North to Alaska...and back again
December 20, 2008 | Men's Hockey
Wisconsin makes the trip up to Anchorage once a year to take on conference opponent Alaska Anchorage, but one current Badger took a trip to Alaska as his circuitous route to becoming part of the Wisconsin hockey program.
Sophomore defenseman Craig Johnson grew up in Waupaca, Wis., about 125 miles north of Madison and there began his journey.
Beginning hockey at age four, Johnson, like many, has his family to credit for his start in the sport.
'Playing hockey was a family thing. My cousins played hockey, so my aunt and uncle got me started playing. I worked my way up. I skated on the lakes back home. Played pond hockey a little bit. When I started playing hockey, that's when hockey in Waupaca started taking off. I stuck with it from there.'
Johnson worked his way through the ranks until the time he skated for Waupaca High School. That was about the time he realized that if he wanted to continue improving as a player, he might have to make a geographical move.
'My high school program growing up didn't have a ton of talent, but I stuck with it until my junior year when I decided to leave and play with the Madison Capitols my senior year. That was a personal choice. I felt that was the best choice for me to continue my career. My junior year we only won three hockey games in high school. We had a good football program. That is why I stuck around. There was a good tradition of football at Waupaca and I stuck around to play tailback.'
After playing his senior year in Madison, Johnson was expecting to be moving on to Springfield, Mo., to skate in the North American Hockey League. Turns out there was a slight twist in the plans. Instead of making a 500 mile drive south, he would be trekking 3,500 miles to the northwest.
'I got drafted by Springfield (Mo.) of the NAHL. The day of my graduation, I get a phone call that they moved the team up to Wasilla, Alaska, so I went up there.
'I flew up to Alaska, tried out and made the team. I didn't really see eye-to-eye with anything up there. I had a great billet family, but I wasn't connecting with the city. It was about 40 minutes north of Anchorage. They were called the Wasilla Spirit. Then I got traded up to Fairbanks and that's where everything it took off. There were a few Wisconsin guys up there and a couple I played with growing up so that made the transition a smooth one.
'Winter in Fairbanks is definitely different then Wisconsin. I think my first week up there it was 45 below zero. Of course I walked into it with a regular old coat, nothing big. It was ridiculous. I actually lived in North Pole, Alaska which was about 10 minutes outside Fairbanks.
'The first day I got into town, I had to play that night and it was just freezing out. The thing up there, is it is a dry winter and it doesn't have much wind. I think Wisconsin winters are worse than Fairbanks. It gets cold, but there is no wind so it doesn't cut right through you.'
As it turns out, it wasn't the cold that was the adjustment, but the northern latitude and its relation to the sun that made the two-year stint a challenge.
'The daylight and that whole situation, the only thing you depend on is sleep. You go home, you might watch a little TV, but it is so dark you just take a nap. Maybe four hours of daylight, at most, but that was barely any light. The sun was just peaking over the mountains. When we went to nationals, I got to stay until the second weekend of May and it was starting to get really nice. The days were longer. The days would extend to 10 o 'clock at night. It was fun.
'Every car up there had studs on their tires. The roads got really icy. It doesn 't get warm enough to thaw so it the roads stayed icy. Other than that, there wasn 't much different than Wisconsin. You'd run into a couple of moose. We had a couple of moose run through the back yard, but I didn't really see much. I had a little compact car and you prayed I didn't run into one of them. There is no way my car would have survived that.
'In Fairbanks, I noticed, there were a lot of Midwesterners. You had people from Michigan and Minnesota. I met a lot of people. I went to a local church there and it was amazing how many people I met there from up north in Wisconsin, from Ashland, wherever. They just moved up to Alaska. They loved it up there. I loved it up there.'
Despite loving it up there, the goal always remained to continue moving up in the hockey world. That goal started becoming more realistic about midway through his second year in Fairbanks.
'It kind of happened suddenly. I wasn't really producing any points at the beginning of the year, but then after Christmas I just went on a tear. The puck was just finding the net. I started getting calls from UMD, Denver and Colorado College. Duluth came to watch me in Iowa, we talked and they said they were looking for a defenseman.
'They didn't really pursue anything. I came back up to Alaska and heard Joe Piskula might be going pro and Wisconsin might be looking for a defenseman to walk on. I think assistant coach Kevin Patrick called two days later. He told me he wanted to move fast on it and we went from there. Six days later, I was a Badger. It happened pretty quick. It was a dream come true. I think the first jersey I ever wore playing hockey was a Badger jersey.'
