BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

MADISON, Wis. — They grew up in the same neighborhood, skating on the same outdoor rink and playing youth hockey in the same central Wisconsin town where the sport is crazy popular.

They attended the same high school and skated in the same boys' varsity program. They wore the same number. They played the same position. Their parents were friendly acquaintances. Their brothers were guide posts. Their paths crossed enough times growing up that they became good buds as adults.

Now Nate LaPoint and Sis Paulsen have the same job, the same business address and the same employer.

Should it come as any surprise then that they're about to live the same dream?

Together?

LaPoint has been the equipment manager for the Wisconsin men's hockey program since 2009.

Paulsen has been the director of operations and equipment manager for the UW women's hockey team since 2017.

When the 2022 Winter Olympics begin next week in Beijing, China, the two friends will be front and center for Team USA. LaPoint will reprise his role for the men's team, while Paulsen will be lending her expertise to the women's squad.

What are the odds that two childhood friends from Eau Claire, Wisconsin — they grew up skating outdoors on the rink at Pinehurst Park, playing youth hockey, suiting up for Eau Claire North School, wearing No. 13 and manning the blue line — would be preparing for the same high-profile assignment?

"Pretty crazy," LaPoint said.

"It's pretty crazy," Paulsen echoed, "but it's also pretty cool."

LaPoint and Paulsen represent the latest chapter in an extraordinary legacy where Wisconsin hockey and the Winter Olympics are concerned.

UW has been represented on every men's Olympic squad since 1976 and every women's team since 2006. That includes general managers, head coaches, assistant coaches, players, athletic trainers and, now, equipment managers.

Tony Granato, the UW men's coach, played for Team USA in 1988, was an assistant in 2014 and coached the men's team in 2018.

Mark Johnson, the UW women's coach, played for the U.S. in 1980 and coached the women's entry in 2010.

When LaPoint and Paulsen show up for work every day, they navigate a long corridor between the Kohl Center and LaBahn Arena where that Olympic heritage is celebrated with pictures and displays. There's Johnson and his Miracle on Ice teammate Bob Suter. There's the late Jim Johannson, who was the GM for Team USA in 2018. There are the eight women who have earned Olympic gold medals for either the U.S. or Canada.

LaPoint and Paulsen are now part of that epic story.

"When you're going out there and working for your country, yes you're working for Team USA, but you're also supporting what has come before you," LaPoint said. "It's a great honor for me and a great honor for Sis to represent not only the USA, but the Badgers and Eau Claire and all the things we have ties to."

LaPoint was asked to join the Team USA men's staff after the NHL decided not to send its players to China. Had the NHL stayed the course, its equipment staff would have been manned by NHL personnel. LaPoint will spend roughly three weeks away from the Badgers, wife Callie and daughter Hazel.

Paulsen, meanwhile, has been working with the U.S women's team in Blaine, Minnesota, since last summer. A pool of candidates was brought there by USA Hockey to train until the 23-person roster was determined. The final depth chart includes five former UW players: Alex (Rigsby) Cavallini, Brianna Decker, Caroline Harvey, Hilary Knight and Abby Roque. Another five — Kristen Campbell, Emily Clark, Ann-Renée Desbiens, Sarah Nurse and Blayre Turnbull — will play for Team Canada.

Ray Thill, a former NHL equipment guru with Tampa Bay, will fill in for LaPoint for the three weeks he's expected to be gone. Jacob Snuggerud, son of 1988 Olympic hockey player Dave Snuggerud, is handling things for the women's team while Paulsen is away.

Paulsen expects to see a lot of LaPoint when the American teams arrive in China.

"It will be all hands on deck," she said, referring to a daily check list that includes changing dressing rooms, setting up for practices and equipment maintenance in addition to game day duties.

LaPoint and Paulsen have known one another since they were kids even though Paulsen is 41 and LaPoint 37. The LaPoint boys — Nate, Derrick and Nick — were regulars at the outdoor rink at Pinehurst Park. So were Sis and her older brother, Keith, who made a point of looking out for the LaPoints.

"It was a great place for the kids," said Nate's father, Scott. "That's where they gathered and skated."

Scott said his boys always wanted to go watch the Paulsens play at North High School. Sis was a standout with the boys' hockey team — she was named captain as a senior — and an accomplished softball player. Sis' parents, Buck and Peggy, returned the favor, showing up to watch the LaPoints play for the Huskies after Sis and Keith moved on.

Sis went on to become part of the first recruiting class for the UW women's team in 1999. She was a three-year captain for the Badgers, accounting for a program-record 130 points (42 goals, 88 assists) by a defender before embarking on a coaching career that included collegiate stops at NCAA Division I Bemidji State and Minnesota State and Division III New England College.

Nate wound up playing two years of NCAA Division III hockey at Northland College in Ashland before making his way to North Dakota where his career as hockey equipment manager took root with the storied Division I men's program in Grand Forks.

"I'm so proud of both of them," Buck Paulsen said.

The role of equipment manager is layered with intricate details, mechanical skills and in-depth knowledge of players' needs regarding skates, sticks, pads, gloves and the like. Nate and Sis didn't know it at the time, but their how-to instincts were honed at a young age.

Scott said Nate had access to shop class in middle school and an automotive class in high school. Scott also noted that his father is a handyman who helped him with projects around the house and that his father-in-law and two brothers-in-law are airplane mechanics at a small airport in Eau Claire.

"Nate hung around there a lot as a kid," Scott said. "Being around the shop I'm sure he got to tinker around a little bit."

Meanwhile, Buck Paulsen is a self-employed plumber who, according to his daughter, "worked his butt off his whole life." That rubbed off on Sis and Keith, now the video coach with the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League.

"Just the way my brother and I were raised, we weren't really given much, so if you needed something done you had to figure out how to do it," Sis said. "You learned to do things. We didn't have a lot of money growing up, so when things broke, you fixed it."

Buck said he's done car repair, carpentry projects and electrical work in addition to his plumbing business. He said Keith and Sis sometimes accompanied him on jobs.

"Neither one of the kids were interested in what I do or what I know about stuff, but as they've gotten older, they both realize it's not that difficult," Buck said. "They did follow me around and they did pay attention."

That DIY attitude served Sis well in her college coaching stints.

"Back then you didn't have directors of hockey ops or equipment people," she said of college hockey life in the early 2000s. "You're coaching, but you're also sharpening skates, ordering (equipment), academics and budgets. You're a little bit of everything. You figure out how to do it."

Curiously, Sis refers to Nate as her big brother even though he's nearly five years younger.

"He's been in the equipment business much longer than I have," she explained. "When I got here, he'd already had eight or nine seasons in, so he had a lot of experience under his belt. He was awesome about coming down — still is — checking in every day. 'Do you have any problems? What can I help you with?' And any time that I have stuff, I bring it down to him and say, 'Here's what I was thinking. What do you normally do?' We just bounce ideas off each other.

"He's always looking out for me."

Buck said his daughter has always spoken highly of Nate, but even more so now that they play the same role for the Badgers.

"She said he's so helpful and they work so good together," Buck noted.

What makes Nate good at his job?

"Oh, man, he's so very knowledgeable," Sis said. "He's such a pro. He's so passionate. He's so willing to help. Not just the men, either. Everyone.

"His compassion for people and his willingness to help. He just wants to put everybody in a situation where they can be most successful.

"He loves his job and has such a big heart. You can tell it every day."

Nate said Sis' strength is her ability to connect with people, but especially the players.

"For a female to be in the equipment managing world is something that's special in itself because she understands where they're coming from, understands their needs," Nate said. "She's really good at recognizing what the players need from that ex-player status.

"For the most part we do the exact same thing. She takes care of her players that exact same way I take care of mine."

Sis said she also leans on Keith for insight. Nate, meanwhile, finished his college degree work at North Dakota at the same time his brother Derrick, a fourth-round NHL draft pick of Florida, was a four-year fixture on defense.

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There is no athletic stage bigger than the Olympics. What are LaPoint and Paulsen looking forward to the most?

LaPoint likes the idea of a new challenge.

"Just going there and just being able to experience something different," he said. "Here we get into routines. The same teams, the same days and the same players, same everything every day."

Paulsen said seeing athletes from around the world up close and sharing in the Olympic Village experience will be cool.

"It's just going to be an unbelievable experience," she said.

When it's over, LaPoint and Paulsen will take their place within an extraordinary legacy of Olympic hockey at UW. They will do so humbly.

"I didn't graduate from the University of Wisconsin, but I have a lot of pride working here and the history that has come before me," Nate said.

"I just see what we do as supporting the overall good of trying to win a gold medal. We're there to do our best and service the players."

Friends to the end.