An East Side family in St. Paul had several sons play hockey for Moose Younghans. As a show of appreciation, the family presented Younghans with a golden retriever as a pup.
"I'd never had a pet," Younghans said. "Now he goes everywhere with me."
This was early in Derek Boogaard's five-season run from 2005 to 2010 as the Wild enforcer. Younghans was such an admirer that he chose "Boogaard" as the name for the retriever.
Younghans has been the hockey coach at St. Paul Johnson since 1994. For longer than that, his day job has been selling at Strauss Skates and Bicycles, the venerable sporting goods store located in Maplewood.
"Boogaard goes to work with me," Younghans said. "More customers come in to see him than me."
Derek Boogaard died in tragic circumstances at age 28 on May 13, 2011, in Minneapolis. He had played the previous season with the New York Rangers, but the shock was felt severely within the Minnesota hockey sphere.
In the wake of this, there was a light moment a couple of days later at Strauss Skates, when a pair of 4-year-old boys came into the store crying.
Asked what was the problem, the small boys said, "Boogaard died," only to see their favorite retriever come around the corner, wagging his tail.