By The Bemidji Pioneer
Published 12:40 p.m. on March 27, 2020
A decade has passed since what was arguably the greatest regular season of the Bemidji State men’s hockey program’s NCAA Division I era.
Riding high on the heels of a Frozen Four appearance, the 2009-10 Beavers didn’t miss a beat.
They tied a D-I era program record for single-season wins with 23, knocked off the nation’s top-ranked team and secured the team’s first at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. A squad that featured two future NHLers captured the College Hockey America title in the conference’s final season of existence while climbing as high as No. 4 in the national rankings, also a program record.
A grind of a schedule took its toll, however. BSU was upset in the CHA Tournament before a first-round defeat in the NCAA Tournament to one of the country’s hottest teams ended hopes of a return trip to the Frozen Four.
Nevertheless, the Beavers made their final season at the John S. Glas Fieldhouse one that holds a special place in program lore.
“They won big games. We were consistent in our play, by and large, and then we get an at-large bid,” head coach Tom Serratore said a decade later. “To me, it was a direct carryover from the year before, and that’s not easy to do.”
Beavers reload after Frozen Four
Bemidji State reached unparalleled heights by advancing to the 2009 Frozen Four.
The Beavers lost six seniors from that team to graduation, as well sophomore goaltender Matt Dalton, who signed with the Boston Bruins after a stellar campaign.
But back in the fold were a couple of key cogs who’d also one day ink NHL contracts.
Junior Matt Read led the charge offensively with 41 points off of 19 goals and 22 assists, while sophomore Brad Hunt patrolled the blue line and totaled 33 points (7g-26a) to lead the defensive corps.
“We had some very good top-end players,” said Serratore, then in his ninth season as coach. “And when you have very good top-end players and those top-end players are your hardest workers, like Read and Hunt, that really helps pave the way because everybody else follows in line.”
Upstart freshman forward Jordan George contributed immediately, tallying 34 points (13g-21a) to finish second on the team while playing on the top line alongside Read and junior Ian Lowe, the team’s leader with 21 goals. Shoring up the defense were seniors Kyle Hardwick and Chris Peluso.
“We had a good blend with that team,” Serratore said. “We had good size and we had good skill. We could play a physical game and we could play a skill game.”
A versatile third line of captain Chris McKelvie, Tyler Lehrke and Jamie MacQueen was also a useful weapon in Serratore’s arsenal.
“We put that line against everybody’s top line,” the coach said. “It was great because we could put Matt Read against (opponents’ third or second lines). And there weren’t many players that we were playing against that year that were better than Matt Read.”
In the crease, sophomore Dan Bakala took over the starting job and backstopped the team to 19 of its wins.
“Dan Bakala, just out of the chute with zero games experience, he had a great year for us as well,” Serratore said. “He was a big puzzle piece for that team.”
Everything was in place for BSU to make a run at its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in the D-I era.
Rise through the rankings
Bemidji State shocked the nation when it made its 2009 NCAA Tournament run. There were no such surprises one year later.
Still, the Beavers didn’t get much respect from the USCHO.com poll voters when they started the season unranked, though a sweep of No. 19 Air Force to open the year launched BSU to No. 15. Soon, BSU was up to No. 7 by the second week of November.
Minnesota handed Bemidji State its first loss Nov. 14 in the opening game of a series at Mariucci Arena, but the Beavers answered with a resounding 6-2 win the next night.
“That team early in the year, we were really dialed in,” Serratore said. “And that team was very confident. We started off like gangbusters. It just carried over from our 2009 Frozen Four team.”
Following a sweep of Alabama Huntsville, the sixth-ranked Beavers were 10-1-1 entering a Thanksgiving weekend showdown with No. 1 Miami at North Dakota’s holiday classic. BSU avenged a Frozen Four loss to the RedHawks by knocking off the top-ranked team in Division I for the first time in program history. McKelvie broke a 2-2 tie with less than four minutes remaining to deliver a 3-2 win.
“It was like a playoff game,” Serratore recalled. “There was just no easy ice. It was just a battle. It was both ways. … We were familiar with each other. They were ranked No. 1 and we were flying high. There’s no question. A lot of our fans were there. It was in Grand Forks, an hour and a half away. There was a great crowd.”
A 2-1 overtime loss to Ohio State in the weekend finale couldn’t spoil the fun. The Miami victory lifted the Beavers to No. 4 nationally while garnering first-place votes in the USCHO poll for the second of three successive weeks.
“I kind of said to myself that this team’s for real,” Serratore said. “Even though we lost that game to Ohio State, we played very good. And then right before Christmas we got swept by Mankato.”
Goodbye Glas
After starting the season 13-2-1, the first-half ending sweep at the hands of Minnesota State dropped BSU to No. 10. The Beavers went 10-8-3 the rest of the way.
“We were running out of gas,” Serratore said. “We were really fighting it and we were having a hard time putting 60 minutes together.”
A brutal second-half schedule saw the team play 11 of its final 16 games away from the John S. Glas Fieldhouse, traveling all over the map to Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Alabama.
Bemidji State dropped to as low as No. 14 before a home-and-home sweep over fourth-ranked Minnesota Duluth in late January shot the team back into the top 10 at No. 7.
The Beavers ran away with their third straight CHA regular-season title, clinching with a 3-2 win over Niagara on Feb. 19.
With the new Sanford Center rising from the earth a couple miles away, the program bid farewell to the Glas one night later with a 6-1 victory.
“That last weekend against Niagara was an outstanding weekend. I’ll never forget,” Serratore said. “There was no way we were going to get denied that night, that last game in the John Glas Fieldhouse. We won 6-1 and the electricity in the building was something I’d never witnessed before. What a great sendoff for our alumni, our fans and our players.”
The Beavers capped a 23-8-3 regular season two weeks later at Alabama Huntsville, finishing 14-3-1 in CHA play in the league’s final year of existence. BSU also finished 6-2-1 against teams in the top 25 of the Pairwise rankings with wins over Miami, Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth, Northern Michigan and Omaha.
Postseason struggles
Eighth-ranked Bemidji State entered its final CHA Tournament as the top seed going up against host Niagara. The Purple Eagles had gone 1-5 against the Beavers in the regular season, but the home crowd gave them the edge in a 5-4 upset win. A 3-3 tie in the third-place game against Robert Morris was a sour way for BSU to end its CHA days.
However, an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament was all but assured before the conference tournament began, and Bemidji State made the field as the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Regional in Fort Wayne, Ind.
“Our body of work throughout the year allowed us to get that at-large bid,” Serratore said. “And a lot of it was because of that first half when we played so well.”
The Beavers went head-to-head with CCHA Tournament champion Michigan, while Miami and CHA Tournament winner Alabama Huntsville squared off in the other regional semifinal. The Wolverines entered as winners of eight of their last nine games and proved to be tough to handle.
Michigan scored in each of the first two periods to take a 2-0 lead into the final frame. Lowe scored on the power play off a feed from Read to make it a one-goal game with less than 10 minutes to go. But just as it seemed BSU may have some momentum, future Stanley Cup winner Carl Hagelin bucketed a pair of goals before an empty netter finalized the score at 5-1 for the Wolverines.
“Michigan was one of the hottest teams in the country,” Serratore said. “Michigan had to win the CCHA to get into the NCAA Tournament and they did. And we were fighting it. We didn’t have the chemistry and we just didn’t have what we had the first half of the year.”
In 2008-09, the Beavers finished 7-2-1 in their last 10 games and only qualified for the NCAAs by claiming the CHA Tournament title, whereas the 2009-10 team completed one of the greatest regular seasons in program history.
Bemidji State just wasn’t able to shift back into the gear it’d found earlier in the year. Serratore compares the ‘09 run to a sprint, while the ‘10 season was a marathon.
Still, a decade later, the ‘10 Beavers retain a special place in the hearts of all who went along for the ride.
“They validated that Frozen Four in 2009,” Serratore said. “And that isn’t easy to do. There was a little bit of a bullseye on our head at that particular time and those guys responded like champions.”
Written by Austin Monteith
