Crookston High School Seniors and hockey players Quinn Westlake and Leyton Salentine are continuing the work that started last year to memorialize all the past high school hockey teams in Crookston from Mount St. Benedict, Crookston Central, and now the boy’s and girl’s teams at Crookston High School. Currently, the team photos are complete for Mount St. Benedict Hockey and Pirate Girl’s Hockey with the students currently working on the Pirate Boy’s Hockey railings.
Westlake and Salentine, with occasional help from other hockey players or classmates, work on the railings during the Advanced Woodworking class at Crookston High School Salentine explains. “Pretty much the arena has these boards by the walking track,” said Salentine. “We are taking them down, stripping them, and then putting plexiglass and pictures of the old hockey teams in them.”
Scott Kleven collects the photos of the teams to be put into the display explained instructor Travis Oliver. “Scott Kleven approached me last fall about doing these display boards of past hockey teams in Crookston,” said Oliver. “This year we’re trying to get the CHS ones done. I don’t know how far we’re going to get. They work on them during class, take them out, install them. They might take another one out, they might not based on the usage of the arena at the time. The plan would be eventually to get all the boards looking the same and completed.”
Westlake said helping create the boards is a way to give back and see some familiar faces who played before him. “I thought it would be cool to put this together in the arena, look at all the old hockey teams and give back to the hockey program,” said Westlake. “It’s good to remember the old teams and see familiar faces back when they played on the team.”
Salentine added assisting with the project will also be a pretty cool memory down the road when visiting the sports center. “I feel like it’s a good way to give back to the hockey community,” said Salentine. “With all the things they’ve done for us its just good to give back and do something for them. And when you come back and look at it in 20 years and say – hey look at that, I did that. It will just be kind of a cool memory to have.”
