5 members of a Minnesota family are shaping Hill-Murray's girls hockey team. Here's how.
A state tournament run was capped with a championship last year.
"Indescribable," said Hill-Murray junior forward Emily Pohl. "It was something so special. It was double overtime, so it was a lot of adrenaline really quick. But it was really, really special."
Pohl and company are back for more. Hill-Murray is again one of the best girls hockey teams in Minnesota. This season, at any given time, there could be five Pohls on the Pioneers bench.
"Obviously, we all have the same downtime and the same schedule, which is easy," said freshman forward Anna Pohl.
Three members of the Pohl family play for the team, and their parents, Krissy Wendell Pohl and dad John Pohl, are co-head coaches and work at the school.
"We joke our family spends more time together than any other family in the history of earth," said John Pohl, who works as Hill-Murray's athletic director.
The youngest, Lucy Pohl, is the only member of the family who plays defense. The eighth grader now has the same carpool stop in her first year on varsity.
"I've talked about it before, but it's super nice because they push me every day at practice and they make me a better player each day," Lucy Pohl said.
If you're a Minnesota sports fan, you've gathered by now that John Pohl and Krissy Pohl are two of the most accomplished University of Minnesota Gophers hockey players ever. Krissy Pohl was an Olympian and John Pohl played in the NHL.
"It's kinda hard to find their highlights," said Emily Pohl. "My dad likes to, sometimes he'll pull up his own and we'll watch those with him, but he usually gets made fun of by the four girls when he does that."
Emily Pohl is one of the top prospects in the state. People know her parents. So when she committed to play college hockey for Minnesota's rival Wisconsin, people were talking.
"A lot of people are like 'I can't believe that happened,'" said John Pohl. "But you know, the University of Minnesota was the right place for Krissy and me, 100%. We both had phenomenal experiences. The University of Wisconsin is 100% the right place for Emily. It's what she's wanted for a long time. She's had a goal to be able to play there and get recruited by them. We are fully supportive of it. Could not be prouder of her. Could not be happier for her. Although Krissy and I will and always will be Gophers, Em's gonna be a Badger. We absolutely love it and could not be happier for her."
"I got an overwhelming lot of love and support," said Emily Pohl. "Not very much backlash. I guess you could say, like, 'Why would you do this?' I think anyone that knows me knows that I was gonna do what the best fit for me was."
In a hockey family, carving a distinctive path.