From: Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN)
by Bruce Brothers
Blake Wheeler called his shot.
As Minnesota's players lined up before going onto the ice for the overtime in their Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoff championship game against North Dakota last Saturday night, team host Dave Meisner yelled, "OK, boys, who's going to get it?"
After a momentary silence, Wheeler swung around to Meisner, a vice president of Minnesota's amateur hockey association, and announced: "I'm going to get it."
Of course, Wheeler's dramatic, sprawling goal after 3:25 of overtime gave the Gophers a 3-2 victory and the WCHA playoff crown.
The storybook goal was the most visible payoff from a mental transformation by Wheeler over the past few weeks, a change that began during a two-hour conversation with his parents early this month. His dad, Jim, who pitched two seasons in the Detroit Tigers' organization before discovering he didn't have big-league stuff, made a pitch to his son about "putting a smile on your face," about having fun.
"It's only a game," he told his son.
Jim Wheeler explained it this way: "If you try to throw a sinker too hard, it doesn't sink."
The younger Wheeler listened.
It showed.
In the words of Gophers coach Don Lucia: "Blake was dominant all weekend."
Wheeler, who could not recall ever scoring another overtime goal, said the game-winner against the Sioux felt like icing on the cake because, by then, "I was just having such a blast out there that no matter how that game had ended, we would have felt good about ourselves."
The goal just pumped up those feelings.
"The night after, I really couldn't sleep all night because I was so excited about it, so excited for our whole team," he said.
"He just loves this team," his father said. "Blake wants to win."
"I take so much pride in wearing that sweater," Blake said.
That, coupled with a second-half dearth of goals, started to weigh on the 6-foot-4, 212-pound sophomore forward from Plymouth. He said he "kind of hit rock bottom" after the Gophers' 5-4 loss to Michigan Tech on March 3.
He had scored just two goals since Dec. 30.
He needed a pep talk.
He turned to his parents.
In the next game, Minnesota's 6-2 first-round playoff victory over Alaska Anchorage on March 9, he scored. After adding four goals in two games during the WCHA Final Five - he had a hat trick in a 4-2 semifinal victory over Wisconsin - he now has 18 goals, tied for second on the team.
"One thing my dad told me, 'There's two ways people handle it when things get tough; they get sad or they get mad,' " Blake remembered. "I guess that kind of hit home because at that point I started getting mad when things weren't going right. I guess before I was getting a little sad. It's easy to feel sorry for yourself when things aren't going well, and I think that's when you kind of get on a downward slope."
He chose to bear down.
And relax.
Not hard to do for someone who discovered a love for the sport from the first time he put on skates at age 5.
"My mom brought me to the rink and said, 'This is Minnesota; this is what kids do.' I just went out there and skated around and I just loved it. I don't know what it was about the game. I just loved playing; it was always what I wanted to do."
As he grew better, expectations increased.
"I think I've always put a lot of pressure on myself, just because I expect a lot out of myself," Wheeler said. "Being a sophomore this year, we've got a really young team, and I wanted to be a leader on the team, too. I wanted to go out there and show the guys what it takes. For whatever reason, I was putting so much pressure on myself in the second half, it kind of limited me a little bit."
He said he was "kind of stuck out there."
That was an uncharacteristic position for Wheeler, who totaled 45 goals and 55 assists for 100 points while leading Breck to the 2004 state high school hockey championship as a junior, then went to the NHL draft that summer and was stunned when the Phoenix Coyotes announced his name as the No. 5 overall pick of the first round. After the long walk from the nosebleed seats to the podium, he met Coyotes coach and part owner Wayne Gretzky.
That evening, Gretzky took the draft picks out to a high-class restaurant, and Wheeler told USA Hockey magazine it was a moment he'll not forget.
"A month earlier I'm standing in line in the cafeteria at Breck trying to get some food, and now I'm having dinner with Mr. Gretzky," he said.
Gretzky was in town for the Coyotes-Wild game Tuesday and visited briefly before the game with his former top draft pick, whom he said would likely benefit from more time with the Gophers.
"We knew when we drafted him out of high school that he had a ways to go," Gretzky said. "With Blake, he's a big boy, a big man. We're not going to pressure him. When he decides he's going to play one more year or two more years and when he's ready to come out, we'll talk to him.
"At this point, he's in the right program and he's going to get better every month. When it happens it will be good for us, because obviously we look at him as part of our future."
Wheeler refuses to look that far ahead.
"It would be kind of a disgrace to even think about anything other than the next couple of weeks," he said, "just because we've worked so hard to get where we are now."
Where the Gophers are now is heading into the first round of the NCAA tournament opposite Air Force Academy, which happens to come from the same conference as Holy Cross. It was Holy Cross that ousted Minnesota in the first round of NCAA play a year ago.
The Gophers' focus is on Air Force, Wheeler said.
"This much is true," Wheeler said. "We definitely learned what can happen at this time of year, you know, from last year."
After going 8-8 during a 16-game stretch in the second half of the season, the Gophers also learned they need to relax and simply enjoy the game.
Exhibit A: Blake Wheeler.
"It's fun to be playing hockey at this time of year; it's playoff hockey," he said. "I can't wait to get out to Denver and just get back at it. Obviously after the week we had last weekend, all you want to do is get back on the ice."
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