Former Gophers hockey captain Kevin Hartzell resigned as an assistant coach of the White Bear Lake girls' hockey team last month after acknowledging that he entered the team's locker room without warning.
Hartzell, a Gophers forward from 1978-82, wrote about the situation in a column in the Dec. 21 edition of Let's Play Hockey magazine. Hartzell wrote that he went into the locker room without knocking first, in pursuit of two players who were 10 minutes late getting on the ice for practice.
He wrote that an e-mail from the father of a Bears' player sent to Hartzell, head coach Jerry Kwapick and activities director Brian Peloquin "said that parents have had enough of me. They said I have been 'unhinged,' my language unacceptable, and the kicker, I had entered the locker room this past week without knocking."
In the column Hartzell acknowledged past use of profanity.
He added, "I was reminded in their e-mail how bad it could have been had these girls not been dressed adequately and that I had crossed the line. They said, I had to go."
Hartzell, a St. Paul native, was an unpaid assistant coach the past two seasons. The Bears were 10-1-1 at the time of his resignation.
He wrote that the critical e-mail, the first he had received, was "one it seems they have been wanting to send for some time."
The two tardy players, Hartzell wrote, had "some leeway" to be late to practice. When he reached the locker room door, Hartzell, who has a daughter, wrote, "I didn't knock.'' He wrote that he "wanted to know what the heck these two were doing making their team wait on them'' and that they ''were adequately dressed and about a minute from being ready to get to the ice.''
