The students in the Crookston High School Advanced Woodworking class and their teacher Travis Oliver recently completed and added a second section of team photos to the railing on the north side of the main arena at the Crookston Sports Center. The most recent section is of Mount St. Benedict Hockey from 1967-1980. “I enjoy community projects and Leyton Salentine, Eric Delorme, and Jacob Anderson have been working on the boards we’ve completed and will potentially get one more done in the next few weeks,” said Oliver. “With the half year this year, we’ll take a hiatus until next fall and hopefully have a few more kids that want to put their stamp on the arena.”
Scott Kleven has been heading up the project and collecting team photos from Mount St. Benedict, Crookston Central and the Crookston High School boys’ and girls’ teams. Meanwhile Salentine, Delorme, and Anderson, who all currently Crookston Pirate hockey players have gotten the chance to be involved in a project that will be a part of the arena for a long time. “We took the board and cut it down to size, covered pictures of the teams in plexiglass,” said Salentine. “It gives back to a community that’s helped us out through our childhood up to playing hockey now. It’s good to give back to the rest of the community.”
Both Delorme and Anderson talked about the commemorating the history of Crookston hockey and the that the railing project is something that will be around a long time for the community to enjoy. “It’s nice to commemorate Crookston hockey and show how long the sport has been going on,” said Anderson. Delorme added, “I thought it was cool because it will be in the rink until it comes down or they build a new one.”
As of today, Oliver estimates there are another eight sections of photos to be completed, but the project will be put on hold soon with Oliver going to Fertile-Beltrami to complete his student teaching. Oliver’s last day for the school year with Crookston High School is Friday, January 4.
