This time 30 years ago during the 1984-85 season, the UMD Bulldogs were on their way to a third straight NCAA tournament. This year, they’re destined for another NCAA berth and while much has changed since 1985, two names remain the same. Senior defenseman Derik Johnson and sophomore forward Dominic Toninato are second generation Bulldogs who are having as big of an impact on the current UMD team as their fathers did some 30 years ago.
Derik’s father, Jim Johnson, spent four seasons anchoring the Bulldog blue line and was the senior captain of the team during the 1984-1985 trip to the Frozen Four. Jim went on to enjoy a 15-year career in the NHL and is now an assistant coach with the San Jose Sharks.
Dominic’s father, Jim Toninato, also spent four seasons with the Bulldogs as a center. Jim played alongside Johnson during the 1984-1985 Frozen Four season and graduated the following year.
Thirty years later the Johnson- Toninato connection would be reborn and look to make a Frozen Four run of their own.
“It would be pretty special to do that,” Dominic Toninato said. “We have a good team that’s capable of doing that if we play the game that we can play. It’s a whole new season now and anything can happen.”
The path that brought these two to the North Shore, however, couldn’t be more different.
Dom spent his entire life in Duluth, and the countless hours playing outdoors at the Portman hockey rink in Eastside Duluth and attending all of the UMD home games at the DECC with his dad created a natural love for both hockey and the Bulldogs. Toninato worked his way through the ranks of pee wee, bantam and eventually varsity hockey at Duluth East before receiving the offer to follow in his dad’s footsteps at UMD.
Derik, on the other hand, learned the game of hockey in an area of the country that isn’t exactly known for creating Division 1 hockey prospects– Scottsdale, Arizona.
“(My dad) grew up in the state of hockey, and I grew up where people asked if you play ice or roller hockey,” said Derik.
From being trained by his NHL veteran father starting at age 4, to captaining the Penticton Vees of the British Columbia Hockey League, it was a long road before Derik Johnson earned his UMD scholarship.
Both current Bulldogs acknowledge their fathers’ bias towards the Bulldogs, but their reasons for coming to UMD go beyond family ties.
While Derik Johnson grew up around NHL rinks idolizing his father’s play, Dominic Toninato is paving his own way, not having the opportunity to watch his father during his playing days.
“I wanted to write my own chapter,” Dominic Toninato said. “I had the option of wearing (my dad’s) number 21 following my freshman year, but 19 is my number.”
For the younger Johnson, it was the combination of his father’s past experience with the club and the overall prestige that UMD has earned through the years that ended up being the deciding factor.
“He obviously had great memories here and he told me about those and the great friends he made while playing here, so it did have a little bit of an impact,” Derik Johnson said. “Just the overall perception of this school having really good teams and competing for national championships on a yearly basis definitely factored in to my decision making.”
The decision for Dom Toninato and Derik Johnson to become Bulldogs has helped earn UMD a trip to New Hampshire, where they will take on the team's arch-rival, The Minnesota Gophers in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The second generation Bulldogs will look to recapture the legacy set forth by their fathers and potentially make a Frozen Four trip of their own.
Originally written for UMD Statesman: https://umdstatesman.wp.d.umn.edu/2015/03/11/like-father-like-son/