Nichols-Sele made the most of her opportunity

HIBBING—When girls hockey was in its infancy, the Hibbing High School girls hockey team was formed in 1996.

If any girls wanted to play the sport, joining the Bluejackets was the only option.

One player, Andrea Nichols-Sele, who was from Mountain Iron, took a leap of faith, enrolling in the Hibbing School District and becoming a Bluejacket.

As it turned out, that was the right decision for Nichols-Sele, who played five seasons for Hibbing, accumulating 273 goals and 186 assists for 459 points.

Nichols-Sele helped Hibbing get to three state tournaments, including runner-up finishes in 2002 and 2003.

For those reasons, Nichols-Sele was inducted into the Hibbing High School Hall of Fame in a ceremony held Saturday at the Hibbing Memorial Arena.

Nichols-Sele is the all-time points leader in the State of Minnesota, just eight points ahead of Kamryn Van Batavia of Luverne, who has 451 points.

Nichols-Sele was taken aback by that when she was approached by current Hibbing/Chisholm coach Pete Hyduke just before the ceremony and told of her accomplishment.

“When he said that I was like, ‘What about (Natalie) Darwitz, (Krissy) Wendell and all of those Olympians? Are you sure?’” Nichols-Sele said. “He looked it up. I can’t believe that. That’s amazing.”

Not as amazing as one might think.

Nichols-Sele was destined to play hockey, starting her skating career when she was four-years-old.

“My older brother (Ted) played hockey, so once I turned five, that’s the youngest you could start,” Nichols-Sele said. “I signed up and got on the ice and the rest is history. My older brother was a big inspiration for me to get out there.

“Like a lot of younger siblings, you do what your older siblings are doing. My younger brothers followed suit.”

As soon as Nichols-Sele hit the ice, it was a match made in heaven.

“I loved it from the minute I stepped on the ice,” Nichols-Sele said. “I took to it right away. I couldn’t wait to get back on the ice. I couldn’t wait to get back to the rink.”

Nichols-Sele played hockey against the boys through Pee Wees.

It was during her eighth-grade year when she transferred to Hibbing and played with the girls for the first time.

That’s when she met Amber Fryklund.

“In 1997, the Girl Scouts sponsored this Intro to Hockey for girls to try to drum up interest in the area,” Nichols-Sele said. “I went to that. It was a wide range of girls, all the way down to beginners.

“Some of them could barely stand on their skates up to some of us that were pretty talented. That’s when Amber Fryklund spotted me. She came over and talked to me. At the end of it all, she was like, ‘You should come and play in Hibbing.’

“I thought she was joking. She might have been joking, kind of, but we joke about that to this day.”

Fryklund, who is now the Bemidji State University women’s coach, was one of the top players in Minnesota at the time, but unfortunately for Nichols-Sele, didn’t get to see her play that much.

“We didn’t get over to watch because I had my brother,” Nichols-Sele said. “I didn’t get to see a whole lot of her games. When I did, it was the last few years of her high-school career and it was like, ‘Wow. That’s amazing.’”

When Nichols-Sele finally arrived in Hibbing, she missed playing with Fryklund by one year.

“That’s another thing we talk about,” Nichols-Sele said. “Had I only come over my seventh-grade year vs. my eighth-grade year, we would have played together had I made the team.”

Coming to Hibbing was the only decision Nichols-Sele could have made.

There was no sanctioned girls team in the Virgini and Evelethy area at the time.

“I don’t know exactly how that timeline went,” Nichols-Sele said. “They started getting programs kind of organized, but they didn’t have a sanctioned high school team until 2009. At that point, I was all in. I didn’t know how all of that was going to work out. The cards all seemed to fall into place with my family being over here, my mom working here and being from Hibbing.

“It seemed like a no-brainer. I know some people will say, ‘How are you going to build a program if you don’t help build a program?’ At the time, for my family and our situation, that worked out for the best.”

The summer before her eighth-grade year, Nichols-Sele attended the Hibbing High School Girls Hockey camp.

That’s when she finally met the rest of her team.

“It was so cool,” Nichols-Sele said. “I met people who loved hockey as much as I did as girls. I had never experienced that before with the boys. This was great. They were well established. They won a championship. They were booming.

“It was like, ‘Whoa, I can be a part of that? That’s awesome.’”

Nichols-Sele went on to make the Bluejacket varsity team in the eighth-grade, and she led the team in scoring with 60 points.

She was well on her way to becoming the state’s leading scorer.

“Growing up, I never put a lot of thought into what I could achieve, or what was even a possibility,” Nichols-Sele said. “I just loved playing hockey. When I came over and started playing with Hibbing and all of these great players, we started winning and putting points on the board, I was like, ‘This is pretty neat.’

“That made me realize that, ‘Wow, I could go places playing for this team.’ Our program at the time, and my five years playing, a bunch of them played college hockey after their careers were over. A handful went DI, but a lot went DIII, too. Being on those teams was so much fun but at the same time, I wasn’t doing it myself. I was with talented players.”

During her senior season, Nichols-Sele was named the Associated Press Player of the Year, and she became the first out-state winner of the Let’s Play Hockey Ms. Minnesota Hockey Award.

The Bluejackets had just lost in the State Class A Championship game, so it was a bittersweet moment.

“I remember Pete coming over and putting his arm around me and congratulating me,” Nichols-Sele said. “I was like, ‘I would trade this Ms. Hockey award for a state championship.’

“I remember him saying to me, ‘That shows a lot of character, but you may not realize what you just accomplished as an individual.’ When I look back at it now, it’s a huge honor. I appreciate it more now in my adult life than I did back then.”

After high school Nichols-Sele got a scholarship to play for the University of Minnesota where she would win two National titles, but the only regret Nichols-Sele has is not winning a State Class A title.

“I didn’t get that state tournament championship,” Nichols-Sele said. “National championships are great, but it’s a little different when you win a championship for your community vs. kind of a “Dream Team.”

“It’s hard to compare them, but it was a phenomenal experience to win them back-to-back.”

As for her hall of fame induction, Nichols-Sele found out about it from Fryklund.

“I got a phone call from Amber, and she was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got some news for you,’” Nichols-Sele said. “I was like, ‘Oh, what’s going on?’ She had just been named the new coach at Bemidji State University, so I was thinking she was going to ask me to come and do something for her program.

“We always joked about, ‘Hey, maybe someday we can coach together in college.’ She was like, ‘You’re getting inducted into the Hall of Fame.’ I was like, ‘No way. This is so cool.’ She nominated me, and she’s been a big part of why I did what I did. We’re good friends until this day. We both got emotional about it on the phone. It was a neat phone call.”

Nichols-Sele also got emotional on stage as she accepted the award.

“My parents were both tearing up and every time I looked over at that table with my family, I got choked up a little bit,” Nichols-Sele said. “It was hard to get through some of my speech.

“I couldn’t have done this without the support from my family and my friends. I also have to thank Kris and Cheryl Walters and the Fairchild family for getting me to school every day.”