MINNEAPOLIS — There was bright sunshine when Logan Cooley stepped off a plane in Minnesota on the first Sunday of 2022. And the high temperature was minus-4 that day as he looked around the Twin Cities and the University of Minnesota campus.
The next night, when his USA Hockey National U18 team faced the Minnesota Gophers, Cooley assisted on two of his team’s goals in a 5-3 loss. On the line chart that night, he still had the interlocking ND logo of Notre Dame next to his name, but that was bound to change.
About this series
In a four-part preview of the 2022-23 Minnesota Gophers’ hockey season, The Rink Live’s Jess Myers explores the goalie (Owen Bartoszkiewicz), the captain (Brock Faber), the rookie (Logan Cooley) and the legend of the program (Thomas Vanek).
“I was 14 years old when I committed to Notre Dame and I didn’t really know anything about it. I saw their gold helmets and I thought that was pretty cool,” said Cooley, now 18 and one of the elite offensive players coming into college hockey this season. The Irish are reputed to be a defense-first program, and Cooley was looking for more puck-moving opportunities.
“I was extremely young, and as I got older I started to realize it was probably not the right style of play for me. I don’t think I could fit in that (system),” he said.
Paired with Jimmy Snuggerud – who had followed his father and grandfather in committing to the Gophers a year earlier – on Team USA, Cooley had found some real chemistry and a friendship. He had spoken to the Gophers, Penn State and North Dakota about his college hockey future. Even with 3M Arena at Mariucci roughly half full on a Monday night for their game versus the Gophers, Cooley liked what he saw in Minneapolis.
“I loved the atmosphere,” Cooley said after a recent captains practice at what…
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