Roseau vs Warroad, Grade School Basketball  

 
        While the Saturday game between Warroad and Roseau didn’t have the significance of the Thursday night girl’s hockey game between the two schools, it didn’t lack for drama. The two teams played to a regulation 20-20 tie. No one scored in the first overtime. In the second overtime, first Warroad scored a point on a free throw, then Roseau managed to put the ball through the hoop for two just before the buzzer and held on to win the game. This particular game was the fifth grade championship game for the Saturday tournament in Roseau for fourth, fifth and sixth grade girls. 

        Craig Oftedahl was on the sidelines serving as assistant to Coach Darin Spenst for the Warroad team. As is usually the case, one of Craig’s daughters, Teresa, plays on the team. Oftedahl’s day job is District 690 (Warroad) Superintendent of Schools. He’d coached the girls to a win earlier in the day to get to the finals but was assistant for this game.

Warroad had three teams in the finals but ended up with three silver medals. Roseau took gold in the fourth and fifth grade finals and East Grand Forks had a skilled sixth grade team that waltzed to a gold in the other final.

Right: A Lady Ram tries to strip the ball from a Lady Warrior.

Diane Saurdiff sat on the balcony at the curtain separating the two courts where the fourth and fifth grade finals were being played. She was wearing a Roseau Rams sweatshirt, watching granddaughters play on each side. Sadie, daughter of Roseau fifth grade team Coaches Heidi and Bill Petersen was playing on one side and granddaughter Torie was playing on the Roseau fourth grade team on the other side. Granddaughter Katie was keeping stats for the fifth grade game.

“I was watching my grandson play this morning for a Warroad Squirt B hockey team at Warroad.” says Diane, “I got in the car, changed out of my Warriors shirt, into my Rams shirt and came over here to watch my granddaughters play!”  She was ecstatic when Sadie scored the winning basket.

Another parent came by and commented that she often had to follow Diane’s strategy of sitting in the middle when she had two children playing on adjoining courts.

Left: Diane Saurdiff watches granddaughters on both courts during the championship round.

The final score of the overtime fifth grade game was 22-21. The other Roseau/Warroad fourth grade final score was 34-7.

While the Lady Warriors won the Thursday Hockey game 3-2 in overtime, now bragging rights go to the little Lady Rams this year for their elementary girl’s basketball tournament performance. However, there are those who say, “just wait until next year…”

Right: The ball goes through the hoop in the fourth grade title game as Warroad scores.

Southwest Angle  

by Rob Crowe

        I’m in a quandary. After covering the Red Lake I-500 Sno-Cat race and finding out that my old neighbor from Grand Rapids, Paul Dick, had won the Legends 50+ division, I have the itch to do some racing myself.

        I have a few problems here. Unlike Paul, who is a member of Dick Distributing, a company that distributes well known brands of Beer, I don’t have the bucks to purchase a competitive machine and all the necessary support equipment. I’d have to sweet talk Management into letting me use the Aerostar for a tow vehicle. That would be child’s play compared to the task of talking her into letting me buy a 2009 Polaris 600 Dragon SB.

I did have an alternate plan for about 30 seconds. I walked into the Blue Star Experience Center and asked if I could check out a machine for the weekend in March that theSeven Clans 125 Presented by Polaris would be held. Sharp as tacks, Janet and Linda saw through my ploy and shot me down pretty doggone quick. No Racing!!! The user pays for any damage!!! Janet recommended that I use my old Pole-Cat. Needless to say, they didn’t write me down for that weekend. Crestfallen, I slunk out of the Experience Center to lick my wounds.

Maybe I can fix up Trapper’s old Mustang sitting out behind the shop to run in a vintage race somewhere, you know, the ‘66 model with various letters of the Polaris emblem broken out to spell LAR S, no seat, no rear idler and no engine. Other than that, it should be an easy rebuild…

I’ll keep you posted as to my progress on becoming a bona-fide snow-cat racer.

Last weekend was interesting in that the Little Girls were off school on Friday. That day, I had to take them to Goodridge for a pair of basketball games.

Saturday held the specter of more basketball, this time in Roseau. Actually, it was a good day, watching Alyssa and Katelyn play in three games apiece. Valeri found some friends to play with for most of the day on the balcony walking track at the Roseau gym so she was virtually invisible for much of the day except when she was hungry. Katelyn was delighted to show off her medal and Alyssa was just as delighted to talk about the basket she made at day’s end.

I did make it out to the Pancake Logging Company site to try to help Trapper and sidekick Earl. My biggest task was to hold the birch marking pole while they cut the tree lengths into 100 inch sticks, more or less. Trucker Clayton claims they are more than less when he tries to make a legal width load, but Trapper figures that’s his problem.

An old pickup camper, sitting on its side in the middle of the Tamarac Swamp

 
Trapper took me out into the woods to show me an old pickup camper they’d found. It looked like a nice, homebuilt camper at one time, but is slowly rotting in the swamp. Anyone’s guess how it got there, the only certainty is that it was put there in the winter time, this being a bog.

Another week in the Great North, see you next week.

Snowmobile Safety Training by the Trail Blazers

A student drives past Lyle Johnson on the course set up in the playground of the Roseau School

It may have been one of the coldest weekends of the winter, but it didn’t stop the important activities of the northland. Inside the Roseau School a basketball tournament was taking place and outside on the playground, snowmobile safety training was taking place. Actually, the classroom part of the snowmobile class was taking place inside the school also.

The Roseau County Trail Blazers administered the class and Polaris supplied the snowmobiles. Janet Hetteen and Diane Anderson taught the classroom portion. Greg Anderson, Buck Bue and Lyle Johnson squired the youngsters through the driving portion of the class. A course was set up amongst the playground equipment on the playground to the west of the swimming pool at the school. Before driving the course, the students had to show that they knew how to check the operations features of the snowmobile out and could use the proper hand signals. 

Left: A student shows Buck Bue the signal for a right hand turn before taking to the course.

The Polaris RMK’s used for the training came from the Polaris Experience Center.  Instructor Janet Hetteen said, “We had 36 students in the class this year. The Officer from the DNR came on Thursday night to talk to the students. The Trail Blazers pays all the expenses for the kids to get their training.” 

The Trail Blazers are also putting on a safety training class in Badger. Kevin Wojciechowski is the instructor, please call him at 528-3352 for more details.

Right: Instructor Greg Anderson and a group of aspiring snowmobilers watch the Polaris RMK circle the course.

Mystery picture: The water is under ice right now, but sometime in the recent past it probably covered or surrounded everything in the picture.

As for last week’s picture, I received this nice letter:

Hi:  I was reading your Southwest Angle News and Views at the Roseau Public Library. I work as a substitute librarian there and I happened upon your mystery picture while I was reading it.    Much to my surprise, what I saw was our farm.  It is looking west on County Road 2 near the intersection of State Highway 89, south of Roseau 4 miles.  My husband and I have owned the farm since 1993.  It was quite a compliment to see it in your newsletter.  That elevator was built in the 1930's, according to sources who were around in that time.  We do not use it anymore to store or move grain.  We use grain augers to put the grain in our bins now as the elevator is too slow and inefficient. 

Thank you for putting the picture in your newsletter.  It must be new because I have never seen it before in the library. It is very interesting. 

Good luck with it. 

David and Teresa Dahlgren

Roseau, MN 56751

More Southwest Angle Columns

Warroad Winter Sports Schedules and Rosters

Warroad Fall Sports Schedules and Rosters