August 27, 2024
By Evan Lepler
The best team won.
Let’s make that clear and definitive at the outset.
Successes and failures in sports are forever intertwined with circumstances beyond one’s control. There’s bad luck in the form of injuries or a brutally tough call. There’s also the power of teamwork, a togetherness built upon mutual dedication, belief, and the pain of previous adversity that wills a team to reach another level. In our sport, there’s also the random phenomenon of weather, which occasionally and indiscriminately decides to impact the beloved yet helpless frisbee in unpredictable and chaotic fashion.
To become a champion, talent, heart, and passion are obviously required. You also need to be adaptable. You must learn from your mistakes. You have to handle adversity, on and off the field, in a manner that inspires confidence. And even if you possess all these characteristics at high levels, it often still won’t be enough. That’s the nature of sports, where the endless hours devoted to training, strategizing, and competing still often lead to devastation when, ultimately, only one team can finish on top.
The Minnesota Wind Chill have been building for over a decade, grinding through early spring practices in miserable weather and an external perception that their talent could not surpass the other powerhouse programs around the league. It certainly didn’t help that multiple former Minnesota stars were winning MVPs and championships in New York, creating a dynasty that the Wind Chill, presumably, could never match. In recent years, even as they grew into the Central Division’s standard, few if any believed that Minnesota could match up with the likes of DC or Carolina on the league’s grandest stage.
But that’s also the beauty of sports. At the start of every game, the score is 0-0, a blank slate with limitless potential. More often than not, the favorite prevails. And sometimes, an underdog rises up and proves they are far more worthy than ever previously recognized.
Facing oppressive heat, ridiculous wind, and two opponents with more established track records of success, the Minnesota Wind Chill iced all doubters and delivered a gutsy pair of performances we’ll be discussing on frisbee forums for a very long time. They got off to magnificent starts, endured excruciating second-half lulls where it felt like it all may be slipping away, and responded with a gutsy wherewithal that, frankly, I didn’t know they had.
On Friday against DC, they surrendered four straight scores to start the second half, seeing their substantial halftime lead vanish in a couple quick blinks. One night later, Carolina created a similarly stunning spurt at the start of the fourth, erasing what previously had been a six-goal deficit. Both times, with their backs against the wall and momentum clearly residing with their opponent, the Minnesota Wind Chill responded perfectly, brilliantly, and powerfully.
“We know we had that grit,” said Will Brandt, the 22-year-old who was named Championship Weekend MVP.
After losing leads of four and six goals, respectively, the Wind Chill somehow found a way to never fall behind. They were outscored 5-1 in the third by the Breeze, only to answer with a 4-zip run of their own to begin the fourth. When Carolina seemed poised to completely seize control, Minnesota cooly converted a nine-throw, turnover-free possession in just 41 seconds to reclaim the lead on Bryan Vohnoutka’s 46-yard forehand to Brandt. Then the D-line retook the field, used a goal-line blockade to force a red-zone stall, and, after a timeout, Brandt found Vohnoutka for the break that would became the championship clinching goal.
Neither of these narratives were normal, but then again, neither was the Wind Chill’s season.
In their home opener, Minnesota lost to Pittsburgh, a bewildering Thunderbirds outfit that was 0-2 entering the day and astonishingly edged the Wind Chill by one on that gusty May afternoon in St. Paul. Overall, the Chill went just 3-3 in their six regular season home games, with the other two losses coming by wide margins to Chicago and New York, two teams that were both eliminated in the opening round of the playoffs.
But these losses were not just bumps in the road; they were educational and transformational experiences. Head Coach Ben Feldman, in a joyous but rational moment late on Saturday night, insisted that all of their setbacks were critical emotional resets, teaching hard but necessary lessons that forced Minnesota to become more malleable. The Wind Chill absolutely would not have won it all, insisted Feldman, if not for those disappointing but invaluable defeats along the way.
It’s always a little strange to look at a championship and say that, without that bad loss in the regular season, they probably wouldn’t have figured it out. But Feldman’s words rung true and familiar, evoking the memory of the last Central Division team that won it all. Back in 2018, Madison got walloped at home by Carolina over Memorial Day Weekend, made a bunch of critical adjustments, and experienced their greatest moment in franchise history a couple months later.
For the 2024 Minnesota Wind Chill, their resilience, commitment, and adaptability were all on display at Championship Weekend in Salt Lake City, not to mention their depth, energy, and super underrated contingent of young talent. With nine guys younger than 25 years old on Saturday’s active 20, the team’s most recent additions meshed perfectly with the core of hardened Minnesota veterans, guys like B-Von, Josh Klane, Dylan DeClerck, and Brandon Matis.
Heading into the weekend, it was reasonable to wonder whether or not all the pieces would coalesce together and, particularly, could the young studs like Brandt, Gordon Larson, Paul Krenik, and others carry the team to a title? Following Saturday’s heart-pounding one-goal win, Matis, a multi-year captain and the Wind Chill’s all-time leader in games played, declared that the next generation had indeed taken over.
“This is their team,” said Matis. “The future is now. It feels great to see them put the work in, to grow every day, and the team’s in great hands for a long time.”
It wasn’t the outcome that most expected, but that dynamic made the Wind Chill’s celebration feel that much more special. Their first championship, coming one year after a heartbreaking home loss in the semifinals, had everyone directly or tangentially connected to the organization grinning wide from ear to ear.
“Let’s be real," said Feldman, when receiving the championship trophy after the game. “We shocked the world [...] We leveled up. You saw that [in the finals.] And I’m so proud of this team. So thankful.”
The Full Field Layout
It seems simple to say, but one of the biggest reasons the Wind Chill won it all was because they wholeheartedly embraced the blustery conditions.
“Getting into warmups [on Friday], we had our first 10 passes, and hardly any of them connected,” said Vohnoutka. “And it was like, alright, here we go, time to lock in. The conditions are tough, and we come from this. We know what to expect.”
Starting with Cameron Lacy’s scintillating pulls that usually pinned the Breeze and Flyers in uncomfortable starting positions deep in their own end zones, the Wind Chill relentlessly brought pressure and kept churning through the inevitable ugly ultimate. On Friday, the Wind Chill and Breeze combined for 74 turnovers, the most ever in a UFA playoff game, yet Minnesota persevered with a mindset that kept them pushing forward.
“Before the game we just came together and were like, we know it’s gonna be crazy wind, there’s gonna be drops, there’s gonna be throwaways, we’re just gonna embrace it," explained Klane. "We’re gonna embrace the weird, we’re just gonna keep grinding. We know DC is a really efficient team, and we knew we were gonna embrace this more than they were. We knew this was gonna frustrate them way more than [us].”
In Friday’s first semifinal, neither side could consistently huck through the ferocious wind, but there’s no doubt that the Wind Chill adapted better than the Breeze, whose small-ball style forced them to throw many more passes and inevitably created more short-field turnovers. Minnesota ended up prevailing 16-13, averaging one goal for about every 10 completions, whereas DC averaged one score for every 19 or so completions. They paid a price for all those extra throws, as the Breeze could not showcase their typical precision amidst the extreme conditions.
Undoubtedly, the Chill’s semifinal success fostered and furthered the team’s steadfast belief that they could do it. And in one of the most mind-boggling starts to any Championship Weekend game in UFA history, Minnesota astonishingly began Saturday’s title game with four straight breaks in just three minutes and 13 seconds, capitalizing on four consecutive Carolina drops to seize the 4-0 lead.
Asked whether the drops were a result of the wind, nerves, focus, or fluke, Flyers veteran Allan Laviolette, who suffered through back-to-back miscues on the first two points, said it was a mixture of all of the above.
“All warmup I just didn’t feel like I was getting a good feel for the wind,” acknowledged Laviolette. “And despite repping through it as much as time would allow, I committed some very sloppy errors which cost us several early breaks."
The Wind Chill led 12-6 at halftime and 15-11 through three before Carolina’s D-line finally got going. But even after the Flyers tied it up at 15-all with 6:36 left, the Wind Chill still found a way.
“We may not be the most talented team, but these guys know how to fight,” said Feldman.
That spirit certainly showed when the Flyers had the disc on the goal-line, trailing 16-15, with less than five minutes left. Once again, it was Laviolette, who starred for the Flyers during the team’s 2021 run to the championship, that was in the center of the moment.
He caught Tobias Brooks’ short backhand in the middle of the field, a few yards shy of the end zone, with 4:58 left. He looked right, he looked left, he spun around, he threatened a lefty backhand, and he never found anywhere to go, as the Wind Chill delivered arguably the greatest seven seconds of red zone D in UFA history.
“I remember seeing [Terrence Mitchell] on the far side of the field and thinking that the pass would have too much transit time and I should look for something closer,” said Laviolette. “My brain immediately went to ‘try and find [Anders Juengst] mode,’ and once I couldn’t locate him I was trying to problem solve my way into an uplink or backfield reset. To Minnesota’s credit, [they] did a good job of challenging the resets and ultimately I spent too much time trying to figure out the safest option and ended up getting stalled out.”
With a hair under three minutes left, the Wind Chill went up 17-15, which basically closed the door. The Flyers scored to inch back within one with 27 seconds left, but Minnesota used eight more completions to finish the job, storming the field in a joyous frenzy after Vohnoutka caught the final pass.
“I didn’t know who to hug first,” said Feldman, describing the scene while accepting the trophy a short while later. “Any given game is a toss-up in this league against the best. We are so thankful for this opportunity to embrace the experience. First time here [in the championship game], and we played loose. The crowd was incredible in the first quarter; obviously it’s what we needed to get the advantage in this game, and we fended them off.”
Klane led the Wind Chill with eight assists at Championship Weekend, completing six hucks along the way, while Quinn Snider scored six goals and Noah Hanson caught five. Defensively, aided a bunch by the often overwhelming wind, the Chill recorded 14 blocks in each game, with six different players recording multiple blocks in a game, led by veteran Matt Rehder, teenage rookie Thomas Shope, and the indispensable Tristan Van de Moortele.
“Everybody on this team put together the best two games of the year this weekend,” said Klane. “Everybody stepped up. We have a plethora of guys that can throw and are not afraid to throw in this wind. It was just a total team effort, everyone was dialed in, and everyone was ready to do what they needed to do [...] We were ready each game. More ready than the other team.”
Indeed, the Minnesota Wind Chill are the champions that no one saw coming, vanquishing two heavy favorites on back-to-back days in brutally windy conditions. Folks can scoff if they want, but know that any skepticism won’t diminish the quality of Minnesota’s celebration one bit.
“We knew we had it in us,” said Brandt. “We responded. We know we have what it takes, and we showed that [all weekend.]”
Coming up later today in “Seven On The Line”, more on the Wind Chill’s first championship and reflections on Carolina, DC, and Seattle, all of whom had moments of magic but failed to maximize their opportunities en route to disappointing finishes.
