder Ozzie Alonso was honored by the Seattle Sounders on Saturday, and from afar, two of his former United teammates remembered what Alonso meant to the Loons from 2019-21.

Alonso joined MNUFC off waivers in January 2019 and came in alongside center back Ike Opara, right back Romain Metanire and goalkeeper Vito Mannone.

“A transformation,” Michael Boxall said of a run of four straight appearances in MLS Cup Playoffs..

Boxall saw Alonso raise the level of play in games as well as during short-sided scrimmages or rondo passing drills. Alonso, a Cuban defector, demanded respect.

“If players were taking it too casually or being lazy with balls or not approaching it with the way he thought it should be approached, he may or may not have lashed out at someone,” Boxall said with a laugh. “For someone that has that high performance and winning (history), you are not going to accept mediocrity.”

Growing up in Federal Way, Wash., Hassani Dotson “idolized” Alonso as well as forward Fredy Montero. Dotson’s dad would tell him to watch how Alonso dictated the defensive midfield.

When Dotson was drafted by the Loons in 2019, the rookie got to observe the 10-year veteran Alonso up close and person on a daily basis.

“He would slow the tempo down when we needed it, especially that first year (2019) when we didn’t have as much possession,” Dotson said. “That type of behavior, to be calm when the team needs to settle down and then amp everyone up was the biggest difference I noticed. I tried to do similar things, but it didn’t have the same effect. I learned about presence.”

Update on absences

Winger Bongi Hlongwane (fitness) has been a full participate in training sessions early this week and might be in line for a season debut Saturday at Orlando City. “He’s doing well,” interim head coach Cameron Knowles said Tuesday.

The three other sidelined midfielders might remain out this weekend.

Emanuel Reynoso (knee) is a candidate to join full training sessions by the end of this week. Robin Lod (calf) and Franco Fragapane (calf) were rehabbing off to the side on Tuesday and are unlikely to play in Florida.

Briefly

MNUFC signed first-round draft pick Hugo Bacharach, 22, to one-year contract for 2024, with three club option years through 2027, club said Tuesday. The Loons have worked out the amount of training compensation to Villarreal; Bacharach was an academy player with that Spanish club before attending college in the U.S. … Minnesota Aurora head coach Nicole Lukic will leave the amateur women’s soccer club the end of March, the club said Wednesday. Lukic, who led Aurora to two undefeated regular seasons and playoff runs, has accepted a position with U.S. Soccer as director of talent identification for women’s youth national teams.

When the first two seasons of “Resident Alien” premiered on Netflix on Feb. 13, star Alan Tudyk could only guess at how audiences would react.

“We’ve always been on Syfy and it’s been great, but the pandemic and the writer’s strike really changed the way shows are being released,” he said of the sci-fi TV series, which is set in the fictional Colorado mountain town of Patience. “Getting the first two seasons on Netflix gives us a chance to catch people up and turn them on to the show.”

It worked beautifully for “Schitt’s Creek,” the non-Netflix-produced show that mutated into an Emmy-winning mainstream hit after being licensed to the streaming service. Like “Resident Alien,” it was made by another company (Canada’s CBC) but ascended the charts on Netflix after connecting with a new, devoted group of binge-viewers.

In the case of “Resident Alien,” the show instantly reached the No. 1 spot in daily TV viewings and has stayed in the Top Ten (usually, the Top 5) each day since its Netflix premiere. It coincided with the Feb. 14 release of “Resident Alien’s” Season 3 on the Syfy network — with each new episode streaming the next day on Peacock — to generate fresh attention and praise for a show that considers what it means to be an outsider.

“I was able to catch the (season premiere) because I have Hulu Live, so I saw it being streamed as it was airing on Syfy,” Tudyk said, noting that he usually hates watching himself on screen. “There are all kinds of different ways to catch things and the more places you are, the better.”

Tudyk has no problem with finding work, given that he’s quietly been in some of the biggest movies on the planet and acted on-screen regularly since 1997’s “35 Miles from Normal.” A veteran of Joss Whedon’s beloved “Firefly” series, he’s voiced characters or appeared in every Walt Disney Animation Studios title released since 2012, including blockbusters such as “Frozen,” “Moana,” “Encanto,” and “Wish.”

He’s a go-to character actor for other major franchises, including Star Wars, Transformers, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Universe, cult-hit cartoons (“Rick and Morty”), video game series and motion-capture characters (Spider-Man, Halo) and stage productions such as Broadway’s “Spamalot.” He also played Steve the Pirate in “Dodgeball.”

In “Resident Alien,” the versatile Tudyk plays a space alien named Harry who crash-landed in Colorado with the mission of destroying humanity. That quickly gets complicated as he absorbs the town’s culture and forms various alliances, eventually working to save the town of Patience amid the arrival of more aliens like him (the Greys, as they’re called).

It’s part campy trope-fest, part thoughtful drama, and all weirdness. It’s based on the Dark Horse comic book series from the 2010s and early 2020s, and shepherded to TV by veteran “Family Guy” writer Chris Sheridan. Fittingly, the establishing shot of the town of Patience appears to have been taken in Telluride, based on the matching buildings and mountain backdrop. Actually, it’s a backlot at Canadian Motion Picture Park in Burnaby, Canada, with several layers of digital effects over it, according to Atlas of Wonders.

The isolation of the mountain-town concept — the rest of the show is filmed in and around Vancouver, Canada, not Colorado — allows for characters with backstories that complement but don’t always overlap one another. The writing feels inspired by quirky dramedies such as “Northern Exposure” but also alien-and-human “Odd Couple” sitcoms such as “Alf,” “3rd Rock from the Sun,” and “Mork and Mindy” — the last of which was set in Boulder.

“The big thing for my character, Harry, this season is love,” Tudyk, 52, said. “Harry started out without emotions and his people don’t have emotions, so his human form has begun to affect him from the inside out. Season 3 is sort of his teenage years. He’s still very naive.”

The new season brings back central characters such as Asta Twelvetrees (played by Sara Tomko), who acts as Harry’s medical assistant while he assumes the role of town doctor. She’s a rarity in TV portrayals, as a member of Colorado’s Ute tribe, but not the only Indigenous writer or actor on the show. Tazbah Rose Chavez, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, was one of the Native writers “hired to ensure authentic representation of the Native characters and storylines,” according to The Southern Ute Drum, a publication based in Ignacio.

American Indian magazine compared “Resident Alien” to the comedy hit “Reservation Dogs” in its portrayal of “real Native lives on screen.” The fact that the titular alien crash-landed near a Colorado Ute Reservation is no accident, but rather a chance to represent a more authentic slice of the state’s culture. It’s also a potent exploration of what it means to be an immigrant.

“In a lot of ways it shows the white population as the aliens, because they’re also the ones that came in,” Tudyk said. “Refugees and immigrants are trying to give themselves a better life, although I guess the difference here is that Harry’s coming to Earth to destroy it. At least at first.”

The cast is filled out by a self-obsessed sheriff (Corey Reynolds), ex-Olympic skier and bar owner (Alice Wetterlund), youthful mayor (Levi Fiehler), quip-happy deputy (Elizabeth Bowen), and other well-drawn characters. That includes newer guest players Linda Hamilton (“The Terminator” movies) as a military general, and Edi Patterson (“Righteous Gemstones”) as an avian alien species who flies into Colorado.

“She like an owl, if an owl could be sexy,” Tudyk said with a laugh. “The commitment to the characters is great, and she’s giving it 100%. This woman is so next-level so funny that when we were casting this I said, ‘Please!’ The character was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the universe, but there’s another way to cast it that would be more actress-y and less model-y. So I’m glad the emphasis is on the comedy.”

Acknowledging the show’s absurdity while also working toward an “emotional reality and touching scenes” is not easy, Tudyk said. And yet the show has clearly figured out something other Colorado-set TV series have not, including the ill-fated “Space Force” and “Guilty Party.”

Maybe it’s the visible evolution of the characters — particularly Harry, who’s constantly challenged by his weak grasp of human culture — that has made it so relatable. Maybe it’s the escapism, or alternately, the real-world themes. Like Harry’s bond to the town of Patience, Tudyk thinks the newly popular show and its viewers are growing together.

“He’s much more of an earthling now,” he said of his character. “He bleeds partly human blood, so literally there is that part of him that’s identifying with the culture after immersing himself in it. I love this country for that, that we have so many people from so many different places. I feel like some people take that as, “OK, so I don’t have to go anywhere!’ Traveling gives you a nice broadening of your world, but it also makes you love home that much more.”