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Small-Town Girl, Big Time Legacy

By Minnesota Hockey, 01/21/14, 10:15AM CST

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Some people are born to be hockey players. Rarely does that statement fit better than when talking about Warroad native, Gigi Marvin.

Marvin and Warroad – one is household name in Minnesota. The other is a town with a global reputation. While that is partly due to Marvin Windows, the international window and door company, most of the prestige comes from a storied hockey family and town that few others can rival. 

Cal Marvin, Gigi’s grandfather, played a crucial role in forming the University of North Dakota Men’s Hockey program. He built Warroad’s youth hockey program, was a leader in developing their arena, and coached the U.S. men’s national team in the 1950’s. Gigi’s father, Mike Marvin, played college hockey at Brown University and coached at the youth levels.  Aaron Marvin, her brother, was recruited to play at St. Cloud State, and her cousins, Lisa and Layla, are both playing for North Dakota.

As a town, Warroad has produced seven Olympians, including 2014 Olympians Marvin and TJ Oshie, which have combined for a total of three silver medals and three gold medals. Warroad is also home to one of Minnesota’s all time point leaders in the NHL (Dave Christian), six total state high school hockey championships (four boys’ and two girls’) and a historic rivalry with nearby Roseau.  When you consider all of this comes from a town that has never been home to more than 1,800 people, it is easy to see why locals refer to it as ‘Hockey Town USA’.

Gigi has done much more than simply live up to her family’s name or her town’s history. In fact, she made history of her own by becoming the first female Olympian from Warroad when she helped the U.S. earn a silver medal at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.  Her additions to the Marvin/Warroad legacy started much earlier though.

For the Love of the Game

In high school, Marvin was a three time All-State honoree and won the 2005 Ms. Hockey award as a senior. Perhaps, more importantly, Marvin was an instrumental leader over her four years, helping build a girls’ varsity program that had started in 1999 to an 18-5-1 record in her senior season. Just one year later, Warroad skated to its first MSHSL Girls’ State Tournament where they took second place.

Marvin hasn’t stopped being a leader since, playing pivotal roles for the Gophers in college and now on back-to-back U.S. Women’s Olympic teams.

 “I love being able to be able to give back and share what I’ve learned because I didn’t get to where I am today simply by myself,” said Marvin, when asked what she likes most about being in a leadership role. “One, God blessed me, and then, put other people in my life to encourage me along the way.”

Many of those critical lessons and people came from the community she loves and spent most of her life in.

“Growing up, my dad taught me to be a student of the game,” said Marvin. “It’s simple as, if you love the game, practice. I mean practice truly makes perfect. I spent thousands and thousands and thousands of hours skating.”

Like many generations before and after, Marvin took advantage of Warroad’s hockey culture, where free ice time and unstructured games of ‘shinny’ allow players of all ages to hone their skills for hours on end.

“There were so many nights where the [indoor] ice would be too full or the zamboni guy wouldn’t come out and shave the ice for us so we would go outside and skate outdoors,” said Marvin. “If you’re feet got cold, you just came inside, took your skates off and warmed them up in the hand dryer.”

“We would keep skating until, finally, our parents would bring dinner to the rink because they knew they weren’t going to get us off. That’s where I learned all the moves. I learned how to compete. I learned how to battle.”

Summer Training Secrets

Warroad, maybe to the surprise of many, has never been the type of town to keep ice in year round. When the temperatures rise in the spring, kids are encouraged to get out of the rink and take up other activities.

"The second the ice went out I was all about softball,” said Marvin. “In the summer, I was all about water skiing, tennis, golf. Come fall, it was right back into the fall sports and then, hockey. ”

While at the time the focus of those other activities was primarily on having fun, the benefits of those other sports would start to appear on the ice.  One of the most noticeable outcomes was the continued development of Marvin’s passion for competition.

“I didn’t care if it was a vocab. quiz or if it was a history test, I wanted to be the best and I wanted to compete on every single one,” said Marvin. “[Eventually] I learned I became better on the ice by being a better softball player, by going and doing waterskiing and playing tennis and playing ping pong and playing every single game because you learn so much.”

Not much has changed either. Marvin is still a diehard competitor in all areas of her life, using her inner desire to be the best and a training program with plenty of variety to drive her development.

“Honestly, that’s how we train,” said Marvin. “We train by using multiple sports in order to get better at the number one sport we are in, because hockey is obviously my main priority.”

“Hockey players, we all know you always do lunges, you do your single leg squats – all the lower body power. You watch a tennis match, their quickness is unbelievable, and it’s all because their feet and the strength in their quads and their hip flexors. Those are all the same muscles that we use.”

Ironically, one of the best parts of offseason workouts that utilize other sports, beyond the benefits for development, relates directly back to why she was a three-sport athlete in Warroad – FUN!

“It’s an enjoyable training,” said Marvin. “You’re not sitting in the weight room. You’re actually outside having fun, hitting a ball.”

A Golden Legacy

This February Marvin will travel to Sochi in pursuit of her ultimate goal – an Olympic gold medal.

“The Olympics, there’s nothing like it,” said Marvin, referencing the unique off-ice and mental challenges the Olympics bring. “You can’t really train for it. We’re doing the best we can in a sense of minimizing every single distraction because with the Olympics, I mean 4.6 billion people are watching so there’s a lot of potential distractions.”

After losing three-time Olympian and Eagan native Natalie Darwitz as well Edina graduate Jenny Schmidgall-Potter who competed in four Olympics including the gold medal effort in Nagano in 1998, Marvin is now one of the more experienced players on the team and the only returning Minnesotan so her leadership skills will be counted on.

“In 2010, I was the younger kid, and it was great to look up at them and see that they put the effort in every single day,” said Marvin. “So that’s something that I get to do with these younger kids is simply share what we’ve experienced.”

If her previous efforts are any indication, she is certainly up to the challenge. No matter what the outcome is in Sochi though, one thing is for sure: Marvin continues to make her hometown and home state proud as she builds upon an already impressive legacy.

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