Beaver Fever: 22 voices from Bemidji on Cinderella team
Posted on April 9th, 2009 – 12:26 AMBy Roman Augustoviz
What do you know about Bemidji? It’s the first city on the Mississippi. … It’s the U.S. capital of curling.
But this weekend, Bemidji is the home of the Bemidji State Beavers, one of the teams in the Frozen Four. And everybody in town is talking hockey, discussing the team’s chances for an NCAA title, reflecting on the new arena, etc. Want to listen in?
Here are 22 assorted quotes from fans, players, the head coach, and other interested parties collected recently in Bemidji-land:
FANS SPEAK
Austin Wallestad: talking to a group of BSU players sitting at a table at Slim’s Bar and Grill: “We are proud of you guys whatever happens.”
Wallestad lives in Madera, CA, but he is a member of the BSU alumni board and frequently travels to Bemidji. Both his wife and a daughter are students at BSU. He played in the first hockey game in the Glas — the Beavers’ home for the past 42 years — in 1967.
“I watched the [Bemidji State regional] games on TV, but it was like I was at the games,” Wallestad said. “My little grandson [Cody, 4], every time we scored, I scared the tar out of him because I jumped up and down and screamed. My heart was pounding.”
* Curler James Howard, on his 73rd birthday last week, came over to the rink where the Beavers were practicing. It’s in the same building as the curling club. He wanted to wish freshman forward Darcy Findlay good luck. Findlay is from Bristol, Quebec, Howard from neighboring Shawville. “The only Protestant town in Quebec.”
Howard on the Beavers’ new arena: “I was against it, but thnking now, we are going to get it, so let’s have it. Bemidji is a good town. When you come right down to it, it is good for the community as well. We need something to be truthful.”
* Mark Harder of Warroad stopped by with his young son to watch a BSU practice. He wanted to say hello to junior defensemen Kyle Hardwick, also from Warroad. Harder’s wife was one of Hardwick’s high school teachers.
Harder on the Beavers’ NCAA tournament run: “It’s fantastic. What a shot in the arm for the program. I grew up in Thief River Falls. Bemidji has been a great city. I played baseball, hockey and football here.”
* Karla Svingen, a waitress at Slim’s, congratulating BSU coach Tom Serratore on advancing to Frozen Four: “It’s so cool, I feel warm inside.”
* Tom Burlingame, a retired Paul Bunyan Telephone Cooperative employee: “I would hope the state of Minnesota would be tickled pink this is happening.”
* Clare Kapphahn was one of several hundred Bemidjians who attended Friday’s ground-breaking ceremonies for the Bemidji Regional Events Center. He is confident it will attract events: “I am involved with the VFW. We’ll have the [youth] state hockey tournaments up here after we get it built.
“My wife [Marian] belongs to a quilting group and they are [hoping] to have a state quilting show coming up here. … We don’t have that big a facility in this part of the state.”
On the Beavers: ”I think it is great. That college was small when I went there. I think we had 600 students.” He graduated from BSU in 1960.
THE PLAYERS’ SHOOT QUICKLY
* Backup goalie Orlando Alamano, who played two seasons at Eastview H.S., on being in the Frozen Four: “It’s unbelieveable. Not that I did not have faith in us. But you know … Being it’s my senior year and, for the rest of the seniors, I can speak for them: There is no better way to go our than what we are doing right now.
“We might not have 100 [NHL] draft picks like the University of North Dakota, but we have a group of guys that everybody gets along. … Everybody is best friends from the day you get here as a freshman to when you leave as a senior. … They recruit the right people.”
* Senior forward Tyler Scofield: “Most people never saw Bemidji State going [to the Frozen Four]. But I mean it just goes to show that in college hockey anything can happen.
“I’ve never been to Washington, D.C. Obviously, we are going there to play hockey first, but it is going to be a neat thing to experience in my life, too.”
* Sophomore goalie Matt Dalton: “I don’t expect to change anything [at the Frozen Four]. You just go in and enjoy the experience because who is to say this will ever happen again.”
* Senior forward Matt Francis, a member of BSU’s first line along with Scofield and Matt Read: “We are all pretty good friends off the ice. We all try to keep our feet moving and play as fast as possible.
“Teams are having trouble keeping up with our speed because we know where each other is all the time. That helps a lot.”
* Freshman forward Darcy Findlay played with the Cornwall Colts in Canada’s national Junior A championships last season: “We lost in the semifinals. We lost to the [eventual] winning team. It was quite an experience but nothing will top this year that’s for sure. This is something.
“We wanted to make some noise in the [NCAA] tournament and that’s what we did. We think we are bringing down the roof.”
* Freshman forward Ben Kinne played on Cretin-Derham Hall’s Class 2A state championship team with University of Wisconsin players Ryan McDonagh and Chris Hickey. “I got a couple text messages from them,” Kinne said. “They seemed pretty jealous, but who wouldn’t be at this point?”
* Junior defenseman Kyle Hardwick: “We played two great games prior to this [in the Midwest Regional] and there is no reason why, if we can play the same game, we can’t do the same thing.” He meant win twice at the Frozen Four.
On coach Serratore: “He has such a passion for the game and a passion to make everybody better. He won’t take a day off. He won’t let anything slide.
“You may not like it at the time but, in the end, it makes you a better player and a better person, too.”
SERRATORE TIDBITS
Beavers coach Tom Serratore, in his eighth season, is a bit of a character. He is an Iron Ranger, born in Coleraine, Minn., who has settled in in Bemidji. His athletic director said Serratore will be the Beavers’ hockey coach for a long, long time.
Serratore likes to talk. Here are some of his best recent lines:
* “We feel pretty good about ourselves and we should.”
* “Tradition is very special at Bemidji State. There just have been many times when we have found ways to win over the course of the last 40 years. … We believe because again it has happened a lot in this program.” The Beavers have won 13 small-college national titles.
* “I have had e-mails from our alumni all over the United States. … Wherever they live, people are talking about us.”
* Speaking at an on-campus rally: “It is really special to be part of this, [but] we are not content with just playing. We are going to Washington, D.C., to win this thing. You wouldn’t want it to be any different. … We are going to give it everything we have.”
* “There is a small margin of error in college hockey. That’s the way it should be. That’s the beauty of our sport right now, that there is a lot of parity.
“In a lot of games, [the winner is] who gets the last bounce, who gets the first bounce, who gets the lucky bounce.”
OUTSIDE/INSIDE INSIGHTS
* WCHA Commissioner Bruce McLeod on whether his conference will approve BSU’s application for admission later this month: “A lot of that will evolve around whether we should stay at 10 or whether we go to 11, which you know is problematic, of whether we should be working at getting a 12th [team].
“As an executive committee, we talked [last week] about extending the [application] deadline as an option. That should be in our pocket, depending on how the discussion goes.”
The application deadline was March 31, but only BSU applied to the 10-team WCHA.
On whether BSU’s run will help the Beavers’ chances of admission: “When you you get past the euphoria and happiness for [the Beavers], it doesn’t really change the debate. It might [only] from the public’s perception of us and the public relations aspect.”
* Scott Williams, the voice of the Beavers on KBSU (Ch. 17): “I love it. Don’t tell anyone I would do it for free. Why? Visiting with Tom Serratore every week for the past 10 years, getting to know the players, getting to know the coaching staff on a personal level. That type of thing you wouldn’t get in a larger market.”
* Bob Peters, former BSU coach with 702 victories: “Those [NHL] draft picks have a tendency to slide toward the high-profile shcools, but other players are out there and, given an opportunity, they can play.” And play well.
* Bryan Grand, former BSU player on the current Beavers: “I watched pretty much all their home games and they certainly have been getting better and better as the year went on. But I still don’t think anyone could say they would expect they would win two [regional] games like they did.”
On Serratore: “He is quite a guy, a tireless worker. All coaches are, but he he would be at the very top of [the list]. He travels to places and recruits very hard and he is an excellent coach. All the players are going to get better when playing for him here.”
* BSU president Jon Quistgaard, speaking at the luncheon after the arena ground-breaking ceremonies last Friday: “Isn’t it as great day to be a Beaver? If you think you have challenges, this is coach Serratore’s negotiating year.”
Serratore, like the professors at BSU, works on a four-year contract. His second contract expires at the end of this school year.
* A letter from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, read at the luncheon: “I wish [Bemidji State] my highest congratulations and all the best in Washington, D.C. It’s a tough town, but I know you will make us proud no matter what happens.”
* BSU athletic director Rick Goeb: “Everything is based on building blocks and we are building the case for [being in] the WCHA.”
* Becky Huls, manager of BSU Bookstore: “I can’t keep [Beavers’ apparel] in the bookstore. We are re-ordering every days. What’s selling? T-shirts, hoodies, hats. This is their Beavers team. It has been awesome.”
Huls said BSU web sales also have been going strong.
