Beyond the Playbook: Duluth Marshall girls hockey teams up with North Shore Storm

Beyond the Playbook: Duluth Marshall girls hockey teams up with North Shore Storm

Beyond the Playbook: Duluth Marshall girls hockey teams up with North Shore Storm

Two Harbors and Silver Bay hockey joined as a co-op years ago, and are now paired up for football too.

But this year, an unexpected third team added to the girls hockey membership.

Duluth Marshall girls hockey made it to the Section 7A championship just nine months ago. However, fast forward to November, and the Hilltoppers won’t be fielding their own team.

“It was definitely sad,” said Nina Thorson, a senior center from Duluth Marshall. “Like, I want to be a part of our school team and show off our pride. But like I said, it’s going to only help us and hopefully be able to get to that section final again.”

After an agreement between athletic directors, Silver Bay, Two Harbors, and Duluth Marshall will now all be under the “North Shore Storm” umbrella.

“We were already a co-op, so we already go back and forth between Two Harbors and Silver Bay. So it’ll mostly stay the same, just adding a few more friends,” said Addison Bentler, a senior defender from Two Harbors.

For the Hilltoppers, the whole experience is new. Perhaps the most worrisome throughout the year is the toll on traveling up to an hour away just for practice, and keeping up with all of the other things that high school athletes do.

“With any high school athlete, you make sure that they’re getting fed, they’re getting some sleep,” said Callie Hoff, an assistant coach for the storm and the former Duluth Marshall head coach. “They’re getting their homework done. We always talk about the student athletes, so getting their homework done is important. Just finding ways for them to make this all happen as they have a longer travel to and from practices and games.”

With anticipation comes excitement though, and the melting pot of team identities is set to make for an exciting season up north.

“North Shore is definitely a really gritty team,” said Thorson. “We’re known to get the puck into the back of the net. So I feel like those two are going to really complement each other so we can learn how to be more gritty and more offensively better. We can help them on the goal side.”

“They were definitely always a competitor,” said Bentler. “We always wanted to beat them really badly. They play really good hockey and move the puck a lot. So hopefully, that’ll continue on with us.”

“The Hilltoppers bring in some good talent, for sure,” said Mike Hoff, the head coach for the Storm. “They’re working hard. We have some good leaders on that squad that are older. We have some younger talent, of course, that complements them pretty well, and hopefully, we’ll play our best hockey come February.”

Mike Hoff explained that it was important to get the Duluth Marshall girls a game closer to home and in front of their home fans, and that game will come January 30th at Mars Lakeview Arena against the Proctor/Hermantown Mirage.