Myers: Beavers busily making their mark in college hockey world

Seeing an obscure college hockey sweater from a little-known school is not a unique event when attending the NCAA Frozen Four. Fans from all over the country travel to the game's penultimate event every year, sporting the colors of their favorite school, whether they're a perennial participant like Michigan or a little-known "what state is that in again?" entrant like Mercyhurst.

So it shouldn't have been so surprising, on a sunny Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., nearly three years ago to be strolling the Mall near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and seeing a fan in a dark green Bemidji State University sweater. Then the second and third Beavers sweaters appeared, like a sudden reminder of something totally unexpected. And then there were more, and more.

While the likes of Boston College, Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan State and Denver were home watching on TV, Bemidji State was there, in our nation's capital, playing in the NCAA Frozen Four at the Division I level.

The weekend ended abruptly, with the Beavers falling 4-1 to Miami (Ohio) in the national semifinals, but that hardly seems to matter. Barely a decade into their existence as a D-I hockey program, this relatively small school from a relatively small town on the shore of a relatively small lake was among the final quartet of college hockey teams still playing, on national TV, on the final weekend of the 2009 college hockey season.

By the Saturday evening title game, although the Beavers and many of their fans had long since headed out of town, every piece of Bemidji State Frozen Four merchandise available in the city had long-since been snapped up, as college hockey found its own version of George Mason, or Butler, or VCU.

Just a few years earlier, the biggest news in Bemidji had been the first-ever trip by the Gophers to play a game there. Now the Beavers are in their second season as members of the WCHA, and already have a conference playoff splash under their belts. Last season, after opening a sparkling new arena on the east shore of Lake Bemidji, the Beavers upset Nebraska Omaha to get to the WCHA Final Five tournament, and beat eventual national champion Minnesota Duluth in St. Paul in March.

Knowing that schools like Minnesota and Wisconsin generally have the inside track on the top high school players from the Twin Cities, and top-level kids from northern Minnesota often look first toward North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth and even St. Cloud State, Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore casts a much wider net when recruiting. The Beavers' current roster lists seven Minnesotans, alongside 13 Canadians (hailing from British Columbia in the west all the way to Quebec in the east), a Solvakian, and players from North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Colorado, California and even Florida.

Serratore, who played high school hockey in Coleraine and is the brother of Air Force coach Frank Serratore, returned to coach his alma mater after an eclectic post-college career in Minnesota that had him playing senior amateur hockey for the Warroad (Minn.) Lakers in a Canadian league, coaching high school hockey in Brainerd and at Henry Sibley in West St. Paul, and serving as an assistant at St. Cloud State at different points.

The Beavers come to the big city this weekend to face Minnesota, and while the Gophers still sit in first place in the conference, Bemidji State remains three points behind North Dakota in the race for the final home ice slot. But if it appears that there a mismatch to be had at Mariucci Arena, a closer look at the recent numbers may spell trouble for the home team. The Beavers survived a brutal early-season schedule which had them on the road for eight of their first 10 games. They've gone 11-4-2 since Nov. 20 (the Gophers are 8-8-1 over that same stretch) but didn't get a sniff in the most recent national polls.

But the "under the radar" approach seems to suit Serratore and company just fine. While other teams send wave after wave of forwards with lower NHL draft numbers over the boards, the Beavers have long been known as an "out-skate you, out-work you, grind you down and wait for you to make a mistake" outfit.

"Hard work is giving us opportunities," Serratore said this week. "Our work ethic has been very good. We've been very tenacious, we've been strong on pucks, and when you're strong on pucks, there are going to create opportunities for offense."

There were abundant questions about how the Beavers would handle the week-in, week-out grind of a WCHA schedule prior to last season, and when Bemidji State ended up tenth in the 12-team league, many of those suspicions were underscored. Then the playoffs, and the upsets by the Beavers began. Suddenly there was a reminder of that team that just two years earlier had upset top-ranked Notre Dame and Cornell, earning a trip to the steps of the U.S. Capitol and a soft spot in the hearts of countless college hockey fans who naturally root for the underdog. Less than two years from now, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Minnesota Duluth, North Dakota and St. Cloud State will all be gone from the WCHA, leaving an even more real opportunity for the Beavers to claim powerhouse status in this storied conference which still has an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.

Serratore's best player from a year ago, Matt Read, is toiling as a NHL rookie with the Philadelphia Flyers. In his place the Beavers have a "scoring by committee" thing working, and solid goaltending from Dan Bakala, who features what has got to be the best helmet paint job in college hockey. Bakala's cage has a pair of nasty-looking green beavers on the front, and the smiling mugs of brothers Bob & Doug McKenzie (Canadian cult heroes from SCTV's "The Great White North" and "Strange Brew") on the back.

The route from the Beavers' home locker room forces the players to file past 13 banners commemorating national titles won at the NCAA D-II, D-III and NAIA levels. When they designed the rink, they optimistically left room for more, which may have seemed like a pipe dream at the D-I level. Then, on that sunny Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., fans by the dozen in Beavers sweaters started popping up at the Lincoln Memorial, and by the Reflecting Pool, and at the gates of the White House.

The appearance of those dark green shirts with the stylish buck-toothed rodent on them seemed to signal the program's arrival, and don't expect them to go away anytime soon.