Hockey Players Bowman and Petersen Share Winning Chemistry

The first time she hit the ice, 7-year-old Laura Bowman literally hit the ice.

“The first time I went on the ice I forgot to take my skate guards off,” said Bowman. “So I fell on my face. I improved.”

Indeed she did. Bowman and junior line mate Amy Peterson have led the defending state champion Skippers to 16 wins in 21 games, against a schedule which has featured 11 ranked teams so far and more to come.

Bowman and Petersen were part of a power-packed Minnetonka team that skated to a 29-1-1 record and a Minnesota state championship last winter. This year, with several key pieces off last year’s team having graduated, Bowman and Petersen are again doing their thing for the Skippers.

Through 21 games, Bowman has 22 goals and 13 assists for 35 points. Petersen has eight goals and 24 assists for 32 points.

“She’s a really smart hockey player, on the ice and off the ice,” said Minnetonka head coach Eric Johnson of Bowman. “She’s a 4.0 student, a very good student. And kind of translates her smarts to the game. I think she’s a student of the game. She’s very good at taking face-offs as a center. She kind of figures out how to beat the opponent."

Bowman has a high percentage around the net, and she knows where to go and rarely skates past the net, according to her coach.

"She also gets a lot of nice goals as well on the rush or breakaways," Johnson said. "She just has a knack for finding the back of the net.”

Minnetonka is 16-4-1 on the season heading into a rugged final stretch run which begins Saturday with a home game against Edina (15-3-6, ranked No. 6 in Class 2A).

That showdown will be followed closely by games against Eden Prairie (9-10-4), No. 6 1A Blake (12-9-1) and No. 1 1A Breck (19-1-1) in their final four regular-season games.

It’s helped Bowman, and the Skippers, to have Petersen on the same line. The pair has been playing together for seven or eight years and combine make a formidable offense for opponents to stop.

“Amy is really a skilled player as well," said Johnson. “Laura and Amy have a great chemistry working together. So that makes a big difference. It’s an advantage for both of them to have each other. And the other teams that we play against have a hard time – its one thing to shut down one player, but it’s tough to shut down two that work this energy between one another.”

Johnson hasn’t been tempted to separate the two.

“No coach, including me, has dared separate them,” said Johnson. “They have a rare sort of synergy and chemistry on their line. Those two just move the puck so well together. It just makes sense to keep them together because they make things happen. The two of them are better together.”

Bowman said she has progressed steadily over her years on the ice.

“I had a lot of help from my coaches,” Bowman said. “They helped me develop a lot. I don’t think I’d be anywhere near as good as I am without them. I definitely didn’t wake up and have the talent. I worked at it and my coaches helped me develop throughout the years.

Bowman thinks her main strengths as a player are seeing the ice, her speed and good skating skills. And it also goes back to the line.

“One of the reason we have so much success is that Amy Peterson and I play on the line together and play so well together. We’ve been playing on the same line since we started playing hockey."

Bowman and Peterson are friends on and off the ice.

"It’s easy for us to connect on the ice," Bowman said. “We have had the same playing style, same skills and at the same time, we help each other with our weaknesses.”