The Thanksgiving holiday kicks-off across the United States and the Bemidji State University Men’s Hockey team will face one of its toughest challenges of the season this weekend. The Beavers travel to No. 1 University of North Dakota to face the Fighting Hawks for a non-conference series at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

The Beavers (5-7-0, 4-4-0 CCHA) clash with their Highway 2 rival Fighting Hawks (9-2-1, 4-0-0 NCHC) for a two-game set beginning Friday, Nov. 24 at 7:07 p.m. Game two will follow Saturday at 6:07 p.m.

Bemidji State Hockey fans can also listen to a Beaver Radio Network radio broadcast with play-by-play by Brian Schultz. Each game can be found on the dial at 92.1 FM or online at www.beaverradionetwork.com.

The Bemidji State-North Dakota regional rivalry began in 1970 but the two teams have met just 47 times after a 29-year gap from 1971-2000.

Their rivlary grew from the mid-2000’s and since the 2004-05 season, the two teams have battled every season excluding the Covid-19 2020-21 season where teams just played conference opponents during the regular season.

North Dakota dominates the all-time series holding a 35-5-7 record against the Beavers and are 5-2-3 over the last 10 meetings.

The two teams briefly played for conference points when they were both members of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association from 2010-13.

The Beavers and Fighting Hawks have met in postseason play once in the first round of the WCHA Playoffs in 2012. North Dakota earned a two-game series victory over BSU at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

Most games in their series have been played on the road in Grand Forks, N.D., with 66 percent of their games taking place in Grand Forks.

Bemidji State is 3-24-4 when playing in Grand Forks and since Ralph Engelstad Arena opened for the 2001-02 season, the Beavers are 2-19-4 in the historic arena.

The Beavers latest victory in the 11,500-seat arena came just two seasons ago after Beavers prevented a North Dakota comeback when Ross Armour scored 53 seconds into overtime to send the Beavers to a 4-3 overtime victory over the then ranked No. 7 Fighting Hawks. Then junior Kyle Looft scored 47 seconds into the game for the Beavers’ first goal.

Last season, the two teams played a home-and-home series with the Beavers going 0-1-1. BSU tied the opening game 3-3 at Sanford Center before falling 4-2 in the series finale in Grand Forks.

Beaver head coach Tom Serratore is 4-28-7 when coaching against the Fighting Hawks in his 23 seasons at the helm of the BSU Men’s Hockey program.

Senior Jackson Jutting leads the team with 12 career games versus North Dakota with 10 from when he played two seasons at Colorado College. In 12 games, he has two assists and 13 shots and earned an assist in last year’s series as a Beaver.

Four Beavers lead all active skaters with two career points against the Fighting Hawks. Jutting (2a), Kyle Looft (1g-1a), Jakub Lewandowski (1g-1a) and Lleyton Roed (1g-1a) lead the Beavers in scoring against UND.

Senior Gavin Enright has seen the most time in net against UND and in two starts he is 0-2-0 with a 3.61 goals against average and .879 save percentage.

In one start, junior Mattias Sholl is 0-0-1 with a 2.77 goals against average and .903 save percentage.

Bemidji State remains out of the USAToday/The Rink Live and USCHO.com top-20 national polls while the Fighting Hawks moved up from No.2 to the top-ranked team in both national polls.

The Beavers are 3-21-3 when facing the top-ranked team since the polls debuted at the start of the DI era in 1999-00.

BSU’s last win against the No. 1 ranked team was Jan. 24, 2015 upsetting No. 1 Minnesota State University, Mankato to claim the North Star College Cup.

Bemidji State has never upset the Fighting Hawks when they were the top-ranked team, going 0-5-1.

Bemidji State sits atop the Central Collegiate Conference standings with 13 league points and a 4-4-0 league record. It is coming off a series split with Minnesota State in Mankato.

North Dakota is second in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference standings with 12 league points and are a perfect 4-0-0 in league play. The Fighting Hawks are coming off a series sweep of Miami University and have won their last five games.

Exactly a week following the largest comeback in the Beavers’ DI era, erasing a 4-0 deficit against Michigan Technological University to win 6-4 in regulation, Bemidji State rallied from a 5-2 deficit to defeat Minnesota State 7-6 last Saturday.

Kyle Looft helped fuel the comeback posting three assists in the series finale while Jackson Jutting scored two goals including the game-winning goal.

Looft paced the team with three points in the series and was named the CCHA Defenseman of the Week for the second consecutive week and his third of the season.

Looft has had a scorching start to his fifth season, leads the team with 15 points (5g-10a) and is the CCHA’s leading defenseman and tied for second in DI.

The Mankato, Minn., native has collected a point in eight-of-12 games this season including three career-high, three-point nights.

He has eclipsed his previous career high for points in season by seven points in just 12 games this season. He has compiled 40 points (14g-26a) and is one game shy of tying Beaver great Brad Hunt for most career games played by a BSU defenseman.

Looft is ninth among active DI skaters with 149 career games played.

He is also one of the best defenseman in the defensive zone, carrying a team-high +5 rating into the weekend and is tied for sixth in the CCHA with 19 blocked shots.

After slow start recording just one point over the first four games, freshman Eric Pohlkamp has found his stride at the Beaver blueline and has seven points (3g-4a) over the last eight games.

Senior Jackson Jutting has also stepped his game up and over the last four games, he has five points off three goals and two assists. Over the last four games, he is a +2 skater and has won 59.2 percent of his face-offs (42-71).

Pohlkamp leads the team with a three-game point streak (3g-1a) and has scored a goal in the last three games.

Sophomore Lleyton Roed leads the team with eight goals and has totaled 11 points, second-most on the team. He is tied for fourth in the CCHA in goals and tied for ninth in points.

18 different Beavers have recorded a point and have seen 12 different goal scorers.

22 of the Beavers’ 35 goals this season have been scored by underclassmen (62.9 percent).

Bemidji State has surrendered the first goal in eight-of-12 games this season and are being out-scored 10-21 in the first period. The Beavers have responded out-scoring opponents 24-21 in the second and third periods including 14-12 in the third.

Bemidji State’s power play has scored on nine of 55 chances (.164) to sit fifth in the CCHA.

BSU’s power play has clicked as of late and is 4-of-18 (.222) over the last four games.

The Beavers’ penalty kill needs improvement and has allowed a power-play goal in four straight games.

BSU ranks eighth in the CCHA in penalty kill percentage (.658) and have allowed 13 power-play goals on 38 chances.

The Beavers are one of the least penalized teams in the nation however, leading the CCHA and sixth in DI with just 85 team penalty minutes.

Bemidji State is sixth in the nation with 179 blocked shots led by Tony Follmer who is third in the CCHA with 23 blocked shots.

2023-24 is the 68th season of Bemidji State Men’s Hockey and 25th in Division I. The Beavers are 1,176-691-150 (.620) in 67 seasons and 390-397-102 (.496) in Division I.

Head coach Tom Serratore enters his 23rd season at the helm of the Bemidji State Men’s Hockey program. He is 373-351-97 (.513) in his coaching career.

Serratore stands 12th in career victories among active head coaches in Division I and his career winning percentage of .513 is 31st.

Since taking over the Bemidji State Men’s Hockey program in 2001, Serratore’s teams have achieved six regular-season conference championships, three CHA tournament titles, five NCAA Tournament appearances, one NCAA Frozen Four appearance (2009) and is a seven-time conference Coach of the Year.

Fifth-year senior Kyle Looft made his return to the Beaver Hockey program and was voted by his teammates to lead the 2023-24 Beavers on and off the ice as the team’s captain.

He is assisted by fellow fifth-year senior Carter Jones as well as seniors Eric Martin and Jackson Jutting who will wear the “A”.