Writer, journalist, blogger, author, social media: It's been a great decade

When I worked as a daily news reporter a few years ago, the time in between Christmas and New Year's was always tricky for getting work done. We still had an empty paper to fill six days a week, but it was often a slow time for news. Plus, any ideas that might come up didn't always result in a story because it was a question of being able to reach sources - everyone burns vacation time at the end of the year, you know.

So, we often put together year-end pieces, recapping things that happened on our beats throughout the past 12 months. I always enjoyed these stories when they pop up on the TV news. You forget about some of the things that were such big stories, and it's fun to reminisce.

As we approach the end of another year, I've seen plenty of stuff already circling the social media world about "best ____ of the decade." Whether it's the best local sports moment, best song or the best athlete, just to name a couple. Naturally, as I often do as a writer, this is made me reflect on all that I've done and accomplished over the past decade.

Just getting started 
First of all, the decade basically encompasses my entire career so far. At the end of 2009, I wrapped up an internship at a magazine group. It was a great experience, but the economic times didn't allow me to become a full-time hire, so I decided to test the waters elsewhere. That started with a part-time job as a sports copy aide with the Star Tribune. I still remember walking the halls of the now-torn-down building on a tour during my first night.

My first byline came in October 2010, covering the high school girls' state tennis tournament. It's kind of fitting since that, as I always tell people, was the one sport I played in high school. What was cool about that story as I talked to the singles champion was the little tidbit she gave me. After victories, she loves to eat frosting from a can. Hey, whatever works.

I plugged away and finally found my first full-time reporting job with the Post-Bulletin, working out of the Austin, Minn. office for the Austin Post-Bulletin. First jobs can be filled with nerves, and this was no exception. It was a news reporting job, but I had a desire for sports. I was going to chalk this up to earning some great experience and learning a bunch of new stuff.

First stop: Austin, Minn. 
When you're a young journalist trying to break into the business, you hear about going to a small-town newspaper (or TV station, for the broadcast folks) to get your feet wet and learn as much as you can. That's certainly what I tried to do. In our two-reporter newsroom, I had the education and city beats, plus listening to the scanner for breaking news opportunities and covering any other community events or feature stories.

In a unique scenario, our office was very small with all the editors, designers, etc. over in Rochester. I was extremely lucky to have a very experienced reporter by my side in Kay Fate. After all the struggles and rejections of trying to land a full-time job for two-plus years after graduation, it all made sense to me when I landed in Austin; Kay and I were meant to find each other as colleagues and friends. I'm so grateful to her for being patient with me, helping me along the way and making me laugh every day.

I covered city council and school board meetings and work sessions. Kay told me I'd be the most informed person in the city, and she was right. I got to see how the local entities worked, then find a way to break down the important information for the readers in my stories. The city council was particularly interesting because of the divided opinions. Getting a 4-3 vote on an issue after lengthy debates on the seven-member council was not uncommon.

Along with the annual budget discussions came other issues like opening a dog park in the city and then declaring dogs "dangerous dogs" after incidents at the park. I also covered the HRA, even catching it in an open-meeting law violation dealing with the future of the organization's executive director.

Elections were another fun thing to cover, with a very diverse pool of mayoral candidates. But I really enjoyed the education beat. Along with the school board elections, the district looked into building a new intermediate school because of the growth in the area led to overcrowding in the schools. As the board looked to pass a referendum to build the school, I reported on a bunch of features relating to the specifics of the overcrowding, like kids holding class in a section of a media center. The referendum passed and I followed up with more coverage as construction for the school got underway.

Among other stories, the Minnesota Wild Road Tour stopped in Austin, I covered events and activities at the local library and had the chance to cover breaking news. My very first fire call I went on will not be topped. I was alone in the office after an evening meeting, and I heard a call on the scanner for a garage fire. I grabbed the newsroom camera and headed to the destination. When I got there, I snapped a bunch of photos of the garage fully engulfed in flames.

I didn't realize at the time how abnormal this was. Most of the fire calls we hear aren't serious, are false alarms or don't amount to much visual damage, maybe a little smoke here or there. I'm still the proudest of this photo that landed on the front page the next day.

At the end of the 2012 calendar year, the Austin Post-Bulletin shut its doors. It was a sad time, but I found some part-time work down the interstate as a sports stringer for the Albert Lea Tribune. Getting some prep sports action again was a lot of fun. With a talented high school wrestling team, I learned about a new sport, too.

From SE to NW Minnesota
From there, I moved to Fergus Falls (a sister paper with Albert Lea) to take another news reporting job. I once again had the city beat and added crime/public safety to my resume. Covering the cops/courts was another great learning experience on how to objectively and safely report on crime. It's not as easy as one might think.

Fergus Falls had a similar feel to me as Austin - a small town just big enough to feel like a small suburb. In a county filled with lakes, Fergus Falls was also home to the Regional Treatment Center. Like the Austin school district growth, the RTC took up a lot of my coverage space in Fergus Falls. The old building on the list of historic places in the state of Minnesota was still standing and was once used as a mental hospital. There was an ongoing debate among the community as to whether it should be torn down or repurposed.

A couple of developers presented their plans to the city council but nothing panned out. There were even some closed-door meetings among council members regarding the RTC, which again seemed to speak toward violations of the state's open meeting law. In the everyday grind of covering stories to fill the paper six days a week, I was glad for the opportunity to take some time reporting on such a major story like this one.

The city's library needed more space, so I also followed that process of getting things approved to start construction on a new facility addition.

Back home for a fresh start
When I came back to the metro area a few years ago, I tell people I just kind of fell into freelancing. I wanted to meet with a lot of different people in the journalism and communications business to see what my next step might look like. But I still had the itch to get back into sports.

It all started with covering one football game. That started my relationship with the Star Tribune once again. I got connected on the preps beat and helped out the full-time writers with the extra coverage they needed during section and state tournament time for sports like football, volleyball, tennis, swimming, hockey, adapted floor hockey and soccer, and basketball. Thanks to David La Vaque for making this happen and for Paul Klauda for keeping me in the fold.

Over the past few years, I've had the chance to tell some great feature stories about prep athletes, starting with a weekly feature piece in the Star Tribune. I've also continued to cover playoff action on the preps beat, plus I spent some time covering Gophers men's hockey games and Gophers women's basketball. This coverage spilled over into working for SportsEngine to cover regular-season games during the winter season for preps.

Also in 2015, I connected with Gregg Litman, a former journalist who works for StoryTeller Media + Communications, during my quest to talk with folks in the communications industry. That meeting led to some freelance work, writing blog posts for Hazeltine National Golf Club.

Target Field has been a blessing in more ways than one 
After a winter season getting my feet wet with some freelancing, I found myself applying for a social media job with Major League Baseball, working with the Minnesota Twins, that I heard about after one of my networking meetings at the Twins offices. By the end of May, when my parents and I had taken a quick trip to Indianapolis to watch Carb Day ahead of the Indy 500, I found out I got the job: In-game social media coordinator with MLB/@twins.

Working in sports on a daily basis, finding my niche in social media and calling a major-league ballpark my office has been an amazing experience. After five seasons with the Twins, I've said that the team has seemed to go the opposite direction of expectations, which has been good (see 101 wins and the MLB home-run record in 2019) and bad (see 103 losses in 2016).

Along the way, I've developed many more working relationships and friendships with the writers and media members I've met in the press box, especially at Target Field. I don't take these ball games for granted, and I don't take these relationships for granted. I'm also thankful because more opportunities have come my way because of some of these great people.

That freelance hustle, though 
While my baseball work is basically in-season, I still hustled on the freelance side of things in the baseball offseason, building up more freelance clips, hours and outlets. I covered a couple seasons of Gophers men's basketball (shout-out to Derek Wetmore at 1500 ESPN, now SKOR North). I dabbled a bit with USA Hockey stories thanks to a friend-of-a-friend connection.

I also became a children's author through the friends I met at Target Field. We were sitting at dinner before the game one night in 2017 when Dan Myers (current digital content coordinator for the Minnesota Wild) was talking to Pat Donnelly about his next book; Donnelly is an editor at Red Line Editorial who assigns the books. The next series coming up was Women in Sports. I believe it was Dan who essentially suggested to Pat, "why not Heather?" as someone to join the author ranks.

My first two books in 2017 were Women in Sports Media and Women in the Olympics. As of early 2020, I'll have seven published titles. They go out to school libraries; I know for certain they're at Crooked Lake Elementary School. ;-)

In 2016, I had the chance to cover the WNBA Finals in Minneapolis for USA Today. I've also covered NCAA regional volleyball at the University of Minnesota a few times. Thanks to Pat Borzi and Rachel Blount, plus the Star Tribune sports department, for thinking of me.

I also got to know Michael Russo, formerly the Wild beat writer for the Star Tribune and currently The Athletic. When the new site got going in 2017, he approached me to write some stories for The Athletic as a freelancer. I've written college hockey season previews, wrote some features on Krissy Wendall and Rob McClanahan, and covered the Minnesota Whitecaps in their first season in the National Women's Hockey League. The freedom to tell stories without the hindrance of tight deadlines and word counts is a blessing.

How else did networking lead to other work for me? I've stayed in touch with an editor I worked with briefly at the Red Wing paper. As he moved on to other places, he called upon me for freelance work. I wrote prep features, previews and some other feature stories on tennis players and a hockey player named JT Compher for the Chicago Tribune/Pioneer Press (suburban editions). Everything was done over phone interviews and internet research.

One interview for a basic boys' swimming preview led to one of the most in-depth stories I've had the chance to tell: "Glenbrook North swimmer learns to walk again after beach accident." Thanks to Ryan Nilsson for encouraging me to dig deeper and for providing consistent freelance assignments. When Ryan moved on to a paper in Indiana, the Times of Northwest Indiana, he tasked me with writing weekly notebooks on local athletes as they continued to excel in collegiate athletics.

Let's do that hockey 

On the hockey side, I started writing for Minnesota Hockey Magazine a little bit in 2015, even writing a profile story on goaltender Maddie Rooney when she played with the Andover boys' team before she became famous for her shootout save to win the gold medal in the 2018 Olympics. I also covered some state tournaments. My editor, Brian Halverson, has always been a great guy to work with in coordinating feature coverage.

Starting with the 2018-19 season, I became the main Minnesota Wild beat writer for Minnesota Hockey Magazine. I don't cover every game or write "gamers," necessarily. But it's been a great opportunity for me to explore having a beat with a professional sports team as a sports writer. I've enjoyed taking it all in and writing some fun feature stories on the team and its players.

My other hockey writing started with a now-defunct site called WildXtra.com. It was a chance to get writing about sports again and even write some columns about the Wild. When that site folded, I joined the ZoneCoverage.com (then Cold Omaha) team as a Wild writer in early 2017.

It was another press-box connection that helped me get to know one of the site's founders, Tom Schreier. I produced weekly Wild content with stats, columns and game stories. Throughout the 2017-18 Wild season, I produced game preview and recap stories for nearly every Wild game. I've also filled in some with Gophers basketball coverage, written stories about the Indy 500 and covered the state hockey tournaments for Zone Coverage.

In 2018, I started contributing to the Breakdown Sports preview magazines put out by Tim Kolehmainen and his team. I've written about baseball, softball, volleyball and hockey, focusing on big-picture feature stories previewing some of the top programs in the state in their respective sports.

Wrapping up the decade 
This past year was filled with one of the best baseball seasons in Twins history. The Bomba Squad won the AL Central Division and set the MLB home-run record. I covered the same smattering of tournaments on the prep side, covered my first full season on the Wild beat and watched the Whitecaps make history by winning the Isobel Cup.

Thanks to my parents, friends and colleagues who've been with me along the way throughout my work journey the past decade. It's been fun to explore so many different types of work as I try to establish my career. I didn't mean to leave anybody out by name, but if I did, you know who you are and I hope you know what you mean to me.

Cheers to 2020 and the next decade of work, friends!

Best of my freelance life in 2019

I thought I'd put together a list of a few of my memorable stories from the past year. It was another eventual trip around the sun covering the Minnesota Wild, prep tournaments and the Minnesota Whitecaps. Throw in a couple of extra assignments, plus another book or two, and it was another fun year of freelance sports writing to go along with a successful Minnesota Twins season.

Here are some of my favorites, presented in chronological order. The stories are linked in the headlines, and I wrote a brief summary about each below.

Husky Highs: Andover managed expectations ahead of Hockey Day Minnesota debut - Minnesota Hockey Magazine, February 2019 

Last year's Hockey Day Minnesota may have been one of the coldest days around, but it's still always a fun experience for the prep hockey teams that get to be a part of it. This time, it was two of the top boys' teams with Andover against Minnetonka. I talked with Andover defenseman Wyatt Kaiser and his grandpa, Blaine Comstock, who played for Bemidji State.

Breck's Ally Qualley comes up big again in Section 5 championship - Star Tribune, Feb. 15, 2019 

Breck has a solid girls' hockey program, which is evident by its back-to-back Class 1A championships. But there's something about the pressure and the spotlight that attracts forward Ally Qualley and brings her game to another level. The year before, she won the section title with a goal in overtime against Orono. This year, the end result wasn't in doubt. Qualley scored a pure hat trick in the first period on the way to a Breck 7-0 shutout.

In another twist, the co-head coaches of Breck, Steve Persian and Keith Radloff, coached Orono in 2018. It was much better to have Qualley on their side this time.

Hero's Welcome: OT winner caps off Donato's dynamite home debut - Minnesota Hockey Magazine, Feb. 24, 2019

Last season for the Minnesota Wild was marked by trades from then-GM Paul Fenton as he dealt parts of the "young core" away (Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, Mikael Granlund) for players like Victor Rask, Kevin Fiala and Ryan Donato. It was a Boston-for-Boston trade when Coyle, a Boston native, was dealt back home in exchange for the youngster Donato. How was Donato going to do with the Wild? Well, he came in with a bang.

Donato's first home game with the Wild came in late February against the St. Louis Blues, the eventual Stanley Cup Champions. Donato got the nod during overtime in a 1-1 game and scored the game-winner. It earned him the Hero of the Game honors bestowed on him by his new teammates.

Totino-Grace alum Matt Olson recalls high school memories - Star Tribune/Hockey Hub, March 2, 2019 

Boys' high school hockey section finals are what makes Minnesota the "state of hockey," in my book. The venues are packed, competition is fierce and a trip to the coveted state tournament is on the line. I've covered a few at the Roseville arena the past few years, including the Class 1A, Section 4 championship. Last year, it was between Mahtomedi and Totino-Grace, with Mahtomedi once again returning to state.

As I was set up with my laptop, I noticed a young man near me taking in the game. He looked familiar, though we had never met: It was Matt Olson, a former Totino-Grace hockey star who played with the team in 2014. He was there to support his high-school team, watching from his wheelchair; he suffered a severe injury to his neck and spinal cord after he fell headfirst into the boards during a junior-league game three years earlier in Chicago.

I enjoyed meeting Matt and talking with him about hockey, his memories playing for Totino-Grace and what he's been up to in the time since his injury.

'We made it': The Whitecaps' rise to the model of success for the NWHL - The Athletic, March 5, 2019 

Winny Brodt Brown and Brooke White-Lancette are still playing professional hockey. Not only that, but I'm amazed to hear their stories about how much adversity they had to overcome as female hockey players growing up, when girls really didn't play hockey. For Brooke, it's obvious how much the sport means to her. Finally getting to play in a professional hockey league was a big deal, as it should be.

Winny and Brooke are the two original Whitecaps from 2004, when Winny's dad Jack and Dwayne Schmidgall started the team as a way for their post-college daughters to continue to play hockey. It really came full circle to see all the success and fan support the Whitecaps had in 2018-19 during their first NWHL season.

'On a cloud': Isobel Cup win is a dream years in the making for Whitecaps - The Athletic, March 18, 2019 

It was pretty fun to follow the first season of professional women's hockey in Minnesota. Sure, the Whitecaps had been around for years, but 2018-19 was the first season they joined the National Women's Hockey League, becoming the fifth team and the first outside of the east coast. This story was actually a bit challenging for me to piece together, simply because of how storybook it was. I wanted to make sure I did the moment justice.

Lee Stecklein scored the overtime winner for the Whitecaps to give them the NWHL championship - the Isobel Cup - in their first NWHL season. It was quite the scene to take in during the celebration and trophy presentation out on the ice. And the sold-out crowds at TRIA rink loved it, too.

SCSU falls to UMD in double OT, finishes as NCHC Frozen Faceoff runner-up - St. Cloud Times, March 24, 2019

Take opportunities when they come to you. I wore my freelance hat to cover the NCHC Frozen Faceoff final between defending national champion University of Minnesota-Duluth and St. Cloud State. With a double-overtime ending at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, this one was fun to watch and cover between two very talented teams.

Energized Mounds View freshman wins 2A singles title with sisterly inspiration - Star Tribune, June 8, 2019

Covering state tennis is one of the tournaments I enjoy quite a bit, especially in spring because it's really the only preps coverage I can do in between the MLB season. This time around, freshman Bjorn Swenson won the Class 2A singles title. He won in straight sets, but the other part of the story was that there was a missing face from his cheering section. His sister Marit died in August 2017 from an aggressive pediatric brain tumor. She and Bjorn grew up playing tennis together.

I talked with their mother, Jennifer, as well, who was very willing to talk about her daughter and the tennis connection she shared with Bjorn.

Rocky Mountain Rival: Walz, Stalock reflect on Avs rivalry from diverse perspectives - Minnesota Hockey Magazine, Nov. 21, 2019 

The Minnesota Wild got off to a rough start for the 2019-20 season. They lost their first four games, including the home opener. Top players couldn't get on the scoresheet. So, I decided to get creative with some of my feature-story ideas on the beat.

With the Wild set to face the Colorado Avalanche, it got me thinking about the long history between these two teams. Colorado is the only team that's been in Minnesota's division since the Wild joined the NHL as an expansion team in 2000. And with a few playoff series along the way, there's always been a rivalry there.

Specifically, I was thinking of the 2003 playoff run, when the Wild won their first playoff series in Colorado in Game 7 with that pretty goal from Andrew Brunette. I talked to current Wild goaltender and St. Paul native Alex Stalock about it. I also interviewed former Wild player and current FSNorth Wild analyst Wes Walz, asking him about the Colorado rivalry and NHL rivalries in general. It was a very interesting conversation.

Court Storm: Gophers Upset No. 3 Ohio State - Zone Coverage, Dec. 15, 2019

I've been off the Gophers men's basketball beat for a couple of seasons now. But when my friend Sam Ekstrom asked if I would fill-in for him while he covered a road Vikings game, I agreed. I, like I'm sure many people out there, prepared for a blowout game. The Gophers were hosting Ohio State, ranked No. 3 in the country. And the Gophers were coming off a pretty bad loss in Iowa.

Instead, the evening ended with a court storming. The Gophers took control of the game with a lead in the first half. They kept their foot on the gas in the second half and never let Ohio State get close, even though I kept waiting for a second-half surge from a team that had a No. 3 next to its name. The Gophers got a stunning performance from Marcus Carr, who put up a career-high 35 points. His moves to the basket and the shots he took were simply dazzling.

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Thanks, as always, to anyone who's read my content or interacted with me on social media (@hlrule on Twitter and Instagram). See you in 2020!