In summer 2009, 17 brave souls decided to venture into Locker Room 2 at Breck Anderson Ice Arena to pick up white AHA jerseys. Through lots of hard work, this motley crew learned to skate (sort of) and play hockey.
Only 3 weeks after their first meeting, after many votes and jersey color changes, these individuals became the Northern Horde, the newest team in the AHA beginner school. The Horde’s logo was designed by Brian Seger, a graphic artist and the brother-in-law of Will Schultz. It features an angry mob of old-school hockey players piloting their Viking longboat to victory through cold, treacherous seas.
Only 3 weeks after their first meeting, after many votes and jersey color changes, these individuals became the Northern Horde, the newest team in the AHA beginner school. The Horde’s logo was designed by Brian Seger, a graphic artist and the brother-in-law of Will Schultz. It features an angry mob of old-school hockey players piloting their Viking longboat to victory through cold, treacherous seas.
Beginner School: Through the first few weeks of beginner school, the team’s roster changed several times. The initial Horde roster consisted of Jeff Nelson, Jon Zimmerman, Tyler LaMont, Dan Bolles, Mark Paska, Dan Kline, Jon Nygren, Brian Hinderks, Liam Monahan, Ryan Chester, Will Schultz, Liza Messinger, Bill Messinger and Pete Morrow in goal. Fortunately for the Horde, David Homel left the Horde’s bitter rivals – the Diablos B – to join the Horde prior to the first team scrimmage. Also, when the Horde lost two players later in the summer, fortunes again brightened when Andrew Dayton, the step-son of Bill Messinger and brother of Liza Messinger, returned from school to join the Horde’s feared offensive attack. Following the roster shuffle, the Horde stepped up their game during the B-School season. The Northern Horde finished the regular season with an 8-1 record against the Diablos, with the sole loss coming in a 3-1 Diablos win where the Horde outshot the Diablos 27-8. Following that tough loss, the Horde regained their form in the championship game, beating the Diablos 6-1 with goals from Kline, Paska, Hinderks, Monahan, Nelson and Zimmerman, assists to Nygren.
Winter 2009-10: Success in B-school rarely leads to success in the D2 big leagues, but the Horde were ready to compete. With the departures of Liza Messinger (to college) and Andrew Dayton (to law school), the Horde added Suneel Arora, Gary Speier, Jeff Cook, Chris Haack and Dana Cudo to the roster. After starting the season 0-1-1 and sitting in 8th place, the Horde went on a 13 game unbeaten streak, rising to the top of the table following a hard fought 2-1 victory over the Nighthawks D2 in Eden Prairie. The Horde lost a bit of momentum as the season wore on and finished the season 13-5-2, scoring 85 goals while surrendering only 48. The Horde beat every team in the league at least once and led the league with the fewest penalty minutes. Qualifying for the D2 playoffs, the Horde beat their nemesis, the Puck Hounds, with a brawny 5-3 win at New Hope. Unfortunately, the Horde couldn’t capitalize on a lot of chances early and lost 3-1 to the Ice Sages in their second game. Needing a win to make the championship game, the Horde faced the Nighthawks at BIG and went up 2-0 early in the first, but the Nighthawks rebounded in the third to tie the game and the Horde gave up an empty netter with 11 seconds left to miss out on the championship.
Summer 2010: Following the successful winter campaign, a group of Horde skaters teamed up with some of the Fighting Piranhas in the L4 (D1) summer league as the Night Rangers. The Rangers finished 7-7-1, losing to the Cheap Tricks (made up of Nighthawks D2 and Arctic Wolves) in the 4B division championship. The Cheap Tricks went on to win the L4 championship.
Winter 2010-11: If you can’t beat them, join them. . . Weary from the Nighthawks D2 causing the Horde to miss the last two championships, the Northern Horde joined forces with the Nighthawks D2 to form the Northern Horde D1 and Northern Horde D2 this year. Nathan Kangas from the Nighthawks will tend the nets for the D1 team while Pete Morrow is between the pipes for the D2 team. Both teams are looking forward to a strong season. The Northern Horde D2 had a solid year, finishing 9-9-0-2 and tying for 7th place out of 10 teams. They added Joe Lee to the roster, who really improved his play during the season. At the D1 level, the Northern Horde added Steven Lenzen and Joh Fischer and shocked everyone going 18-1-0-1 losing their first game to the Fighting Ice Fish and their final regular season game to the Muskies in overtime after leading 5-2 in the third period. The D1 Horde went 3-0 in playoff pool play qualifying as the number 1 seed for the semifinals where the faced the undefeated Spiders. The game ended 2-2 after overtime and the Horde lost the shootout keeping them from the championship game. Nathan Kangas led the AHA with a 1.57 GAA for the season, giving up more than two goals only three times on the season.
Summer 2011: The Northern Horde D1 moved up to Level 3 (C2) for the summer and played as the Slick Willies with Jeff Cleath, Rob Tyler and Ben Foote joining the team. They finished 6-6 to be in 5th place in the nine team division. They lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Winter 2011-12: The D2 Northern Horde revamped their roster to fill in some openings. Pete Morrow vacated the nets to create an opportunity for Mark Johnson to move into the nets. Tom Leach joined the D2 Horde as they hope to mount a playoff campaign this season. As to the D1 Horde, when the league created the new C3 division, the team did not get an invite so they moved to C2 for the winter campaign, taking the entire roster with them. Nathan Kangas got a new job so the Horde added Zach Barlow from the Noresemen to the roster to fill the nets. Jeff Cleath joined the roster to take Dana Cudo's spot when she left to focus full time on her WHAM team. With John Fischer's departure to the Lumberjacks and Chris Brown's decision to remove three fingers from his left hand with a table saw, the Horde added Rob Tyler and Ben Foote as subs to the roster, giving Horde fans a glimmer of hope that the team can compete for a playoff spot.
