From Walter Cup champs to ‘Team Turmoil,’ the Minnesota Frost had some fun this summer, too

The team known only as PWHL Minnesota lost its final five regular-season games and two more to start the playoffs last May.

Then it won consecutive series in deciding fifth games on the road. In doing so, it became the first to lift the new pro hockey league’s Walter Cup trophy.

Six months later, can the newly named and branded Minnesota Frost pick up where PWHL Minnesota left off, without the offseason controversy?

“One would hope so,” Frost star forward and playoff MVP Taylor Heise said. “We have a spot on our back now, but I have to get this thing off my leg first.”

“This thing” is the knee brace Heise wore during a November practice for a championship team that made all kinds of news during its first season in the six-team league’s debut.

The Frost arrive at Sunday’s opener off a historic postseason and tumultuous offseason when the league cryptically fired general manager and Minnesota hockey legend Natalie Darwitz, the architect of that PWHL championship season. It came just days before draft night, held at home in St. Paul last June.

Now the Frost have a stylized logo and nickname, an expanded hockey staff and some new players added to a roster whose core remains intact. They’ll hang their PWHL championship banner before facing the New York Sirens.

They also have new General Manager Melissa Caruso, a longtime American Hockey League operations and governance expert, and the same coach, former U.S. women’s national team coach and former NHL defenseman Ken Klee.

And yes, they have “Walter,” too, the 35-pound, sterling silver trophy — cousin to the NHL’s Stanley Cup — named for PWHL sole owners Mark Walter, the billionaire Los Angeles Dodgers majority owner, and his wife, Kimbra.

Frost players toted Walter everywhere last summer after the last team to make the playoffs came back to win playoff series over higher-seeded Toronto and Boston.

“Walter, Wally, Wally J, Wally Jr.,” said Frost veteran defender Lee Stecklein, a former Gopher and three-time U.S. Olympian. “We got him first, so we get to give out the nicknames.”

Nine days after Minnesota won the championship, the league announced Darwitz’s dismissal after a monthslong internal and external review, conducted within all six teams.

PWHL senior vice president Jayna Hefford at the time said it was clear “there wasn’t a path forward” without a change. The Minnesota Star Tribune and other news outlets reported a rift between Darwitz and Klee, who was backed by veteran players who have a history with him.

“It was difficult to see,” Frost captain and veteran forward Kendall Coyne Schofield said. “Decisions made are not the decisions that are made by us players. We’re here to play hockey, and we’re here to defend our title.”

A three-time Olympic medalist and two-time NCAA champion, Darwitz secured Tria Rink for practices and Xcel Energy Center for games. Minnesota PWHL was the only team that played nearly all its games in an NHL arena. She also shaped the roster and staff positions noticeably with Minnesotans.

“It was a job and even though I enjoyed it, for whatever reasons it didn’t work out,” Darwitz told the Star Tribune before she was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November. “I’ll be better off in the long run.”

Asked about Darwitz again Tuesday, Hefford said, “Given that was a personnel matter and out of respect to players and staff, we’re not going to share any more detail. We’re really confident with the staff and players in place right now and looking forward to having them raise the banner [Sunday] and enter the season as defending champions.”

Klee was hired a week before last season began after the coach Darwitz originally hired, former Bethel coach Charlie Burggraf, resigned for family reasons. Like the league itself that hurried through the fall to start by New Year’s Day, Klee rushed from his Denver home with his wife and dog at Christmastime to a job for which he had previously interviewed. He had also interviewed for the GM job that Darwitz got.

Nine months later, Klee made the draft-night picks on short notice. He heard boos when the team took Wisconsin star Britta Curl-Salemme ninth overall. Four days later, she posted an online video apologizing for liking social media posts that she said hurt LGBTQ communities and people of color.

“I’ve learned so much through this,” she said then. “I’m seeing it as an opportunity to grow in humility and grow in love.”

Klee on draft day said the team “did our homework” when talking to Curl-Salemme’s teammates and coaches. Klee said they called her “a great kid, great competitor, great in the locker room.”

“We’re focused on moving forward,” Klee said on training camp’s first day. “It’s pro hockey. Things happen, you know? It’s some unfortunate things and things out of our control. We’re just really excited to get the season going.”

That future doesn’t include player-personnel duties, Klee said, even though Caruso’s AHL experience these last 15 years were mostly front-office operations.

“I’m here to coach,” he said.

Caruso was hired in September, three months after Darwitz was fired. She had lived out East all her life until her husband’s job took them to St. Paul two years ago.

“I came in with an open mind and I did my job to get to know everyone and get a read on the situation,” she said. “Like Ken said, we have no concern moving forward.”

Darwitz’s firing and Curl-Salemme’s selection made headlines around the league, turmoil juxtaposed against the highs of a championship celebration all in a matter of days.

“We had an unbelievable locker room, an unbelievable group, unbelievable staff, everything,” Klee said of the season that was. “If we didn’t have those things, we wouldn’t have won, to be honest with you.”

Nearly a dozen players were Minnesotans, many of whom played together throughout the years, whether with the Gophers, U.S. national and Olympic teams, or the Minnesota Whitecaps.

“It’s crazy to think I’m 30 and still playing hockey,” Stecklein said.

The Whitecaps played in leagues as professional as women’s hockey got until the PWHL came along in the summer of 2023 and changed every standard with a detailed, progressive, eight-year labor agreement.

“I just feel we were playing as a team at the end of the year,” said Frost goaltender Nicole Hensley, an Olympic gold medalist in 2018 and silver in 2022. “We really committed to playing defense first that would turn into offense. It helped us get back on the right track in the playoffs.”

This time around, the Minnesota Frost have an identity befitting the state’s infamous weather, in a league that owns all six franchises. It carefully chose team names and logos after the league played its inaugural season without them.

Minnesota PWHL’s home opener last January drew 13,316 fans and the team averaged 7,138 fans for 12 home games, second only to Ottawa.

This season, the Frost will play an expanded 30-game schedule. Included are neutral-site games in Denver, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., to spread the gospel. The PWHL is expected to expand to eight teams as soon as next season.

“The league is hot,” Klee said. “It’s exciting to watch, and it’s a lot of fun for the fans.”

On Sunday, the Frost will begin defense of their title. Walter will attend after a summer spent traveling the continent, courtesy of UPS and UPS Canada.

Sophie Jacques ate spaghetti out of it at an Italian restaurant back home in Toronto. Hensley and Maddie Rooney took it to the futures goaltending camp they run in Andover. Michela Cava brought it home to Thunder Bay, Ont., and Hensley to Red Rocks Amphitheater outside Denver.

Heise drank a daiquiri out of it at the State Fair.

“We literally carried it for four hours on the hottest day of the State Fair,” Heise said. “I had scratches up and down my arms. I feel like I went everywhere with it. It was super special to share the cup with everyone. I think we made a lot of new fans. If someone hasn’t seen it, they just weren’t in the right place.”