St. Cloud Cathedral's Nick Hansen celebrates a 3-1 victory against Hermantown in the Class 1A title game at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Saturday. (Korey McDermott/For the Minnesota Star Tribune)

Emmett Keenan left the radio business to become the athletic director at St. Cloud Cathedral High School in 1998. On Saturday, the Crusaders were playing in their 12th state hockey tournament since 1993 and attempting to win a second Class 1A title to go along with 2019.

I was talking with Keenan and walking around the school a couple of years ago, and his passion for this Catholic high school of 380 students is unquestioned.

And yet as the Crusaders faced Hermantown, a four-time champion, Keenan had another obligation and was unable to attend.

He has been coaching the St. Cloud Wolves, an adult floor hockey team in the Special Olympics with a roster that includes son Cody. There was a tournament in Stillwater this weekend in which Keenan’s coaching led the Wolves to an 0-2 record.

Fortunately for his school, it turned out the opposite at Xcel Energy Center starting Wednesday and concluding with the championship matinee Saturday:

Coach Robbie Stocker’s Crusaders went through Northfield 5-1, then defeated Class 1A’s persistent powerhouses — Warroad 4-3 in overtime, and finally Hermantown 3-1 for the title.

Stocker had been an assistant coach with Cathedral in the previous decade. He took a teaching job at Delano in 2018 and missed the Crusaders’ previous title.

When Stocker came back and was the head coach for the 2021-22 season, it was carrying the emotions of having lost a former player and close friend:

Mack Motzko, killed on July 24, 2021, riding with a 0.00 alcohol reading in the car of a man speeding ridiculously and drunk. Mack played for the Crusaders when his father, Gophers coach Bob Motzko, was coaching St. Cloud State.

On Dec. 30, 2021, the Crusaders and the St. Cloud Crush, the public school cooperative of Tech and Apollo high schools, held a game dedicated to Mack.

It was a 14-14 season in which Cathedral reached a section final before losing to Monticello. Not outstanding by the program’s standards, but there was talent on the rise that gave Stocker considerable expectations.

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St. Cloud Cathedral overcomes Hermantown for Class 1A hockey title

That started with Nick Hansen as the sophomore goalie. There were also a couple of freshman forwards, Joey Gillespie and John Hirschfeld.

Andrew Dwinnell became the other third of that line last year as a junior, and by Saturday, they were producing the three goals in a championship victory and Stocker was calling them “the best line in the state.”

As the prominent Catholic school in an area with a hugely Catholic heritage, the Crusaders can draw students — and hockey players — from Sauk Rapids, Sartell, Cold Spring, etc.

Gillespie and Dwinnell have been more challenged with their traveling. They live in the St. Michael-Albertville school district, which is a drive of slightly under 40 miles to Cathedral in the middle of St. Cloud.

“There is a Catholic grade school in St. Michael, and we’ve had a connection there with families that want to continue with a Catholic education through 12th grade,” Keenan said Saturday.

Dwinnell said: “I think there are five kids from our town going to Cathedral, but just Joey and I ride together. We usually switch off driving.”

Hermantown’s former coach, the colorful Bruce Plante, did quite a bit of whining when the Hawks developed a habit of getting beaten by St. Thomas Academy in the Class 1A tournament. Cathedral has 380 students, compared to Hermantown’s 618 (including Duluth transplants).

Since the Academy moved upward to Class 2A, most anytime Hermantown loses in the Class 1A tourney, it can be considered an upset.

Not Saturday, though — not with Hansen in goal, that big line of Hirschfeld, Gillespie and Dwinnell, a four-deep defense and a driven coach with a love of Cathedral and sensing the spirit of a lost friend.

“I went to Delano in 2018, and I missed out on the state championship,” Stocker said Saturday. “And there was another guy who had to leave the team that missed out on a state championship that year as well: Mack Motzko.

“A goal of mine was winning that state championship that he and I both missed out on because I know how hard that was on him to not be a part of that, and it was really hard for me as an alumni to not be a part of it.

“For me, I dedicated this one to Mack, not only a kid that I coached for a number of years but an awesome friend, golf partner — everything that we’ve tried to build this program was Mack and who he was as a person.”