Mick Hatten talks SCSU Sports with athletes and coaches at SCSU Sports Chat at Buffalo Wild Wings. Mick Hatten, mhatten@stcloudtimes.com
Paul Miller and his father, Fred, have birthdays in the third week of January.
Paul, who lives in Corona del Mar, California, was looking for a way to get back to Minnesota this year to help celebrate his birthday and his dad's birthday.
Then St. Cloud became the host for Hockey Day Minnesota and St. Cloud State University got an alumni game for former Huskies hockey players on Friday. The combination helped Miller make it happen.
"My parents live outside of Walker and probably how all this happened was trying to figure out how to get back to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday," Miller said of playing.
North Stars draft pick
Miller grew up in Crookston and played for the Huskies from 1984-86 during the program's NCAA Division II era under coach John Perpich. He transferred to St. Cloud State after playing in two games over two seasons for the University of Minnesota.
As a 6-foot-5 defenseman, he was drafted by the Minnesota North Stars in the eighth round of the 1982 NHL Entry Draft before joining the Gophers.
"I was planning to go play juniors because not a lot of people had seen me play and then I ended up an 18-year-old at the North Stars' training camp after they drafted me," he said. "This still cracks me up: this was two years after the 1980 Olympics and I was concerned about my amateur status by spending time with the North Stars.
"John Mariucci said, 'I'm not so sure about that. You keep doing what you're doing and you're not going anywhere.' I didn't know any better. I didn't have an agent. But, in essence, I told the North Stars that I didn't want to play for them."
Miller was at camp with a number of Gophers and Dean Talafous, one of the team's assistant coaches at the time, noticed Miller.
"He went up to Mariucci and Lou Nanne and said, 'Whose that guy?'," Miller said. "They said that they'd been trying to get the Gophers to recruit me all year. I applied to get in and registered for school (at Minnesota) the same day school started."
But after mostly seeing time with the Gophers junior varsity, Miller and teammates Mike Brodzinski and Jeff Tollette decided to transfer to St. Cloud State. The trio had to miss some games their first season because of a rule in the NCHA about Division I transfers.
Then Miller injured his knee the next season to further limit his playing time. He ended up continuing to work on his degree, did rehabilitation on his knee and went back to North Stars camp the next fall.
"I had a really good game where I had a goal and an assist and I also got into two fights," he said. "I felt in charge every time I was on the ice.
"But I felt terrible because I hurt a guy. One of the guys I got in a fight with, he came at me because I had caught him in one eye with my stick. Then I hit the other eye in the fight, so he had two black eyes the next day. I felt terrible, but the North Stars staff was excited. That was a different era.
"I just didn't like the expectation that I was going to fight. My dad told me that I'd only have to do it a few times and then they'd learn to stay away. He tried to convince me to go play hockey, and he felt I could have gotten through it and to to play my way and kept living to where I was true to myself. Now that I'm an old guy and understand the game a little better, I see what he was saying."
He was asked to play in the East Coast Hockey League, but he retired instead. He finished his business degree and ended up working for Schwan's, a company that asked him to move to California.
"I thought I'd try it for a year and then I met a beach girl and fell in love," he said of his wife, Debra. "Every year, I talk to her about moving back to Minnesota, but I'm not making a sale there."
Building a nonprofit
Paul and Debra have a son, Hawken, who is 21 years old. In 2002, Hawken was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a disease that affects about 15,000 in the United States, mostly boys. People who have Duchenne develop problems walking and breathing because their muscle cells become damaged and weaken.
"We knew something was wrong because (Hawken) was trying to do some sports and we knew that he should be able to do some of these physical things," Paul said. "I was a late developer, but I was a bruiser as a kid. His gross motor skills weren't great."
The Millers thought because it was a form of muscular dystrophy that a cure could not be that far away because of all of the money that comedian Jerry Lewis had raised to fight the disease.
"We were devastated at the lack of focus and the money raised was used to cover a lot of different things and there was a shotgun approach to how the money was distributed," Paul said. "A few months after the diagnosis, we were able to wrap our arms around it and we decided we needed to start a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
"I hadn't heard of Duchenne before the diagnosis. Well how can you fix it if you can't name it? We want to save this generation of boys."
Paul said there is progress being made in the fighting of Duchenne and his son is faring better than his original diagnosis.
"We were told he'd be wheelchair bound between the ages of 8 and 12 and he would have a life span of 18-20," Paul said. "Once they get wheelchair-bound, they go down pretty quickly.
"Hawken is at USC as a junior and can still walk a little bit. So a miracle did occur."
Back on the ice
Hawken and Duchenne are another reason Paul is playing in the alumni game. In 2014, Anaheim Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf was playing in a golf tournament to support the Millers' organization.
"Hockey Night in Canada was there doing a piece on it and they got it on film of Getzlaf saying that he'd heard I played hockey and he didn't know why I wasn't playing in their charity hockey game," Miller said. "I hadn't skated since 2002.
"But now I'm skating about twice a month. Ryan Getzlaf has done a lot for our organization."
Miller, who is also the chief operating officer for Patman Meat Group, still has some hockey ties to St. Cloud State. Brooke Kudirka, a sophomore forward for the St. Cloud State women's team, is the daughter of one of his cousins. The Huskies play Minnesota-Duluth at 3:07 p.m. Friday at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center and then at 1 p.m. Saturday at Eastman Park as part of Hockey Day.
"I can't wait to see her play," he said. "I skated with her in the summer a few years ago up in Bemidji."
Miller and Minnesota State-Mankato head men's hockey coach Mike Hastings were high school teammates in Crookston. Miller said he helped recruit Hastings, another defenseman, to St. Cloud State.
The Mavericks and Huskies play at 5 p.m. Saturday in a men's hockey game at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
And Miller is looking forward to seeing Mike Brodzinski, who also is on a roster to play in the alumni game. Brodzinski's son, Jonny, played for the Huskies from 2012-14. Brodzinski's son, Easton, is a freshman forward for the Huskies this season.
"I live vicariously through Mike because my boy can't play hockey," Miller said. "My son is a fan, though.
"But I root for (Brodzinski's) boys as if they were mine."
Follow Mick Hatten on Twitter, Instagram @MickHatten and at Facebook.com/sctimesmick. Reach him by phone at 259-3621, by email at mhatten@stcloudtimes.com.
Hockey Day Minnesota schedule
(Games at Eastman Park next to Lake George unless noted)
Games Friday
Girls hockey: St. Cloud Icebreakers (14-4-1) vs. Sartell/Sauk Rapids (8-8-3), 5 p.m.
St. Cloud State women's and men's alumni games, 7:30 p.m.
Games Saturday
Boys hockey: St. Cloud Tech/Apollo (11-3) vs. St. Cloud Cathedral (11-4), 10 a.m. (FSN)
Women's hockey: St Cloud State (5-15-2) vs. Minnesota-Duluth (10-12-1), 1 p.m. (FSN)
Boys hockey: Moorhead (11-6) vs. Centennial (9-3-3), 4:30 p.m. (FSN)
Men's hockey: St. Cloud State (14-4-3) vs. Minnesota State-Mankato (17-7-0), 5 p.m. at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center (FSN Plus)
NHL: Minnesota Wild vs. Tampa Bay Lightning, 8 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul (FSN)
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