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Chasing the perfect season (UPDATED)

By Michael Trzinski - WiPH Staff, 01/19/16, 1:15PM CST

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The odds are dramatically against it

Since St. Croix Valley Fusion coach Matt Cranston handed the girls state championship trophy to his team at the Clamshell (aka Alliant Energy Center) on March 7, 2009, there has not been a team (boys or girls) that has gone undefeated.

Not a single squad—no matter how loaded with talent—navigated through the minefield that is the regular season and playoffs without suffering a blemish on their record.

Wisconsin high school hockey history is mostly lost to the past, but we know of four teams that made it through the season without a negative mark (loss or tie) on the team scorecard.

The first squad to win every game was the 1975-76 Mark Johnson-led Madison Memorial Spartans. They won the state title behind Coach Bill Howard and finished 22-0.

A few years and a new coach later, the 1984-85 Madison Memorial team, with Coach Vic Levine at the helm, won a state championship and completed a perfect season, finishing with a 24-0 mark.

The title was the third for Levine to that point, and his teams would go on to win six championships in 11 tries, an enviable record, indeed.

Getting to state is easy; going undefeated is not.

Comparatively speaking, anyway.

Twenty-three years later, the Eau Claire Memorial Old Abes pulled off the perfecto, going 26-0 in earning their first of two state titles. 

How dominant were coach Mike Schwengler's Abes that season?

They outscored their opponents by a margin of 166-21.

They had 13 shutouts.

Rattle those digits around inside your noggin for a few ticks of the clock. My friends, that is some pretty serious domination.

The Old Abes are the last boys team to not take a loss during the season.

One other team, the 1976-77 Madison Memorial team led by Howard won the state championship and ended the season with a mark of 21-0-1.

Using information provided by the WIAA, since 1985 there have been 2,121 boys 'team seasons,' which was found by adding up the number of teams that played since that year. Two have recorded perfect seasons.

That means, all things being equal, a team has a 0.09% chance of not getting beat in any particular season. (Math majors, feel free to question my procedure or numbers.)

On the girls side, the aforementioned 2009 Fusion team was the last and only girls team to run the table against their foes.

A girls team has it a little easier when it comes to earning that hard-fought perfect season: out of 316 'team seasons,' there was one perfect season, or a 0.3% chance of attaining the Holy Grail of the unbeatens.

So should it come as any surprise that Appleton United, Middleton, and Antigo all took losses in a four-day span last week after winning a combined 43 games against zero losses prior to that?

Not really, no.

Regardless of how talented these teams are, the odds are stacked against them. And as the USM coaches told me yesterday, it doesn't matter if you lose in January, just don't lose in March.

Words of wisdom for those hoping for a state championship.

The last team without a loss—Wausau West—dropped a 4-3 overtime decision to Eau Claire Memorial Monday night.

And now there are none.