CLOQUET, Minn. — When the Anchorage Wolverines traveled to Cloquet, Minn. last weekend for a North American Hockey League game against the Minnesota Wilderness, they stayed where all opposing teams do: the Super 8 on Big Lake Road.
The hotel, located less than a mile from Northwoods Credit Union Arena, has hosted NAHL teams from across the continent in recent years, bringing in squads from Alaska, Illinois, Wisconsin and everywhere in between.
All of the players and coaches who stay at the Super 8 encounter the same front desk clerk: 22-year-old Shellby Trettel.
Kade Shea, an Anchorage forward who happens to be a Duluth native, recalled Trettel’s diligence in making sure the Wolverines were stocked with fresh towels. He told KTUU-TV, the NBC affiliate in Anchorage, that Trettel seemed like “a good light of a person.”
Sadly, the day after the Wolverines left the Super 8 to fly back to Alaska, Trettel was shot and killed Monday evening while working the front desk. A second person, Patrick Roers, was killed in the parking lot. Police say the shooter, Nicholas Lenius, later killed himself. The relationship between Lenius and the two people he shot remains unclear.
More than 2,000 miles away in Alaska, the shooting rattled the Wolverines, who had enjoyed their interactions with Trettel during their brief stay at the Super 8. According to the team roster, the Wolverines have at least four players from the state of Minnesota, including Shea.
"The Cloquet community is amazing. They do a great job with hockey, with anything really, they’re just great people,” Shea told KTUU. “I have family from Cloquet. It’s just really sad what happened there. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them.”
As a gesture of their appreciation, the Wolverines donated $1,600 to a GoFundMe toward the Trettel family’s funeral expenses. On the site, the team wrote:
"Sincere condolences from the entire Anchorage Wolverines Hockey team players, coaches and families who spent the past weekend at the hotel where they were met with smiles and positivity from Shellby.”
The Wolverines’ donation then caught the attention of their opponent, the Minnesota Wilderness, who promptly donated $3,000 to the Trettel family a few days later.
“All the credit really has to go to the Anchorage Wolverines,” Wilderness General Manager Dave Boitz told KARE 11. “It was really special that they stepped up and did that.”
Boitz said he has a great relationship with management at the local Super 8, and he praised the hotel for its work in hosting various NAHL teams.
“It was just such a shock to everybody. In a lot of small communities, or even in big communities, I think people pull together and really try to do whatever they can to comfort the family,” Boitz said.
At a vigil this week for Shellby Trettel, her father Tim Trettel told KBJR-TV in Duluth that his daughter had “no idea” the number of lives she had touched.
That includes the dozens of NAHL players and coaches who encountered her friendly face at the front desk of the Super 8 in Cloquet.
“And I just honestly wish she could see this,” Tim Trettel told KBJR. “You never know what in life you’re doing to touch by a simple smile checking into a hotel.”
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