Minnesota Duluth assistant equipment manager Dale “Hoagie” Haagenson is cherished as someone who bridges present-day Bulldog hockey with what it was when he joined the program in 1981.
But as UMD associate head coach Adam Krause puts it, his and any number of fellow former Bulldog players’ relationships with Haagenson doesn’t start and end with what happens on the ice.
That was the case even before those relationships started taking on deeper meanings in the past couple of weeks.
Haagenson, 65, is currently at Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, recovering from a stroke he suffered on Christmas night. The longest-serving volunteer in UMD Athletics history — and someone Bulldog men’s hockey coach Scott Sandelin said, upon his own hiring in 2000, has a lifetime contract with the Bulldogs — Haagenson’s situation hit hard for the countless number of people that UMD has brought into his life.
An inspirational leader for both UMD’s men’s and women’s hockey teams, Haagenson’s cadre of friends intimately includes Krause. A native of nearby Hermantown, Minn., Krause grew up attending UMD home games on a regular basis, and even as a kid knew of Haagenson’s involvement. The pair met when Krause first became a Bulldog in 2011, and since then, Haagenson was in Krause’s wedding party and was the first person to hold Adam’s and wife Lexi’s two children after they did.
“It was Christmas night when (Haagenson’s stroke) happened, but then early the next morning I read a text I’d gotten about it, and as soon as I woke up, I headed to the hospital,” Adam said. “I went down with my brother and my dad, and right when I saw the text, I called the person who texted me about it, asked where he was and immediately went down to see him.
“Hoagie wasn’t communicating at the time, and he was sedated. He’s really important to my family, so it’s been hard on a personal level. Ever since then, me and my wife have been down there. We switch off days to check in on him and things like that. He’s a core person in our lives, and it’s stuff like that where I don’t see it as a working relationship. It’s never been a hockey thing with us.”
The late Mike Krensing put in a good word for fellow Babbitt, Minn., native Haagenson when Krensing first came to UMD as a player in 1979, and the rest is history. Sandelin has coached more than 1,000 games in his career, but Haagenson is believed to have been on the UMD men’s and women’s benches for twice as many.
“He’s such a friend first, a supporter of the program, and his day-to-day things are to help fill the water bottles, help put the (dry-erase) boards on the bench, making sure the pucks are on the bench, making sure the coaches have markers, making sure the jersey rack gets rolled into the locker room, making sure the guys’ hangers get back after they put their jerseys on, getting laundry to the laundry room,” Krause said.
“These things don’t impact my job much, but recently since he’s been gone, or even if he’s sick or something for a day during the season or coming back from Christmas break, whatever it is, when he’s gone, it’s noticed. We’ll go to draw up the first drill of practice and there’s no board on the glass, and those little things, for the past few weeks, that’s been the hardest thing, knowing he’s not there. It’s not just that, though. It’s the person: his personality and the conversations you have with him, that’s what sticks out about him. I don’t want to undersell what he does from a day-to-day perspective, but what makes it hard is the person who isn’t there.
“He’s goofy but he’s very intelligent in a lot of ways,” Krause continued. “He’ll tell you who played for the (MLB’s Minnesota) Twins in 1996, the whole batting order and all these things. He knows every player on the (NFL’s Minnesota) Vikings and knows their schedule by heart, and ours by heart, too. He’s light-hearted, he’s very task-focused and he takes his work to heart. He’s very energetic, he goes and says hi to the rink guys and to our women’s team’s locker room staff, then come talk to us and talk to our medical people. He’s a fun-loving, loyal guy that has been so much a part of the fabric of us. We probably took that for granted, to be honest.”
Among those who haven’t are current UMD captain Joey Pierce and two of his teammates, Hermantown products Zam and Max Plante. The latter is among the early favorites for this year’s Hobey Baker Memorial Award prize, and is days removed from representing the United States at the 2026 World Junior Championships in St. Paul, Minn.
“I think it’s probably a little different for everyone,” Krause said when asked how Haagenson’s situation has affected the team. “Younger freshmen might not have spent as much time with Hoagie, where they’ve been here half a hockey season and they’re trying to figure out college themselves, but then you have seniors like Joey, who brings Hoagie to our rink every single day and has for four years. He’s Hoagie’s ride, every day.
“I was at the hospital (Tuesday) night, and it was me and Max Plante. Hoagie has known Max and Zam Plante since they were babies. Hoagie was here with (father and 1993 Hobey Baker finalist) Derek Plante, and I know it’s been really hard on Max and Zam. Sitting with those two guys in the hospital, it’s hard but it’s cool at the same time, where you have one of the best college hockey players in the country, if not the best, wanting to get back from the World Juniors just to see Hoagie and sit with him. To have him going through that and try to be this really good player for our team this year, having him stop by the hospital for the second time this week, it means so much. The Plantes have known him forever, and there’s a lot of history there.”
A CaringBridge page has been organized to keep Haagenson’s loved ones up to date on his progress. He has been accepted into a rehabilitation program at the same Duluth hospital, and is expected to start with that program in the next handful of days.
“Getting into that next program is very important, and that’s something they’re very excited for,” Krause said of the medical team caring for Haagenson. “Getting into that means that he has some independence in areas that are very important, and that’s a positive sign. Even though I want it quicker and to have the old Hoagie back, from a medical standpoint, it’s been a positive, and as a friend of a lot of people who know him, as well as an alumnus and a current coach, it’s just been unbelievable the amount of people who have visited him. They actually had to limit his visitation hours, because it got so overwhelming.
“You just don’t realize the impact of someone like that until something happens. I’ve gotten hundreds of calls and texts since it happened to ask where things are at with him, so that’s why we started the CaringBridge site. He’s important to a lot of people, and it sounds strange, but he’s been in a lot of players’ weddings and he’s been a very important person in a lot of our lives. We’re taking care of him, he has taken care of us and we’re very lucky to have had him, and we want him to get back to a place where he can come back and be around us.”
There was a palpable void inside Duluth’s Amsoil Arena on Jan. 2, when Haagenson, a 2018 UMD Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, wasn’t on hand as UMD hosted Manitoba in exhibition action. His absence will continue being deeply felt for the time being, by the countless people whose lives he continues to touch.
“This is more than just seeing somebody at a hockey rink,” Krause said. “He comes to Christmases at our guys’ houses, he comes to Thanksgiving at our house. We fly him to different places to visit guys who have played here, and he travels everywhere with us on the road.
“With him, it’s not just that he works at Amsoil and then we don’t see him otherwise. This is a lifelong friendship. He’s not just a rah-rah guy. He means a lot to a lot of people.”