Bemidji State's Jake Hill skipped out of the grasp of UMD linebacker Mac Strand as he crossed the goal line with Brandon Alt's 16-yard first touchdown pass. Photo by John Gilbert.

Sports is all about triumphs and tragedies, but none of us can be prepared for the tragedy that staggered all of us in Northern Minnesota, when we got word that former Hibbing and UMD star Adam Johnson died after a freak incident where an opponent’s skate blade caught him in the throat during a game in a United Kingdom Elite League game in Sheffield, England. Johnson had just skated across the blue line, playing his first season for the Nottingham Panthers, when he collided with a player for the Sheffield Steelers, who was off-balance and his foot kicked high as he fell. Medical personnel immediately tended Johnson, and he was rushed to Northern General Hospital in Sheffield. The game was canceled and the large crowd dispersed.

The 29-year-old Johnson was a star center for Hibbing-Chisholm and led the Bluejackets to the state tournament as a sophomore, where he scored a hat trick in a semifinal loss to Hermantown. He committed to UMD — where his dad, Davey Johnson, also had played. — after his sophomore year at Hibbing. Johnson was UMD’s No. 2 goal and points scorer, and scored the overtime game-winning goal to beat Boston University 3-2 in the West Region final. as a sophomore.

The Bulldogs wound up losing to Denver in the NCAA Frozen Four final, but that breakthrough year started a four-year run by UMD to the Frozen Four that included two successive championships for UMD. Johnson signed a pro contract after his sophomore season, and played 13 games for the Pittsburgh Penguins, scoring a goal against the Wild at Xcel Center in St. Paul. After several years mostly in their minor league system, Johnson decided to try European hockey. He played one season in Sweden, and a year in Germany, then he signed with Nottingham of the UK Elite League this season.

Always team-oriented and personable, Johnson’s tragic death in a hockey game sent shockwaves throughout the entire hockey world, which has planned tributes to honor him this week. UMD coach Scott Sandelin, who is also from Hibbing, and knew Davey Johnson as a friend growing up, heard about the incident before UMD lost 3-0 at Cornell Saturday night.

“We heard about the incident and knew it sounded bad, but we didn’t know he had passed away until after the game,” Sandelin said at a Monday news conference. “The incident itself is scary, and we all know it can happen, but you don’t think of things like that. I was coaching with a heavy heart.

“When you lose a family member, it hurts everyone in the family, and everyone in the hockey family has been affected by this. It’s pretty touching to know how everyone is reaching out all over the world. I remember his smile, hit wit. We all loved him; he was a fun guy to be around. As a player, I remember following him since I saw him in summer camps. He was an unbelievable skater and talented player, and it was obvious he was in the elite category at a young age.

“I wish I had the chance to coach him longer but I was fortunate to have coached him a couple of years. We have players and members of our staff who had deeper relationships with Adam than I did, but it will affect us all.”

Sixth-year quarterback Brandon Alt completed 19 of 26 passes for 271 yards and two touchdowns, leading Bemidji State's 38-31 victory.

UMD was swept 4-1 and 3-0 at Cornell last weekend, and the Bulldogs return home this weekend for a home-and-home series against former arch-rival Minnesota. The Gophers were ranked Not 1 in the nation but also were swept last weekend by Wisconsin, which came to Mariucci Arena and beat the Gophers 5-2 and 3-2. 

The Bulldogs and Gophers play Friday night at Mariucci and Saturday night at AMSOIL Arena. But they will just be non conference hockey games this time around, hopefully offering triumphs without the cloak of tragedy.

The cliche says that sports is a microcosm of real life, and UMD’s football team as well as Denfeld’s exceptional high school football team both suffered on-field disappointments that accompanied the triumphs for Bemidji State and Hermantown, simultaneously, Saturday afternoon.  

We had the late-arriving showdown duel between Bemidji State’s sixth-year star passer Brandon Alt and UMD’s hard-charging sophomore quarterback Kyle Walljasper at noon. Alt flung passes around Malosky Stadium appearing to feel about the same pressure as your neighbor might feel while playing catch with a Nerf football in the back yard. UMD’s offense was slow getting untracked and the Bulldogs defense couldn’t prevent Alt from building Bemidji State leads of 14-0, then 28-10 at the half, and 38-17 after three quarters.

When it looked hopeless, the Beavers were able to hold off UMD’s late rally for a 38-31 shootout victory for the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference lead. Bemidji State is now 7-1 and UMD 6-2 in league play.

Kyle Walljasper led UMD from a 31-10 deficit, rushing for 131 yards and 2 touchdowns and passing 10-19 for 135 yards and 2 more TDs.

Amid all sorts of spectacular scoring plays, compare only Alt and Walljasper. Alt was 19-for-26 passing for 271 yards and two touchdowns; Walljasper was 10-19 passing for 135 yards and two touchdowns, but also rushed 25 times for 131 more yards and two more touchdowns. But every time UMD challenged, Alt would feather a perfect pass just beyond a defender’s reach to gain a first down or a touchdown.

The Beavers had 19 first downs to 5 for the Bulldogs in the first half, when they also were 6-7 on third-down plays compared to UMD’s 1-5.

As that game was ending, I drove as swiftly as legal from UMD to Walt Hunting Stadium where I hoped to catch a spectacular finish to the Denfeld-Hermantown battle in the Section 7AAAA semifinals. Denfeld had beaten Hermantown 31-29 at Hermantown in the regular-season finale two weeks earlier. This time, Hermantown led 3-0 at halftime, and that lead stood until the middle of the fourth quarter. Denfeld quarterback Mace Brooks came up with his two biggest pass plays of the season — a desperation 43-yard completion on fourth down to Kaden Dixon, and another desperation pass, a 48-yard connection with running back Trey Manns. That got the ball to the Hermantown 2, and Dashawn Moore zipped into the end zone on fourth down to lift the Hunters to a 6-3 lead.  

But the Hawks rolled out a long, time-consuming march to reach the Denfeld goal line, where the Hunters stopped them and threw them back twice. It got down to third and goal at the 1 when weirdness took over. Hawks running back Zach Thorsten spotted a fumbled center snap , and alertly scooped up the ball and ran right up the middle, hurling himself for the goal line. He got part of his body over the line — enough to get a touchdown signal from the officials as well as his teammates — and the Hawks had reclaimed the lead at 10-6.

Denfeld got one more chance, and Brooks tried to find ways to move the ball as the Hawks kept stuffing the fleet corps of Hunters runners. It got to be third and 20 at the Denfeld 20, with a little more than a minute to play and Denfeld out of time outs. Brooks rolled out, scrambling to his right, then took off up the right sideline for a 20-yard run. At the end of the run, he was tackled before he could cut out of bounds to stop the clock, but he was sure he had made a first down, so he could hurriedly spike the ball to stop the clock with enough time left for a couple more desperation plays. However, the officials had spotted the ball on the 39, not the 40, so it was actually fourth and 1 when Brooks spiked the ball.  Hermantown ball. Game over.

It was a heartbreaking end to a spectacular 7-2 season for Denfeld, and featured Mace Brooks’s most courageous performance of the banner year.

Then, of course, we had the shared triumph/tragedy billing of the Vikings beating the Green Bay Packers 24-10 in Green Bay Sunday afternoon, in which Kirk Cousins played his second straight outstanding game to silence the most cynical Vikings quarterback critics.

The victory lifted the Vikings to 4-4 in the sputtering division race, but the storyline for the game ended with Cousins moving up against the Packers rush, only to go down, stumbling without any contact, late in the fourth quarter. He got up, hopped off the field without stepping on is right foot.

Everybody feared a sprained ankle, and what that could mean to the suddenly revived Vikings hopes. Instead, the diagnosis is a torn Achilles tendon in his right ankle, meaning Cousins is through for the season, and his career and the team’s future is suddenly shrouded in doubt.

Hermantown's Zachary Thorsten (21) grabbed a fumbled snap and hurtled just barely across the Denfeld goal line with one minute remaining to give Hermantown a rugged 10-6 Section 7AAAA semifinal victory.