HDM 2018: Alumni game unites generations of Huskies

ST. CLOUD -- Bret Hedican's head pounded. Grinning from ear to ear for the better part of three hours straight will cause such trauma.
"My head hurts because my helmet hurts because I've been smiling all night," the former St. Cloud State defenseman said with a laugh after Friday night's outdoor alumni game at Lake George. "I'll tell you: Our university is special, because we might not get the blue-chip, but we get that second-tier guy that's hungry. With the hunger comes caring about one another and knowing that you're not bigger than the team. When you have that, you get this -- many years after guys retire, they still want to be involved in our university."

In many ways, Hedican described himself. Selected in the 10th round of the 1988 NHL Entry Draft, the stocky St. Paul native built a 17-year, five-team, 1,039-game career out of unadulterated grit.
He also described this blue-collar community on the Mississippi. Founded in 1856, the Granite City germinated because of its quarries and has survived due to its perseverance in business and industry, even given its remote location compared to other Minnesota markets.
That's congruent with the narrative that comprises Husky hockey's identity: passion over fashion, work ethic over fireworks.
It started here on Lake George, a main source of outdoor hockey for locals from the early 1800s until the community's first ice sheet was built in 1974. It exploded when Herb Brooks took the program to Division I in the late 1980s, paving the way for Minnesota's status as the State of College Hockey with five men's Division I programs.
Coach Bob Motzko has been at the helm for 12-plus seasons and carried a 251-183-43 record and seven NCAA tournament berths, including a 2013 Frozen Four appearance, into this campaign. His current club is 14-4-3 and brings a No. 3 national ranking into Saturday's 5 p.m. Hockey Day contest against old WCHA rival Minnesota State.
Before Motzko, it was Craig Dahl, who took the Division I reins after Brooks' one season in charge. Dahl and Motzko served as honorary coaches Friday night as more than 90 former players packed into benches for a scrimmage that paired players from generations on the same team and was fraught with chirping amid some flashy goals and a few good moves.
The ages spanned last year's alums to the likes of Al Paulson, who last played for SCSU in 1964. They came from far and wide, including California and Alaska.
"To come back and wear the colors and fly the flag again," said Mark Parrish, who played for St. Cloud State in the mid-1990s and the Wild from 2006-08 and served as a captain Friday along with Hedican, "it's pretty surreal."
It's pioneers like Parrish and Hedican who helped set the modern foundation. Connections among generations of a now-established program continue to aide the cause today, including on the recruiting and fundraising fronts.
"Alumni are such a major part -- the history, tradition, the foundation of our program," said Motzko, who was a student assistant under Brooks and Dahl in 1986-87. "That's one of the great things in college sports. ... A lot of these guys move away. They have kids and they have families, and they don't get many opportunities to get back, especially for an event like this. This is pretty special."
The same goes for the Huskies women's team coach Eric Rud is currently hoping to build into a contender. Alumni from throughout the program's history played the first portion of Friday night's contest and walked away with a vibe mirroring Hedican's.
"It truly is a special night," said Rud, whose team plays Duluth at 1 p.m. Saturday on this same outdoor ice. Rud's daughter scored a goal for the St. Cloud Icebreakers in their 3-3 tie to open Friday's Hockey Day proceedings. "Our former players] should be proud of where they got to go to school. A lot of these women, especially in the early days of this, it was just scrapping together and putting some helmets together and getting a team together. Now seeing them come out and play live tomorrow on FOX Sports North in front of thousands of TV sets, they should feel a lot of pride to know the groundwork they laid has led into this."
Said 2016 St. Cloud State graduate Hanna Brodt, one of about 30 former women's players to don red and black Friday: "It doesn't matter your age, gender. People like that community. They like to have a purpose to go back to. So I think ... it's cool to keep us incorporated."
It's all in hopes of bringing a national title to a town with a proud if not always highlighted hockey tradition -- a goal its former players take as seriously as the current ones.
Even as they move on from the game, which in Hedican's case means working as an analyst for the San Jose Sharks, raising daughters who are 14 and 12 years old, and navigating the ins and outs of owning the family's first dog.
"Bob Motzko's done a terrific job of embracing our heritage and our history and showing it around the building and making sure he's reaching out to former players, knowing how important they are to the program and whatever they can do to give back," Hedican said, "whether it be just to come and show up and say hi, pass on knowledge to the younger players or just the fact of coming around and being that good St. Cloud guy you used to be when you were a player."
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