My NHL Blog

As A Goalie, He Took A NOVEL Approach

Posted on January 25, 2010 by admin

I had to pass on this article from Michael Russo at StarTribune.com

“The coach [Pete Horachek] is kicking over the Gatorade and screaming,” Richards said. “I’m sitting there and look across the room and here’s our goalie … reading a book!”

As goalie, he took a novel approach
The Wild’s director of hockey administration was famous — or infamous — in one minor league season for reading between periods.

By MICHAEL RUSSO, Star Tribune

Shep Harder was a minor league journeyman — a one-year minor league journeyman.

There were cups of coffee that had longer stays in one city.

In 2000-01, Harder — the Wild’s now-33-year-old director of hockey administration — bounced around the East Coast and International Hockey leagues, playing 15 games for five teams.

“It became pretty clear I was a marginal minor league goaltender at best and I was 25 years old by the end of it all, so I think the writing was on the wall that it wasn’t going to happen for me,” said Harder, who grew up in Wayzata and made a name for himself at Blake by being the goalie who snapped powerhouse Bloomington Jefferson’s 60-game win streak in 1994.

After playing at Colgate University, Harder’s minor league career was such a blip on the radar, he figured there was no way Todd Richards would remember being teammates with him.

So at Richards’ news conference last June, Harder tiptoed up to the new Wild coach to reintroduce himself.

“I played 13 years, and you play with a lot of different players and guys come up to me all the time and say, ‘Remember, I played with you’ here,” Richards said. “Usually, I say, ‘Gosh, I’m sorry, I don’t remember.’”

Read on