Bemidji's 'Hockey Day' Win, A Special Moment For Many

Local Favorite Scored Game Winner

by Christopher Boulay/CHN Writer (@chrismboulay)

Outdoor games bring hockey back to its roots. Just a bunch of people passing the puck around a pond in cold weather. Back on the ponds as kids, players dream about scoring that big goal and while representing their community, whether it be their town, state or favorite pro team.

Bemidji State’s Dillon Eichstadt — a Bemidji, Minn., native — got to live that dream Friday night. With slightly less than two minutes left in overtime, a rebound on the power play came to teammate Ross Armour’s stick, who sent it right to Eichstadt. The senior defenseman launched one from the point toward the Michigan Tech net and as the referee pointed to signal a goal, Eichstadt skated up the other end of the ice, slid on one knee and pumped his fist repeatedly.

Even with the storybook ending for the local kid culminating in a 4-3 overtime victory for the Beavers against Michigan Tech, at that moment, Eichstadt wasn’t thinking about being that young hockey player

“It was a really special moment, but it will probably set in later on in my career,” Eichstadt said. “(Friday) night, I was just happy to get a W for our team. We were in a place where we needed it. It was a must-win game for us, so that trumps everything else.”

All of this occurred while the players, coaches and fans dealt with bitter cold, as part of a special outdoor game played on a rink made on Lake Bemidji just for the occasion, as part of Hockey Day Minnesota weekend festivities. As the puck dropped to start the game Friday night, the thermometer read minus-17. But for those involved, it’s just part of the spectacle.

“It was cold, but we all dressed for it,” Bemidji coach Tom Serratore said. “You have to embrace the day. We embraced the day. The biggest thing in conditions like that for coaches, you better have layers, you better have toe warmers and you better have hand warmers.”

The goalies even came prepared. Both Bemidji’s Zach Driscoll and Michigan Tech’s Robby Beydoun wore knit hats on the top of their masks to stay warm.

The extreme temperatures may have turned off some, but for the Beaver faithful, they embraced it. A total of 4,201 people participated in the event, despite the conditions, and while there were only 3,200 seats, many who didn’t hang out in the crowd watched the teams play from the VIP tents with bonfires while the game was shown on the jumbotron.

While everyone found ways to successfully ward off the cold, it did affect the play on the ice a bit. Typically, the optimal temperature for an outdoor game is 15 degrees, so the mercury dipping 32 degrees colder changed the ice. The ice crew, which was led by the Pittsburgh Penguins' rink maintenance person, had to add more ice. At game time, the ice was 3.5 inches, much higher than the 1.25-inch ice inside the Sanford Center.

This makes it harder to see the red and blue lines, which are painted below the ice. That, mixed with lights that weren’t as bright as the players —and likely the linesmen— hoped, played some role.

“I didn’t think the cold was that bad,” Eichstadt said. “The toes were tough to keep warm, but the conditions I thought were pretty good, other than visibility. It was hard to see out there. It wasn’t as bright as I thought it was going to be. There were some shadows from the lighting that made the puck hard to track at times.”

Hockey Day Minnesota is an annual event started in 2007 by the NHL's Minnesota Wild and Fox Sports North on a Saturday in January to celebrate high school hockey. Every year, part of the festivities include college games, but until this year, they were always played inside. The event ends with the Wild playing that night.

The city of Bemidji put in its bid a couple years ago to host the game and was awarded it. In response to this, the school called Michigan Tech, which was mutually interested in participating in an outdoor game to be played the night before the main day, when there are games from morning through night.

An outdoor game was a new experience for many involved, including Serratore.

“It was a unique experience, and it’s obviously even better when it’s in your home town,” Serratore said. “The amount of work that’s gone on in the last year, we’ve had a committee of people who have done an unbelievable amount of work to set the bar high for Hockey Day.”

The event, just like the sport of hockey and, more specifically, Bemidji State hockey, means a lot to the city. For one local, it meant a lot to see his entire city come together over this event that took years to plan and realized long-standing hope he had as a child, even if he wasn’t thinking about it during that game-winning goal.

“Growing up watching hockey day, it was always a dream to play in it for the (Bemidji High School) Lumberjacks, but obviously that didn’t come to fruition,” Eichstadt said. “But having the opportunity to play in it as a Beaver, it was special. It was really cool. Seeing a lot of people who put it together, I’ve known (them) for a while, so it was special.

“The excitement that the community had building up to the event and the game and all the events today, it’s been huge. Bemidji, I think, at it’s core, is a hockey community. So for the hockey community to get an event like this and have the outcome we did last night, it was awesome.

Bemidji has plenty of important games left on the calendar, but for many on the roster, few will stick in their minds down the road like this one.