There’s always that one team that ignites a fire within you. The second you sense they are in the arena or step onto the ice for warm-ups and look across the red line, all the bad blood comes rushing to the surface. It doesn't matter how much you tell yourself “It’s just another game,” because it’s not. You don’t just want to beat your most hated rival… you want to destroy them. You want to leave them with nothing but the agonizing memory of crushing defeat that will last long after the season has ended.
Warroad versus Roseau is a classic, and a trip to Warroad might reveal state’s biggest rivalry. As sports rivalries go, you have the legendary Dodgers-Giants baseball duels, the Vikings-Packers pro football matches, and the previous generation’s college hockey pinnacles of Gophers-Badgers, Gophers-Fighting Sioux and Gophers-Bulldogs battles.
In high school sports, you could reach way back to the days of Johnson-Harding in St. Paul, or Southwest-Edina on the West side. Up North, we could always rely on Hibbing-Greenway, which gave way to Greenway-Grand Rapids and ultimately Grand Rapids-Duluth East, which arose from the old East-Cathedral battles in Duluth in the 1960s.
But if you had to pick just one, the choice would be simple: Roseau against Warroad. Or, Warroad against Roseau. It could be in any sport, but hockey clearly was the specialty on the menu every year.
The two Northern Minnesota towns are about 20 miles apart on Hwy. 11, which runs East-West, parallel to the Minnesota border with Canada, and they are close to the same size, and share similar passions about their hockey heritage.
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Their games were typical of such rivalries, fitting the cliché about throwing out the records for the season, because this game was all that mattered. At least until the two met for the second time, in the other city. You could climb into your car in one town and be at the arena in the other in 20 minutes, but they were separated by much more in attitude.
The Intensity of the Rivalry
When the two teams play each other, the attendance at the game often exceeds the population of the host town. It’s not a stretch to say these games are the biggest events of the year in both Warroad and Roseau.
In my 30 years covering all levels of hockey for the Minneapolis Tribune, one of my passions was to set aside the North Stars, the Gophers and all else going on in the world in those weeks when my calendar had the Tuesday circled to designate the next game between the two. I would almost always be road-testing a new vehicle for my auto column that week, and I would often be joined by an eager passenger - often Herb Brooks, when he was coaching the Gophers.
One year when Roseau beat Warroad to come to the state tournament, I remember talking to someone from Warroad and remarking that I was sure everybody in Warroad could set aside the animosity of their rivalry and pull for Roseau to win the state title. “Are you kidding?” he answered instantly. “No way! We don’t want to have to listen to them gloat for a year.”
Sure enough, another year when Warroad won the Region 8 berth in the state tournament, Roseau fans who had season tickets renewed annually for the state tournament had the same response. No way would they cheer for the little town of 1,700, located 20 miles East on Hwy. 11. Regional pride was no competition for the intensity of their rivalry.
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Historical Context
The year was 1909. William Howard Taft had just been elected President of the United States. The Titanic was three years away from its ill-fated voyage in the Atlantic; and the University of Minnesota, which had been playing its hockey games on frozen Como Lake in St. Paul, was amid a nearly 20-year hiatus from competition.
But just a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, high school hockey teams from Warroad and Roseau were squaring off against one another for the very first time.
So, the origins of one of Minnesota’s greatest sports rivalries commenced long before official record-keeping began in the mid-1940s.
“Why would people say it’s the best rivalry? I think because everybody has something in the game,” said Larry Olimb, Warroad native and 1988 Mr. Hockey Award recipient. “In Warroad, everyone’s part of the hockey community, and Roseau is the same way.
Olympic team, as well as the NHL, have reaped the benefits of this far-north region of Minnesota.
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But both hockey havens have perhaps shined brightest in youth and high school competition, regardless of the era.
“In 1999, my senior year, we won a double-A state championship,” Mike Klema said, looking back on the rivalry.
Klema, a Roseau native, went on to play four years at Yale, and is now vice president in the Roseau Youth League and coaching his two Mite-aged sons.
“I just looked back at it from my experience thinking what a great, great run of teams that Roseau and Warroad produced in the 90s,” he said. “And that’s not to shortchange any other decade, because obviously, going back to the 40s, Roseau and Warroad have had really strong histories.”
Past and present, the names are synonymous with Minnesota hockey: Marvin and Christian; Oshie and Nelson; Bjorkman, Boucha and Broten.
Both communities have consistently produced great players and even greater play on the ice.
“No matter if one program has a lot more talent than the other a certain year it doesn’t matter,” said Gigi Marvin, a Warroad native and three-time Olympian for Team USA.
By the Numbers
The towns are just 26 miles apart, with the population of Roseau eclipsing that of Warroad, 2,712 to 1,810 respectively.
By the numbers, as they pertain to hockey, Roseau holds the edge as well, with a series record of 107-71-5 since 1945. The two schools battled on 30 occasions throughout the 1960s, the most of any decade.
Roseau has 34 appearances in the boys’ state high school tournament, with seven championships. Two of those titles were won in Class 2A, after the advent of the two-class brackets.
Warroad has made it to the tourney 24 times, bringing home four Class 1A titles.
In the years before the 1991-92 season, schools competed in the single-class system.
For Roseau and Warroad, that meant only one team would emerge from the Section 8 region and head to the state tournament.
“By the time we’re done playing each other in high school, we’ve probably played each other 30, 40 times,” said Bill Lund, a Roseau native who was part of the Rams’ 1990 state championship team.
Lund played his college hockey at St. Cloud State and later skated four seasons for Lake Charles in the Western Professional Hockey League.
“Back when we were squirts, we’d play them four times every year, all the way through,” Lund recalled. “And then obviously, in summer hockey, they used to come over to our camp.
“For a couple of weeks in the summer we got along. In the winter, we didn’t get along so well.”
The animosity was tempered for Lund after college when he played on Cal Marvin’s storied Warroad Lakers Senior A team.
“It was Roseau and Warroad guys along with a bunch of other guys playing for the Allan Cup up in Canada,” Lund recalled fondly.
One common theme - regardless of era - rises above the battles: Players who competed in the rivalry still carry an appreciation for the level of competition and how it only raised their game.
“The thing about that rivalry is both teams are usually really good every year. So, that’s what makes it even better,” said Hampton Slukynsky, Warroad’s 2023 Goalie of the Year who now plays with the Fargo Force of the United States Hockey League.
“I think with having two really good teams in northern Minnesota, it makes it a lot more competitive. You want to be better than Roseau, if you’re from Warroad. Or if from Roseau, you want to be better than Warroad.”
T.J. Oshie's Perspective
T.J. Oshie joined the Washington Capitals in 2015. At that time one of the most intense rivalries in NHL history, Capitals vs. Penguins. Unfortunately for T.J.’s Capitals, they didn’t just lose to the Pens in the divisional round of the 2016 and 2017 playoffs... They also suffered the fate of watching Pittsburgh win back-to-back Stanley Cups. Yet, in 2018 T.J.
Given T.J’s experience playing in the NHL’s spotlight rivalry during the prime of Sidney Crosby’s and Alexander Ovechkin’s careers... a rivalry that produced three straight Stanley Cup Champs… And his years competing in the State of Hockey’s most historic and heated matchup, it’s not surprising one fan wanted to know which rivalry was more intense.
Fan Question: “What is a more intense rivalry, Capitals/Penguins or Warroad/Roseau?”
T.J.’s Answer: “The Warroad Vs. Roseau game my sophomore year was still the most nervous and shocked I have ever been in a game. They had to bring in extra bleachers for all the fans who showed up. Before that, I had only played in front of my family. When I came to Washington, it took a few games to get a feel for the rivalry with the Pens.
Warroad star David Christian, Broten’s 1980 Olympic teammate, was the subject of a controversial switch coach Herb Brooks made that paid richly. David had been an outstanding centerman in high school, for Dick Roberts, and at North Dakota, and he later would be an outstanding NHL star as both a center and wing.
Brooks, right after naming his team, informed David that he would be shifting back to defense.
In Christian’s case, he not only made the switch smoothly, but he was often Team USA’s best defenseman in the Lake Placid games, playing with great precision against the best players the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Finland could send at him. When the year was over, David moved back up to forward and, again, made the transition smoothly to NHL stardom.
After the Olympics, I interviewed David Christian about the magnitude of beating the Soviet Union. We had a great conversation, but he didn’t say too much, and he always had this wry little grin on his face, reminiscent of his Uncle Roger. Suddenly it hit me. There was no pressure on the Mark Paveliches, or Mark Johnsons, or Billy Bakers, or the Neal Brotens, or the David Christians.
In David Christian’s case, it was not the huge challenge of facing the Soviets, it was the same as if he was in college, or high school, or on the Warroad Bantams, or in one of the near-daily pickup games he might play. He was going to play the best he could, every shift, to win that game, because it was the game he was going to play at that time of that day. It didn’t matter who the opponent was.
You can take the boy out of Warroad, but you can’t take Warroad out of the boy.
Hockey Day Minnesota
Last season, Warroad had the unique distinction of not only having the Goalie of the Year in Slukynsky, but also Mr. Hockey Award recipient Jayson Shaugabay on their roster as well. The pair led the Warriors to Class 1A runner-up finishes the past two seasons.
For Shaugabay, the rivalry ranks as the pinnacle in his accomplished amateur career.
“Leading up to the Roseau-Warroad game has always been the most exciting time in my life,” Shaugabay said. Warroad is primed for the three-day event, which has far surpassed earlier incarnations in size and scope.
That excitement is no doubt taken up several notches this January when Hockeytown USA hosts Hockey Day Minnesota.