The Metro West Conference battle between the BSM Red Knights boys’ hockey team and the Chaska Hawks was scheduled for February 7, but due to the ongoing Polar Vortex, the game was played at a later date at a greater arena.  

By mid-day on Thursday, February 7, the snow started to pile up creating dangerous road conditions for drivers. The Chaska School District released their students early resulting in cancellations of all after-school activities. “We actually wanted to play, you know [BSM] basically doesn’t have a policy against playing that night; if you play, you play, but Chaska School District has a policy that if school’s canceled they can’t play that night, so they’re the ones who canceled,” boys’ hockey head coach Mr. Ken Pauly said.

Various phone calls were made to reschedule the big conference game between the #8 BSM Red Knights and #15 Chaska Hawks. The coaches decided that it would be played on February 11 at 3M Arena at Mariucci, the home of the Gophers, and location for the notorious Section 6AA section championship game. “It could have been played at the St. Louis Park Rec Center, but we already had practice scheduled for Mariucci, and we felt that seeing that we had to reschedule it would be a really good opportunity to get in there and play,” Pauly said.

Unfortunately, the Red Knights fell to the Hawks 4-2 with them getting an empty net goal with about two seconds remaining. Despite the final score, the Red Knights fought hard and against another talented team. “We moved the puck well; we used the big ice surface, so I think it was really beneficial that way,” Pauly said.

As the regular season winds down, the team is starting to prepare for what they will most likely see come the section tournament. Playing good teams near the end of the season is a good test of where the team is at with hopes of making it to Mariucci for the section final. “It’s been a few years since we’ve been in there, but it was good. It’s a big sheet of ice and so hopefully we can get hot and maybe get there this year in the section final,” Pauly said.