By Bryan Zollman
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
Jan. 19, 2022
Less than a month after Team USA did the unthinkable and defeated the Russians 4-3 on their way to an Olympic Gold Medal, a group of young spitfires in Mankato were working on a miracle of their own.
After losing in the finals a year prior, Mankato State University (now known as Minnesota State), then a Division II program, faced a similar task as the USA Olympic team, only their target wasn’t an eastern country, it was the eastern coast.
“We were tired of hearing how great the teams out East were,” said Steve Carroll, the goalie on the 1980 Maverick squad.
His sentiment is similar to a line Herb Brooks said in the movie Miracle, “I’m tired of hearing how good the Russians are!”
Carroll came on the scene in Mankato in 1977-78 along with another slew of hungry hockey players. Don Brose was finishing up his first decade as the school’s bench boss, and was recruiting kids out of some of the bigger schools in the metro and adding key outstate players. Carroll actually wasn’t recruited much at all.
“St. Louis University had expressed some interest, but I did not hear from many other schools,” he said. “I would later learn there was some concern about how good I was because I played on a talented high school team (Edina East) that lost only two games.”
Steve’s older brother Mike was enrolled at Mankato and on the team, so Steve decided to follow in big brother’s footsteps. “I figured that was a good place for me to try to continue my hockey career,” he said. But as a freshman, he was fifth on the depth chart and eventually cut after tryouts. Luckily for him, though, two of the goalies did not return for winter semester and the coaches invited him back onto the team. He would eventually earn the starting job.
Later that season was the first time a NCAA Division II National Tournament was held. MSU was invited to play with Merrimack, Elmira and Lake Forest. They lost to Merrimack 6-1, but bounced back to beat Elmira 5-3 to earn third place. The following year they returned and beat Salem State in the semifinals before losing to UMass-Lowell in the title game.
By the 79-80 season they weren’t just well-seasoned, they were hungry. “We were determined to win it all,” Carroll said. “We were fired up to become the first school from the west to take home a DII national title.”
Former Mankato Free Press reporter Dennis Bracken wrote about how western teams got no respect from the eastern squads who could hand out scholarships like many Division I programs. Carroll was quoted in the article mentioning the hostility from eastern players, the press and fans.
“The MSU players were accorded less respect than, well, less respect than comedian Rodney Dangerfield,” wrote Bracken. “Any mention of the lone Western entrant winning the national title would have been looked upon as heresy.”
The Mavericks not only had a chip on their shoulder, they had talent.
While Carroll was steady as they come between the pipes, the Mavericks were loaded with offensive talent. Five different players would score at least 29 goals that season. Steve Forliti led the way with 32 followed by John Passolt with 31, Paul Mattson with 30, and Greg Larson and Tom Kern with 29 each.
“There’s no question we had a ton of offensive skill to go along with a strong defensive core,” said Carroll. “We had a great combination of experience, speed, skill, size, determination and grit. We enjoyed being on the same team and were close off the ice as well.”
But Brose was the mastermind, having assembled a group of kids from all over the state. Forliti was from Kellogg High School, Passolt from St. Louis Park, Kern from Hibbing, Mike Weinkauf from Hopkins/Eisenhower, and Mattson and Larson from Robbinsdale High School. Every player on the roster but one came from a Minnesota high school program.
“He continuously brought in talented players and was able to challenge us to be the best we could be,” said Carroll. “He had a knack for pushing the right buttons to get us to perform at high levels for most of that championship season. From my perspective, he was Mankato hockey and was the backbone of our success.”
That season the Mavericks averaged 7.3 goals per game, 293 in their 40 game-season, still a school record. Carroll, meanwhile, would play in 38 of 40 games and had a save percentage of .904 and a goals against average of 3.28, excellent numbers during a time when goalie pads were the size of couch pillows and teams were scoring six to seven goals a game on average.
But entering their third consecutive national tournament they still had to beat the eastern teams to get their coveted national title. Their first game was no easy match-up as they faced defending champion UMass-Lowell who had knocked them out the year prior.
The Mavericks got up 5-0 and never looked back in an 8-1 trouncing.
That set the stage to face Elmira for the national championship. Not only had Soaring Eagles beat them 6-2 in the season-opening game, the game was being played on Elmira’s home ice in New York.
“It was located in a dome and had really poor lighting,” Carroll said. “I recall seeing the ESPN trucks outside the arena, which elevated the tournament to a new level. There were about 4,000 fans at the game and all but about 50 of them cheering against the Mavs.”
Back then ESPN was in its infancy and wasn’t yet a regular at covering professional sports.
Despite the arena and the hostile atmosphere, the determined Mavs jumped to a 3-0 lead and held on to win 5-2. Carroll stopped 44 shots and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player.
“When that final buzzer sounded we were overjoyed,” said Carroll. “When they presented us with the national championship trophy we celebrated like never before. To their credit, the Elmira fans clapped for us when we received our trophy.”
Carroll and Weinkauf, who tallied 48 points as a defenseman, were named All-American.
The following season, the Mavs made their fourth straight trip to the national tournament, but came up short, finishing in third place.
Once the group graduated they scattered their different ways chasing careers, but still stayed in touch. There have been periodic reunions and golf outings where they reminisce about their old playing days and that magical 1980 season.
In 2005, MSU hosted a 25-year reunion and 19 players showed up as well as Coach Brose and Assistant Coach Wayne Harris.
“It was a great reunion and the first time in many years that most of us were together again in one spot,” he recalled. “The school presented us with replica jerseys from that championship team, which made it a memorable night.”
But no night was as memorable as March 15, 1980. It was less than month after Team USA had shocked the world by beating the Russians on their way to winning the gold medal.
“I have a ton of great memories from playing hockey at Mankato State,” said Carroll. “The highlight was being part of a team that made four consecutive final fours and being crowned national champions on that memorable night in New York. For us, that was our Mankato Miracle on Ice.”
After two years of coming close, the 1979-80 Maverick hockey squad was finally able to give the No. 1 signal after defeating Elmira College on March 15, 1980, the first and only national hockey championship so far for the University.
