Hockey provides window between different worlds

Vy Nguyen has been skating on Minnesota's outdoor rinks since she was 5 years old, which gives her something in common with thousands of her peers across the state. But how she arrived on the ice -- and what it's taken to master the state sport of hockey -- separate the Northfield senior's rink-rat tale from the rest.

Nguyen is the daughter of Vietnamese parents. She was born in the Philippines, then came to Northfield when she was 1 month old. Bloodlines dictate Nguyen should be a soccer player -- her father, Chi, played, and her grandfather and two uncles played internationally -- but ever since she was young, she was drawn to the ice.

On a whim, Nguyen decided to try hockey as a seventh-grader. She was a good skater -- as long as she was going forward and had something to crash into -- but she was not a hockey player.

"My first year, I couldn't stop," she said. "I couldn't stickhandle."

Five years later, coach Brent Bielenberg calls her "one of the top three skaters we've ever had in our program."

She's the second-leading scorer in Northfield history behind linemate Maren Dvorak and is closing in on 100 career points. It is a near-certainty that Nguyen will also go on to play Division III hockey in college next year.

Hard work pays off

How did she reach this level? The answers are sitting across from Nguyen on a Sunday afternoon at Quang, a Vietnamese restaurant in a section of Minneapolis on Nicollet Avenue between Lake and Franklin that houses many Asian restaurants and grocery stores. Vy, her mother, Ngoc, and Chi are watching a reporter fumble around with chopsticks and a spoon. This is hard work? No, this is hard work:

Chi works for Holden Farms in Northfield; Ngoc works two full-time jobs -- from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. in food service at St. Olaf College, then from 3 to 11 p.m. at Treasure Island Casino, often on the same day.

The daughter listens while her mother describes her weeks, which Vy didn't realize added up to 80 hours.

"Wow, I didn't really know that," said Vy, who also has a part-time job at a pizza place in Northfield. "I guess that's where my hard work comes from."

Indeed. Anybody who has laced up a pair of hockey skates knows there is no success without effort. While her teammates and opponents in most cases started playing years before she did, she has caught up with a combination of raw athletic ability and determination.

"She was a little, little kid," Bielenberg said, recalling Nguyen as a seventh-grader. "You could tell she was athletic, but hockey is a sport that takes time. It's not going to happen overnight."

It has been a steady progression, from six points as an eighth-grader, to 20 as a freshman, to 24 as a sophomore, to 31 as a junior and now 13 through seven games this season. Those years have also featured a steady growth in victories -- led by Nguyen, the team's only senior.

Mingling of cultures

Nguyen is, in a way, like a two-way mirror that allows teammates a glimpse into her Vietnamese culture and her family a look into the Minnesota hockey culture. Her parents attend as many games as possible; her teammates, in turn, look forward to the yearly dinner at the Nguyen household featuring egg rolls, fried rice and chicken wings.

"They always ask for that," Ngoc says with a smile.

Nguyen is the link, and she is conscious of both her present and her past. She knows the story of how her family, with the assistance of an aunt, a local church and the Orderly Departure Program, which helped more than a half-million Vietnamese people legally relocate to the United States, came to Northfield. Her parents request that she speak Vietnamese at home, and she honors them.

"My culture is extremely important to me," Nguyen said. "I want to have a connection to it for my entire life."

That connection will strengthen when the family, including her older brother Jiang, takes a six-week trip to Vietnam this summer. It will be the first time in a dozen years that Vy has been there, and it is where she will celebrate her 18th birthday.

After that, she is "99.9 percent sure" she will go to Wisconsin-Stevens Point for school and hockey.

"I probably only have four years left to play," she said. "I might as well take advantage of it."

Spoken like a true hockey player.