Who says no good deed goes unpunished?
A group of seventh-grade girls hockey players from Detroit Lakes and their four coaches have been given free second-row seats to see the Minnesota Wild play Chicago on Sunday.
They are being honored for an unusual show of good sportsmanship at a recent U-12 A hockey tournament in Detroit Lakes, when they befriended and cheered on the visiting Sauk Rapids-Sartell team.
Players from the two teams made friends and cheered for each other throughout the tournament, even joining together for a happy photo on the ice after playing each other for the third place trophy.
A Detroit Lakes Tribune story by Paula Quam about the unlikely friendship received a lot of attention in Minnesota hockey circles, said Detroit Lakes U-12 A Coach Brian Burhans.
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“It’s kind of a crazy deal,” he said. “That’s what created the whole thing. Her story kind of went viral on Facebook and I heard it was discussed on talk radio in the Twin Cities.”
The story caught the attention of Minnesota Hockey, an affiliate of USA Hockey and the governing body of youth and amateur hockey in Minnesota, and all the players and coaches were invited down by the Minnesota Wild to attend the game.
The Sauk Rapids-Sartell team was also invited, Burhans said. “Hopefully, they will sit together,” he added.
Two seventh-grade defensive players for the young Lakers said the team is pumped up to see the Wild.
“You get to meet a lot of people,” said McKenna Burhans.
She and Adisyn Strand said they are excited about the Wild game, and each have their favorite players, both forwards – left wing Zach Parise for Adisyn and right wing Nino Niederreiter for McKenna.
“We didn’t know it would go this far from having good sportsmanship,” said another player, Halli Pavek.” I am so happy that we get to watch the Wild play and meet up with our new friends. I didn’t think we would ever get to see them again. It’s some of our teams’ first NHL game and we wouldn’t be able to go without this opportunity.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be close enough to see something and close enough for a meet and greet with the players if it works out,” said Coach Burhans. “They’re excited just to be at a big game like this.”
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For this group of seventh-grade girls, good sportsmanship has paid off in new friends and a chance to see the Wild in action.
“It’s a pretty cool opportunity for the girls, just them being them,” Burhans said. “They’re a super cool group of girls and like to have fun even outside of hockey.”
