Tom Kurvers’ most memorable Bill Watson moment was when his Minnesota Duluth men’s hockey teammate returned from a 10-day absence to lead the Bulldogs to a win and a tie against North Dakota.

The moment that sticks out in Scott Sandelin’s mind is Watson’s overtime goal in the 1984 NCAA Frozen Four against North Dakota, though Sandelin doesn’t remember it as fondly as Watson since the current UMD coach played for the then-Fighting Sioux.

Sandelin’s coaching predecessor, Mike Sertich, has a much different memorable moment. For him, the best play Watson ever made, in his three seasons in Duluth, was a simple clearing of the puck against Clarkson in the second half of a two-game, total-goal 1984 NCAA playoff series with the Bulldogs down 6-3 in the game, but up 9-8 in the series.

“It was acknowledged that he could score and he could make plays and he had great vision and had great hands,” Sertich said. “But the best play I ever saw him make was the second night against Clarkson where with about less than a minute left in the game, they had the goalie pulled and they were putting all kinds of pressure on us. He chipped the puck out to neutral ice, and that to me said everything about his awareness and being in a pressure situation, doing that.”

Watson, the 1985 Hobey Baker Memorial Award winner and two-time All-American, had his No. 14 raised to the Amsoil Arena rafters Friday night alongside Brett Hull’s No. 29 and Keith “Huffer” Christiansen’s No. 9 during an emotional and at times humorous first intermission ceremony.

The Powerview, Manitoba, native played three seasons for the Bulldogs from 1982-85 before leaving after his record-setting junior year to play for the Chicago Blackhawks in the NHL.

His 1.94 career points-per-game average still ranks first all-time at UMD, as do the single-season records he set in 1984-85 of 60 assists and 109 points. The 49 goals scored that season is second to Hull’s 52.

“It’s beyond flattering. It’s humbled me a lot,” Watson said Wednesday in the days leading up to the retirement of his number. “When they told me about it and now that I’ve had some time to think about it, in regards to all the players that have played here before me and have played here since, it’s something I’ve tried to put my arms around and grasp. It’s been very, very unique.”

Watson finished with 89 career goals and 121 assists in 108 games at UMD, but one goal has stood the test of time. It’s the one Sandelin is constantly reminded of because his children received a signed picture of the goal from Watson.

It was the 1984 national semifinal game in Lake Placid, N.Y., against North Dakota and shortly after the stick of the Sioux’s Jim Archibald broke, Watson was in front of North Dakota goaltender and Grand Rapids native Jon Casey. With 3:09 remaining in OT, Watson took a feed from Bob Lakso and batted the puck past Casey out of the air with the shaft of his stick for a 2-1 win.

“That was the ability he had to score goals,” Sandelin said. “He could score goals in different ways.”

Watson became the second of five Bulldogs to win the Hobey Baker Award - no school has won more of the awards in college hockey - in 1985 after Kurvers became the first from the school in 1984.

Watson said he was surprised to win the Hobey in ’85 because Kurvers had won it the year before and it was highly unlikely the five-year-old award would go to the same school in back-to-back years. Watson was just flattered to be a top-10 finalist, he said.

According to Sertich, the junior forward was a “no-brainer” pick. It wasn’t a surprise to Kurvers either, who said, “We knew he was our best player the year I won it. He was our best player.”

“Bill was one of the most talented college hockey players ever - not just our best player,” said Kurvers, who now scouts professionals and college free agents for the Tampa Bay Lightning as the senior advisor to the general manager. “We’re talking one of the best college hockey players ever - period. That’s how good he was.”

Like Sertich, Kurvers’ most memorable moment isn’t Watson’s goal that sent the Bulldogs to their first NCAA championship game. It was a different meeting in Duluth against Sandelin’s North Dakota team in the second half of the season with first place in the WCHA on the line.

According to Kurvers’ account, Watson had been gone for 10 days including missing a series at Colorado College. Watson returned on a Wednesday and when he was inserted into the lineup, it wasn’t with his usual top linemates at right wing.

“There were a lot of brilliant individual plays, but what I remember the most was he was away from the team for a period of time and when he came back on two days of practice not on his line, he was our best player,” Kurvers said. “What he did that weekend, no one else on our team could have possibly pulled that off.”

After retiring from professional hockey, Watson returned to UMD in 1989 to serve as a student assistant coach for a season and signed on as a volunteer assistant coach for the Bulldogs from 2006 through last spring, when he took a leave from coaching to have shoulder surgery, but remained as the team’s operations assistant. He is a financial representative with Northwestern Mutual in Duluth.

In 2011, Watson became the first Bulldog to play and coach in an NCAA title game during the Bulldogs’ 3-2 overtime NCAA championship victory over Michigan at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. That win for Watson chased off a number of demons from his playing days, including a 5-4 four-overtime loss to Bowling Green State in the 1984 NCAA title game in Lake Placid and the three-overtime loss to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the 1985 NCAA semifinals in Detroit.

“To be a part of that team in 2011 buried a lot of demons for me, I’ll tell you that,” Watson said during the ceremony. “That national championship was one of the greatest moments of my life.”