A Kamsack hockey player, who as a member of the Fargo Force was forced off the ice in January due to an injury, was hoping for his team to win and at least tie at two games on the weekend in order to make the playoffs with the United States Hockey League.
Last week, Jarod Hilderman, son of Rod Hilderman and Maureen Humeniuk of Kamsack, was hoping that the Fargo Force would make it to the playoffs of the top Junior A hockey League in the USA.
In January 2015, Jarod was profiled in the Times after he had scored two of the three goals that gave Team West the victory in the Canadian Junior Hockey League Prospects Game. A defenCeman with the Penticton Vees and one of 12 players from the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL) on Team West, Jarod had scored the winning goal with just 7.3 seconds left in the third period in the game against Team East.
The Vees ended the 2015 season by winning the BCHL Junior A championship and the team went on to the semifinals of the Royal Bank Cup in Portage la Prairie, Man., where the team lost in overtime, his father said.
Although Jarod was traded to the Olds Grizzlies of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, he decided that if he was not playing with the Vees he would try the USHL, which is the same league that Jayden Schwartz, whose parents are from Kamsack, had played in before going to Colorado.
“I saw it as a new challenge,” Jarod said last week, adding that he had chosen to go with the Fargo Force.
“The Force was the first team to reach out to me,” he said. “I liked the city and it seemed like a good fit.”
Jarod’s uncle Bob had played in Moorehead, N.D. and Jarod knew guys on the team, Rod added.
On the Force, Jarod, who celebrated his 19th birthday on Monday, is being coached by Carey Eades, a previous coach at the University of North Dakota and the coach of the USHL 2015 champions.
“First off, Jarod is a real good teammate,” Eades said last week. “He has lots of fire and exuberance that rubs off on everybody.
“He had started to come into his own, but then got hurt in January and missed two months,” he said. “Now that he’s come back, he is helping the team any way he can.”
On April 7, Jarod said that the Force has only two games left in the regular season, and the team needed to win one and at least tie the other in order to make the playoffs. Those games were to have been played on Friday and Saturday.
On November 12, Jarod signed a national letter of intent to play with the University of Minnesota Deluth Bulldogs this fall on a hockey scholarship, his father said.
Jarod was having a great season this year until January 16 when one of his fingers broke in a slashing during a game. He needed surgery.
Because of the injury, Jarod missed 25 games, his father said. “He has been back for only three games.”
At the time of his injury, he was the leading scoring defenseman on the team, his father said. “Now that he’s back, he has been playing forward.”
In spite of the injury, Jarod said he is feeling very good about his hockey career.
Returning to the team after missing 25 games, Eades said Jarod was like a sparkplug for the team and he was looking forward to the last two games.
After taking some summer classes in Duluth in May and June, Jarod said he will be preparing for classes which will be starting in mid-August.
