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he St. Cloud State women's hockey team under- went a culture change last season under its new coach Brian Idalski. "We just really wanted to up our compete level, our commitment, our leadership and obviously our perfor- mance," said defenseman Grace Wolfe. "But we've always wanted to make ourselves a team where we're very gritty and passionate." While the transition could be difficult at times, Wolfe said, the cool part was seeing how quickly the Huskies turned things around. Winners of just nine games two seasons ago, the Huskies doubled their total for an 18-18-1 overall record last season, the program's most wins in a season since 2007-08. "To me, some of the things that made us successful last year is that we had a group of players that were very hungry and open to changing things and doing things differently," said Idalski, last season's WCHA Coach of the Year. THE PRIDE OF OWATONNA Part of the success stemmed from solid play in the team's own end of the rink, compiling a new program record 576 blocked shots. The Huskies took pride in their defense and playing hard in the D zone, Wolfe said. Wolfe's own numbers saw a jump from her freshman to sophomore seasons, too. She had three assists as a freshman but scored two goals and 16 assists last season as she logged a lot of minutes. Wolfe played high school hockey for Owatonna, a captain for three seasons (though a knee injury kept her out her sophomore season) before graduating in 2021. She describes herself as being a "pretty defensive defenseman" along with her "attention to detail" leadership style in the locker room. Her love of hockey stemmed from her dad who played. Wolfe also enjoyed playing defense at Owatonna in front of her sister, Ava, who played goalie. Siblings playing prep hockey together was special and a lot of fun for Wolfe. Ava is now a soph- omore on the St. Thomas track and field team. SMALL CITY TO THE BIG STAGE The recruiting process was a little different for Wolfe coming from a smaller city and program like Owatonna. But she's proof that Minnesota's community-based model works. If a player is good enough, coaches will find them, no matter where they played youth hockey. Wolfe is very happy with landing at St. Cloud State and being a rare Division I women's hockey commit out of Owatonna. She knows it's helpful for younger Owatonna play- ers to see her development path, too. As long as you put in the work, you're going to get good things out of it." — Grace Wolfe 23 N O V. / D E C . 2 0 2 3 | M H J ON L I N E . C O M