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Tuesday, November 4, 2008
A Fresh Face in Edina
St. Paul, MN
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“For me, it’s not how good we are on the first day,” Slominski said. “If we can look back at the end of the season and say we got better every day, then it will be a good season.”
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It’s a whole new game for the Edina girl’s hockey team and their first-year coach, Laura Slominski.
“There’s a lot of great players here and we are hoping to get to the next level,” Slominski said.
It’s been the better part of nine months since the Hornets fell to eventual state champion Eden Prairie in the Section 2AA playoffs, ending their 2007-08 season and the coaching tenure of Mark Stephan.
Enter Slominski, an assistant coach for the Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s hockey team for the past two years. A 1998 graduate of Burnsville High School, Slominski was a Gophers player before assisting at both St. Olaf College and the University of St. Cloud.
“I’ve moved around a lot,” she said.
Yet, with three collegiate stops on her resume, the former varsity coach at Bloomington Kennedy had an itch to get back to the high school ranks.
“For my personality, coaching high school is where I want to be,” she said. “The high school age is more fun to work with.” Plus, the Edina opening gave the coach a chance to get back in the classroom, where she teaches math.
“I enjoyed working at the ‘U,’” Slominski said. “But Edina’s such a great opportunity.” She takes over a program that wrapped up a highly successful 19-7-2 season under Stephan; it’s also a program that is looking to make its first-ever breakthrough into the state tournament.
“It’s definitely a goal here,” Slominski said.
Edina returns stocked for another run at the Eagles in both the Classic Lake and Section 2AA races.
Of the Hornets’ four 10-plus goal scorers, three — freshman Sami Reber, sophomore Corinne Buie and junior Cara Coughlin — are slated to return this season. Reber was her team’s top point-earner last year with 14 goals and 13 assists.
While the fourth 10-goal scorer, Grace Hoene, joined main goaltender Alison Casey at graduation last spring, there is more than enough firepower to give the Hornets a stinging attack for this campaign.
Cara Gulbronson, who played about half the minutes of Casey last season, returns for her senior year after posting a 1.57 goals-against-average in 2007-08.
Feeding the high school teams with an ample supply of talent is the Edina youth program, which continues to grow in both size and collective ability.
“It’s one of the most exciting things about Edina,” Slominski said. “The numbers are just tremendous.”
The coaches’ task will be to form that talent into a cohesive team, in this season and prospectively many to come.
“For me, it’s not how good we are on the first day,” she said. “If we can look back at the end of the season and say we got better every day, then it will be a good season.”
Yet, it continues to get harder for a top team like Edina, as every season the competition continues to improve. Slominski sees the good in the improvement of girls’ hockey in the state on the whole.
“There’s much more parity today, in any given game both teams have a much better chance to win than 10 years ago,” she said. “There are many more quality teams out there today and the depth on those teams is stronger — as a whole, the sport continues to develop every year.”
And it’s something that the coach is excited to be a part of at the high school ranks again.
“I’m very glad to be at Edina,” Slominski said. “I’m here to give these kids a great experience and to create an atmosphere where the team and players can continue to succeed.”
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