A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 254
After starting the season 0-2-1, the Minnesota Wilderness have reeled off five straight wins, including a pair of wins this past weekend at home against the Janesville Jets. "It was a nice weekend and both games were exciting right to the end," said Wilderness coach Dave Boitz. "It was a big weekend for the boys and nothing came easy." Both games ended in 6-5 wins for the Wilderness, now in fourth place in the eight-team Midwest Division of the North American Hockey League. Friday night the Wild...
Among area enterprises propelled into the Covid hotseat, Community Memorial Hospital must be our local ground zero. Demand for its care and services skyrocketed from the start, peaking in winter 2020. To explore how its management team and staff are navigating ongoing Covid cases, I sat down, adequately distanced, to talk with CEO Rick Breuer. Breuer emphasized that Covid outbreaks are not behind us. New variants are emerging. “We can tailor something that will defeat it,” Breuer notes, “bu...
The Cloquet City Council and Cloquet School Board are in the midst of a virtual faceoff over a new lease for use of the city-owned hockey arenas. Earlier this month, the school board voted unanimously to only ratify one year of a three-year lease; on Tuesday night, the council voted against approving the lease at all. Although school board chair Ted Lammi rallies annually against what he considers the gouging of the school district, this is the first time the school board has pushed back. Of...
The Karppinen Construction baseball team won the Quad City 9U Gold Division in Cloquet last weekend by beating Minnesota Wilderness 6-1. All three Cloquet teams (Holiday, Wilderness, and Karppinen) were among the last four teams standing. South Ridge A out of Alborn rounded out the semifinalists. The championship teams includes, in front, left to right Gavin Moreland, Kade Karppinen, Ryan Sorensen, Kayson Karppinen, James Carlson; back, coach Dustin Moreland, Emmett Nelson, Skylar Kuss, Will...
Cloquet City Councilors took action Tuesday to correct a large deficit in the fund that is used to pay for street projects, among other things. Councilors approved the transfer of $435,000 from the city’s General Fund into the Permanent Improvement fund, wiping out a deficit from city street overlay projects in 2017. The permanent improvement fund pays the city’s share of projects. That includes street projects, but also larger projects such as the Washington Avenue project, which also inc...
DaWayn "Dewey" Herbert Johnson, 86, of Carlton passed away peacefully at home with his family by his side July 4, 2021. Born Oct. 9, 1934, to Caroline and Herbert Johnson in Red Wing, he attended a one-room school on an island on the Mississippi River through eighth grade, then attended Red Wing High School, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin Superior for a master's degree in fine arts. Dewey taught art and physical education at Cloquet High School for more than 35...
Test your local golf knowledge with these question’s from the Pine Knot’s golf guru Steve Korby. And check out this week’s Extra, which features a guide to courses in Carlton County. 1). The new owners of the Rugged Spruce Golf Club in Mahtowa (purchased in 2020) are: a) Bobby and Julie Tamarack b) Jim and Colleen Myhre c) Fred and Grace Sappi 2). The Cloquet Country Club, established in 1923, had the same president of its board of directors for its first 14 years of operation. Who was he? a) Wi...
The National Hockey League started its Stanley Cup Playoffs May 16, and the University of Minnesota Duluth men’s hockey program has had seven alumni take part, according to a UMD hockey posting Tuesday. Two of the seven former Bulldogs have Carlton County ties: Karson Kuhlman and Kasimir Kaskisuo. Kuhlman, an Esko native and former Lumberjack hockey player, plays for the Boston Bruins. The former Bulldogs forward made his postseason debut Monday, registering an assist on Charlie Koyle’s first-period goal. He played on the third line for 12 min...
And just like that, 11,600 tree seedlings were scattered across Carlton County. The giant tree giveaway late last week was organized to honor the Pine Knot's status as the most outstanding weekly newspaper in the state and Sappi's many awards for being one of the most sustainable pulp and paper mills in the world. It was also a way of giving back to the world, as both companies need trees to keep their businesses going. With the help of Sappi, which paid for the seedlings, and Upper Lakes...
And just like that, 11,600 tree seedlings were scattered across Carlton County. The giant tree giveaway late last week was organized to honor the Pine Knot's status as the most outstanding weekly newspaper in the state and Sappi's many awards for being one of the most sustainable pulp and paper mills in the world. It was also a way of giving back to the world, as both companies need trees to keep their businesses going. With the help of Sappi, which paid for the seedlings, and Upper Lakes...
After a long and uncertain 2020-2021 season, the Minnesota Wilderness saw their season and hopes of a second Robertson Cup championship end Tuesday night as the Wilderness fell in the Central Division opening round playoffs. With the 5-4 win Tuesday at Northwoods Credit Union Arena, the Bismarck Bobcats swept the Wilderness three games to none and advanced to face either Aberdeen or Minot in the Central Division finals. After dropping two games to the Bobcats over the weekend in Bismarck, the...
Minnesota Wilderness captain Donte Lawson posed with his cousin Patrick Lawson following a game in Cloquet this month. It's crunch time for the Wilderness, as the NAHL junior hockey team heads into the Robertson Cup playoffs this weekend. Although the first two games of the series against the Bismarck Bobcats are away Friday and Saturday, the teams will be in Cloquet on May 25. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the pick drops at 7:15 p.m. at Northwoods Credit Union Arena Tuesday. Tickets are $5 at the...
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now. So why not grab some free tree seedlings and start changing the world, one tiny green growing thing at a time? Check the bottom of this story for a list of area businesses and organizations that are giving away what will be a total of 10,000 free pine and spruce tree seedlings beginning today, in partnership with the Pine Knot News and Sappi. Sappi's Chris Marland said it's a way of giving back to the community. It's...
For the first time since spring 2020, Monday’s Cloquet school board meeting was open to the public. No one came, but they could have. The change arose from a ruling on open meeting law by the Minnesota Commissioner of Administration, detailed in last week’s Pine Knot News story, “State ruling causes alarm.” The advisory opinion requires that boards allow members of the public to physically attend a meeting at which there is at least a quorum of board members (four, in the case of the Cloquet...
There’s a saying in the sports world that stats don’t lie. The Minnesota Wilderness found that out firsthand as red-hot Aberdeen flew into town for games Friday and Saturday. The Wings came into the weekend sporting a gaudy record, a potent offense, a stingy defense and they proved their mettle with a 7-1 win on Friday and a 7-2 rout on Saturday over the hometown Wilderness. “Overall they have a very deep roster that plays extremely disciplined in their structure,” said Wilderness coach Jon Val...
With about a third of the schedule remaining in the regular season, the Minnesota Wilderness find themselves smack in the middle of the Central Division standings in the North American Hockey League. The Wilderness are in fourth place - 10 points out of third place in the division. A big thorn in the Wilderness' side has been the Aberdeen Wings, but that could be said about every other team in the NAHL because Aberdeen is sporting a gaudy 39-3-1 record - the likes of which are seldom seen in the...
After a couple of coaching gigs and a trip back to school, former Minnesota Wilderness coach and Cloquet hockey star Cory Millen is back in the North American Hockey League as head coach of the St. Cloud Norsemen. "The owner of the Norsemen reached out and asked if I had any interest in coaching again," said Millen. "We had met a few times just being in the same league in years past." Millen accepted the invitation and is in the process of trying to build the Norsemen into a contender in the...
As we find ourselves in the holiest part of the year, with Easter on Sunday, we were delighted to come across the story below from 1975. It involves an innovative turn on fundraising at Cloquet's Our Savior's Lutheran Church and Pastor Gilbert Lee. The story of encouraging parishioners to take money given by the church, invest it and gain a return for the church was novel enough to make the news across the country. Given the pandemic that we hope is on its last legs, this might be an idea worth...
Wow. We received more than 40 festively colored entries in the Easter Coloring Contest in the past few weeks. Thank you to all who took part. As of presstime, we were still trying to figure out which nine will receive a treat from Premiere Theatres. All entrants will receive a coupon for Gordy's Hi-Hat and Minnesota Wilderness tickets. We are also trying to make room on our pages for all to see the works of art. Here are two that are high on our list, from Emma Skramstad, 9, right; and Colby...
Things couldn't be much busier for the Cloquet-based Minnesota Wilderness hockey team as they wrapped up seven games in a 10-day stretch this past week at Northwoods Credit Union Arena with games on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. In Thursday's 5-2 loss to the Bismarck Bobcats, things couldn't have gone much worse. After giving up a goal in the first period, the Wilderness allowed three straight goals in the second period. That put the Bobcats ahead 4-0 and forced Wilderness coach Jon Vaillancour...
It might be that early February provided the biggest punch of cold winter we'll receive this season. So the remnants of this winter will be a breeze when it comes to enjoyment without the arctic air. There are myriad ways to alleviate cabin fever in the area while still taking pandemic precautions. Here is a sampling: WALK There are many trails available in Carlton County for folks who'd like to get outside and tromp around in the snow, including trails at Jay Cooke State Park, along the St....
After a surge of visitors brought an increase in litter and damage to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness last year, officials are taking steps to head off similar problems this year. The Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota announced Friday that because of the pandemic, it once again will offer alternatives to issuing wilderness permits in-person. But in a change from last year, it’ll require people acquiring their permit online to watch three leave-no-trace education videos and review BWCAW rules before they receive their p...
Junior hockey returned to the Northland this past week as the Minnesota Wilderness opened 2021 with a pair of road games and their first home game of the season, with mixed results. The Wilderness fell in back-to-back games 3-0 on Friday and 3-2 on Saturday to the Janesville Jets on the road. Those losses were followed by an impressive 4-3 win over the Austin Bruins on Sunday evening at Northwoods Credit Union Arena. The Wilderness had the tough task of opening against Janesville, which had...
Gauge your sports knowledge with Pine Knot News writer Steve Korby’s quiz. 1) Minnesota Wilderness hockey roster players with ties to Cloquet/Esko include: a) Christian Galatz b) Dominkis Marcinkevics c) Gavin Rasmussen d) Dane Stoyanoff 2) the winner of the November 2020 Masters golf tournament was: a) Dustin Johnson b) Jason Day c) Bryson DeChambeau d) Rory McElroy 3) the champion at the 2020 and 89th Cloquet Invitational golf tournament was: a) Jamie Langenbrunner b) Brent Smith c) Alex Kolqu...
Instead of playing their home opener on Saturday night, the Minnesota Wilderness will now put a hold on hockey operations until at least late December. Following the latest executive order put out by the state of Minnesota, the local junior hockey team will be pausing its season until at least Dec. 26, general manager Dave Boitz stated in a press release. "Our players and coaches have done an outstanding job of mitigating risk and responding quickly to keep our players as healthy as possible,"...
