2023-12-28 15:46:19
Gigi Marvin soon will be back on the ice looking to score more goals in 2024. Cheryl Reeve will be plotting another run at a WNBA ring, one for her thumb. Phil Housley will be urging his New York Rangers to stay near the top of the Eastern Conference from his associate head coach post.
Those three, still busy pursuing their goals in sports, also will be joining the Star Tribune Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame, along with five more greats from the state’s sporting history.
The Star Tribune is announcing the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 today, and it has a “hockey and hoops” feel to it. Joining Reeve on the basketball side are:
• Tayler Hill, who set the Minnesota scoring record and won a state championship at Minneapolis South before going on to Ohio State and the WNBA. She scored 3,888 points in high school and made the All-Big Ten first team twice in college. She was the fourth overall pick in the 2013 WNBA draft.
• Willie Burton, who led the Gophers men’s basketball team to the Sweet 16 in 1989 and Elite 8 in 1990. Burton’s No. 34 has been retired by the Gophers; he finished as the program’s No. 2 scorer, with 1,800 points. He made the All-Big Ten team three times, landing on the first team in 1990. He played eight seasons in the NBA, the first four in Miami following the Heat drafted him in the first round (ninth overall) in 1990.
• Larry McKenzie, already a member of the Minnesota Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame. McKenzie led Minneapolis Henry High School to four consecutive state titles before leaving for Minneapolis North, where he also won two championships, becoming the first coach to lead two schools to multiple titles. He coached 24 years, also spending time at Holy Angels, and went 481-166.
And joining Marvin and Housley from the hockey side:
• Henry Boucha enters the Hall of Fame posthumously. Boucha died Sept. 18 at age 72 following a storied career and a full life following hockey. Boucha was a high school legend from Warroad and later played in the Olympics (silver medal, 1972), NHL and WHA. He spent NHL time with the North Stars and played for the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the WHA. In high school, he fired up hockey fans when he led tiny Warroad to the state championship game in 1969, but the Warriors lost to Edina.
• Neal Broten led Roseau to three consecutive high school state tournaments before winning a national title with the Gophers in 1979. He is the only player to have won an Olympic gold medal (with the Miracle on Ice team in 1980), the Hobey Baker Award as the top college player (1981) and a Stanley Cup (New Jersey, 1995). He is the all-time leading scorer in Minnesota North Stars history.
Marvin and Housley have similarly long lists of accomplishments in hockey, and both are still striving.
Marvin, another Warroad hockey legend, is continuing her historic playing career in Boston, in the debut season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League. She was Ms. Hockey for Warroad in 2005, and she made the All-WCHA first team twice for the Gophers. Her résumé also includes three Olympic medals (two silvers and the 2018 gold) and two world championships for Team USA, in 2008 and 2009.
South St. Paul native Housley, a member of both the Hockey Hall of Fame and the U.S. Hockey Hall of Famewas at one time the leading point scorer (1,232) and the leader in games played (1,495) among American-born NHL players. Housley has been coaching, from high school to the NHL, for nearly 20 years and is the Rangers’ associate head coach. He is one of only three Minnesota players — Frankie Brimsek and Moose Goheen are the others — in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
Reeve stands alone in her accomplishments, not only in Minnesota but across the WNBA — and beyond, as she’ll be the head coach for Team USA at this summer’s Olympics in Paris. Reeve, who is the Lynx’s coach and president of basketball operations, has coached the Lynx to four WNBA championships and won three WNBA coach of the year honors and one WNBA executive of the year honor.
That’s a lot of records, medals and championships in the Class of 2023, on the gym floor and on the ice.
The Star Tribune will celebrate this Class of 2023 early next year with a ceremony or ceremonies at a date and location to be announced. The Star Tribune resurrected the dormant Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 and has inducted a class each year since. More information regarding this year’s class and the celebration will be published early in the new year.
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