Bruce Plante stood on the bench, arms folded and his baseball hat tilted back, as he watched yet another state championship celebration by the opposing team.
The crusty Hermantown coach knows the drill too well. The final horn sounds, the opponent celebrates, Plante's players take a knee in dazed silence. It's become an annual tradition at the boys state hockey tournament.
In the past, that scene usually was followed by a testy rebuttal by Plante in his postgame press conference. A long-standing critic of private school hockey, Plante never left anyone wondering where he stood on the issue after his team lost four consecutive state championship games to private schools. He's a master at presenting his anger in a comical manner.
Plante chose a different tact and tone after his program added a second-place finish for the thumb on Saturday. Plante tipped his hat and admitted that his team lost to a better team, a public school team, a highly skilled East Grand Forks squad that overwhelmed Hermantown in a 7-3 victory to claim its first Class 1A state title.
Nothing controversial about a fifth consecutive runner-up trophy.
"It feels a lot better losing to East Grand than anybody that we've lost to, I'll tell you that," Plante said, offering another jab at private schools. "They're the same kind of simple program like we are. But it's still second place."
Plante has managed to find twisted humor in being a perpetual bridesmaid — never mind that he actually won the 2007 state championship at Hermantown in an undefeated season. He's a salty character who makes state high school league officials nervous because he speaks his mind rather than peddle political correctness.
Plante occasionally uses colorful language in interviews and refused to back off his private school vs. public school crusade. His face was still red as a stop sign long after his team lost to St. Thomas Academy for a third consecutive season on a goal in the final seconds last year.
