Veteran coach Evan Ziegler has been hired as the new girls' hockey coach at Park High School, bring years of experience to the position. He takes over for Bay Shock, who resigned from the position last winter after leading the program for the past five seasons.

Coach Ziegler has more than 30 years coaching experience, with stops at Edina, Minnehaha Academy, St. Olaf College, Cretin-Derham Hall, St. Paul Highland Park and Two Rivers. He has been a varsity head coach for 17 years, having started the Edina girls high school program. Ziegler also served as an assistant coach in several girls' and boys' programs in the metro area. He is a sixth-grade social studies teacher in the Bloomington school district.

“I’ve been doing this for a little bit, yea,” said Ziegler. In some ways his taking over the Park job is a return trip for Ziegler. His daughter, now on the Park coaching staff, played U15 hockey for Cottage Grove. “When the (Park) job opened up, we had such a positive experience here with my daughter when she was a U15, the community was welcoming, love the way they went after it and just played. Always kind of admired that.”

On his offensive and defensive philosophies, Ziegler said her “we like to try and think outside the box a little bit.”

“The offensive philosophy is to be like really fast forwards that have a motor, that go all the time, a lot of pressure on the opponent is what goal is, is to not give them a chance to think whenever they get the puck and try to force the play,” Ziegler said. “I did know when I came here that Cottage Grove area and Park provides some really hard-nosed, hard-working people and I’m very fortunate to have those players right now.

“From a defensive standpoint, kind of similar, we just want to get the puck out of our zone as quick as possible,” Zigler continued. “So, whatever we need to do to transfer that pick and get it back into that offensive zone that’s what we’re going to do and we’ll do anything necessary to clear that space. And get in there.”

Park went 13-12-2 overall last season, finishing seventh in the Suburban East Conference with a 6-9-1 record. It was a bit of a roller-coaster ride for the Wolfpack. In December the team lost four straight, followed by six straight wins. Park split the series with East Ridge but dropped two to Woodbury in rivalry games.

In Class 2Am Section 3 play, Park blanked Lakeville North 6-0 in the quarterfinals before being edged by Rosemount 3-2 in the section semifinals.

Park must replace a number of key senior stars who dominated the roster last season, including Natalie Post, Madi Brinkman, leading scorer Lauren Osland, Kyra Stofer and Josie Leonard.

“We have some really nice players coming back,” Ziegler said. “What I can say is that we have some strong seniors that are going to be great players for us.”

But several top players are returning, such as senior Addie Corkish (12 goals, 23 assists), juniors Alaina Post (7 goals, 15 assists), Stella Daly (9 goals, 7 assists) and Maleah McMorrow (6 goals, 7 assists), Keira Brennan, Ava Taschner, Nora Thurmes, Lauren Tait, Alyssa Hill and Kendall Schumacher.

Hill has already committed to play hockey at St. Olaf next season. Brennan is looking at different option to play in college as well.

“I then I have a junior class that goes,” Ziegler added. “I have a really strong junior class and I’m very, very fortunate and this junior group is amazing and probably three or four of them will go on to play college hockey as well.”

Defender Alaina Post has committed to the always strong River Falls program.

Junior Alayna Adamez played the majority of minutes in goal with 624 saves against 691 shots for a .903 success rate. Gabi Stepka also returns in goal.

“We feel very fortunate that we have a little depth in some positions, and we feel that like yea, maybe we can try and do some things this year,” Ziegler concluded.

Park opens the 2024-25 season Saturday with a varsity game at Forest Lake, starting at 2 p.m. The first home game for the Wolfpack is Saturday, Nov. 15, against Mounds View with a 4 p.m. start at Cottage Grove Ice Arena.