ALBANY, N.Y. — When Minnesota Duluth senior defenseman and captain Joey Pierce looks back and reflects on his final season as a Bulldog, it won’t be
that 4-3 NCAA regional final loss to Michigan
that first comes to mind.
“I didn’t say much after the game, but I did tell them this is the last group that got to know Hoagie, and he was the ultimate Bulldog,” Pierce said. “He showed up every single day. This is the last group that got to see that and I told them to never forget that.”
Dale “Hoagie” Haagenson, the UMD Hall of Famer and assistant equipment manager,
was considered the heart and soul of the Bulldogs men’s hockey programs.
He suffered a stroke on Christmas Day 2025 and
died at the age of 65 on Feb. 17.
Minnesota Duluth senior captain and defenseman Joey Pierce during an NCAA regional practice on Thursday, March 26 at MVP Arena in Albany, New York.
Dylon Field / UMD Athletics
Pierce was particularly close to Haagenson,
having first met Hoagie while in high school playing for the Hermantown Hawks. Pierce grew up in Ely before moving to Hermantown for high school, while Haagenson was a native of Babbitt before coming to Duluth and joining the Bulldogs in 1981.
During his four seasons at UMD, Pierce often brought Hoagie to Amsoil Arena for practices and on gameday. The team began taping a photo of Hoagie outside their locker rooms on the road while he was hospitalized, and continued to do so after he passed away, even at MVP Arena in Albany during the regional.
Minnesota Duluth forward Zam Plante (27) wears a sticker in memory of Dale “Hoagie” Haagenson on Friday, Feb. 27 at Amsoil Arena in Duluth.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
The Bulldogs sported ‘00’ stickers in memory of Hoagie on their helmets after he died, and hung Hoagie’s ‘00’ jersey on the bench at home and on the road.
UMD was in the midst of a slump when Hoagie died on Feb. 17, having started the new year 2-6 in NCHC play. The Bulldogs went on the road and
swept Miami on Feb. 20-21 in Oxford, Ohio,
to lock up a home NCHC quarterfinal series, and finished the season 6-3-1.
Pierce grew up watching the Bulldogs play for NCHC and NCAA championships. After three losing seasons as a freshman, sophomore and junior, Pierce finally got to play for an NCHC title two weeks ago at Denver and in an NCAA tournament last weekend in Albany.
Pierce said it was “pretty special” to be part of the Bulldogs this season, and to be their captain.
“This program means to much to me. The guys I’ve been able to play with, I’ve become best friends with just about every single one,” Pierce said. “There’s not many places where every single day you go and show up, you know you’re doing it for something bigger than yourself. I don’t know if I’ll ever find that again. I’m so grateful for having that here in Duluth. This group is special, this program is special. I hope I left it in a better place than I found it.”
Minnesota Duluth associate head coach Adam Krause coaches the Bulldogs during an NCAA regional practice on Thursday, March 26 at MVP Arena in Albany, New York.
Dylon Field / UMD Athletics
If anyone inside the locker room at MVP Arena has an idea of what Pierce was going through Sunday night following the loss to Michigan, it was Bulldogs associate head coach Adam Krause.
Also a native of Hermantown, Krause captained the Bulldogs back to the NCAA tournament in 2014-15 as a senior after the program failed to get a bid his sophomore and junior year. UMD fell a game and a goal short of making the Frozen Four,
losing to Jack Eichel and Boston University 3-2 in a regional final
in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“It hurts,” Krause said of losing those games, especially for those whose college career is over. “You got to sit in it a little bit. Ii feels a bit empty, feels a little bit, misguided. It makes you realize how important this was. That was the feeling I remember. You hurt for them because you remember those feelings.”
The Bulldogs lost another regional final the following season, 3-2, to Boston College in Worcester, Massachusetts —
scoring two third-period goals to nearly erase a 3-0 deficit
— before finally getting back to the NCAA Frozen Four in 2017, where UMD lost in the NCAA title game to Denver.
Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin has coached UMD to three NCAA titles (2011, 2018 and 2019), but also seven regional final defeats. He said Sunday that “Sometimes you have to go through these tough losses to really realize how hard it is to do.”
With a potential 21 players coming back next season, Sandelin said he expects this group to “dig in” for another run, and so does Krause, who finally got that national title as an assistant coach in 2019.
“We got back in the fight and it felt good to get back in the fight,” Krause said Sunday. “It took some teams to experience these loses before we went on some of those runs we did. They’re very important. You feel it. You don’t want to forget about it. You want to sit in it a little bit. You want to make sure you’re learning from it and use it for motivation.”