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U of M co-captain Andrea Nichols. Image courtesy of Gopher Athletics.

Andrea Nichols is easy to spot during warm-ups on the ice at Ridder Arena: She’s the one with the leggings bunching up around her short legs. She’s the one joshing with head coach Laura Halldorson, bumping teammates, stealing the puck, and flipping it into the air. But when practice starts, she’s all business. A teammate falls, and Nichols sidesteps her to get to the puck. Another loses her stick as Nichols grapples for the puck.

Nichols grew up in Mountain Iron, on the Iron Range, a rugged region of northern Minnesota renowned for mining, long winters, and hockey. Iron Rangers proudly lay claim to being tough, hardworking, hard-playing people who earn whatever they get in life. And Nichols embodies that ethic. She led the state in scoring for three seasons and became the darling of the Iron Range in 2003 when she was named Ms. Hockey Minnesota, the first non-metro player ever to earn that prestigious honor. Stores in downtown Hibbing hung Nichols’ picture on their walls. No one has been allowed to wear No. 4 since Nichols graduated, and there’s talk of retiring her jersey.

At barely 5-foot-1, Nichols has a tenacity that has prompted some to liken her to a pit bull. Nichols says that growing up on the Iron Range solidified her style of play. “I use my size to my advantage,” says Nichols, a forward. “I’m lower to the ground, so I don’t get knocked over as much.”

“She sacrifices her body. She doesn’t let taller players intimidate her,” head coach Laura Halldorson says. Case in point: In her first three seasons, Nichols racked up 53 penalties, ranking eighth in the Gopher record books before starting her senior season this year. “She’s so sturdy on her skates and physically strong, I don’t think her size slows her down. She does a great job of playing bigger than her size,” Halldorson says.

Halldorson calls her senior captain a “diehard in every sense of the word when it comes to Gophers women’s hockey.” That was clear in early November, when Nichols led the Gophers to a two-game sweep of previously undefeated University of Minnesota–Duluth. Nichols scored the only goal of the second game, getting the puck down the left wing in the second period, speeding wide and pressuring UMD’s defense. The puck bounced off the goalie’s glove into the net.

“We didn’t know it was in for a while,” Halldorson says. “Somehow it found its way to the back of the net. That was a huge goal; it gave us a lot of energy and momentum and it got the

Andrea Nichols defends the goal.

crowd going.” That pair of victories meant a lot to a team that graduated five players from its 2006 national runner-up finish.

Like many kids in Minnesota, Nichols skated from a young age. But when she insisted on wearing hockey skates to her figure skating performances at age 5, her parents looked at each other. There weren’t any girls’ youth hockey teams, so they signed her up with the boys. The boys accepted her immediately—and stood up for her on rare occasions when other teams commented on their female player. Nichols’ high school, Hibbing, was the first non-metro team to add girls’ hockey, for the 1995–96 season, and Nichols helped solidify the hold of girls’ hockey on the area. Her team went to the state championship three of her four years.

Nichols chose Minnesota over other programs, including rival UMD, because she felt so comfortable with the team. Moving to Minneapolis, however, required some adjustments. She no longer runs to the window every time she hears a siren and she’s figured out how to avoid rush hour, but she hasn’t lost the hardworking values she learned in Mountain Iron. Indeed, that’s what has led to her success, she says. “Growing up, everybody would go to outdoor rinks all the time,” she says. “There would always be a handful of kids to play pickup. We’d come home from school, grab a snack, and head to the rink. It was hard to get us home sometimes.”

Jake Nichols, Andrea’s father, eventually found a way to lure the kids home. Every winter, he builds a rink in the backyard. The family also has a new tradition—traveling to Gopher games. And Nichols’ younger twin brothers, who idolize their sister, look forward to the Frozen Four almost as much as Nichols herself.

Last year, the Gophers finished the season as national runners-up, losing to Wisconsin in the championship game at Mariucci Arena. Most deemed the season a huge success in what many expected to be a time of rebuilding. But Nichols was devastated. “To get there was a big accomplishment, but not to come out with the goal was the heart-crusher,” Nichols says. “I just hate the end of any season.”

Nichols plans to use her degree in sports studies to stay close to hockey, but she knows that the end of this season, her last at the most competitive level of women’s hockey, will be the hardest. “When I put her in figure skating when she was 4, I never thought she’d end up playing hockey,” says Diane Nichols, Andrea’s mother. “Now, I love it. I hate the thought that she’s going to be done.”

So does coach Halldorson. “It’s going to be a sad day when she hangs up that jersey for the last time.”

Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance writer based in Minneapolis.