Joey Payeur
Erin Shikowsky professes to liking challenges—and she isn’t shying away from the big one that now faces her.
Shikowsky recently was hired as the head coach for the Rainy River Community College Voyageurs women’s hockey team, replacing Jeff Wickstrom, who stepped down due to serious health issues involving his heart.
“LeAnne Hardy from the college contacted me and asked me if I would like the position,” recalled Shikowsky, who has been head coach of the International Falls Broncos’ volleyball team since 2002.
“It was good timing and works out for my other obligations,” she noted.
“Being a first-year [hockey head] coach, it’s going to be a big learning curve, especially going from the high school to the community college level,” she admitted.
The first order of business for the former hockey player with the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and assistant coach for the Broncos’ girls’ hockey team is to resurrect the RRCC program.
With only about a half-dozen players ready to come aboard, the decision was made to fold the squad for at least this season.
That’s despite the Voyageurs, with Fort Frances-based players making up a significant portion of RRCC’s minimal roster, finishing third at the ACHA Division 2 national championship two years ago before coming within a double-overtime goal of winning it all last year—ironically, against Shikowsky’s alma mater of UMD.
“It’s definitely a setback for the program knowing how the team had rose up in recent seasons,” conceded Shikowsky, who has a defined list of criteria when it comes to identifying future Voyageurs’ prospects.
“I’m looking for players with a good work ethic and student-athletes that understand school needs to be important to them,” she explained.
“They’ve got to be willing to work hard for the love of the game, and want to continue playing hockey competitively at RRCC and even after here.”
Shikowsky knows she had a steep climb ahead of her to breathe life back into the dormant program.
“First, I’m going to need to contact a lot of teams and coaches and get my name out there,” she reasoned.
“It’s unfortunate what happened here, but it also gives the opportunity to create something new and that can be exciting to kids looking to continue their hockey careers.”
Shikowsky is aiming for at least 12 players to fill the roster in hopes of being ready to go for the 2017-18 ACHA Division 2 season.
“That would give us at least two lines, two sets of defence, and two goalies,” she said.
“It would even be better if we had three lines,” she added. “I know it can be done with less, but that’s not ideal.”
Shikowsky understands she’ll have to sharpen her sales skills to convince graduating high school player to join a program that’s dormant right now.
“I’ll be talking about RRCC being a smaller school with smaller class sizes,” she noted.
“Also, it’s an opportunity for them to truly play rather than going to a larger school where they might not.
“And certainly I’ll be letting them know about the recent success of the program and definitely use that as a selling point,” she added.
Wickstrom will be around as a consultant on which Shikowsky can lean.
But he had to resign from his second tour of duty with the team after three seasons when a medical examination earlier this year revealed a 90 percent blockage in the arteries to his heart.
“The doctors said much of the problem likely stemmed from stress, so I went into the school the next day and told them I was stepping down as coach,” Wickstrom recalled.
“I got a stent put in and I’m feeling better, but I’m still not feeling right,” he noted.
“Erin will be a great replacement for me,” Wickstrom added. “She has coached before, she played at UMD, and she’s eager to get the program moving in the right direction as I did.
“I think I did the program great justice having the team fighting for a national title,” Wickstrom said.
“But it’s time for someone younger to have at ’er.”
With such a strong Muskie presence having been a factor in the Voyageurs staking their place among the ACHA elite, Shikowsky has plans to mine plenty of black-and-gold.
“I’m going to be learning about the talent in the local area very quickly,” she pledged.
“Jeff has a good handle on the kids and the teams to watch, so I’ll definitely be around Fort Frances.”
