Profiles in Profile: Kyle Kosior Live | February 1, 2023

We are now in the thick, THE THICK, of the winter hockey season. Between our eleven-year-old’s travel team, our seven-year-old’s league and fun skates, and Kyle’s job with the hockey agency, we spend so much time at various rinks that I’m thinking about getting an Airstream and rolling it from parking lot to parking lot so that I can take my ~~pants~~ shoes off between games.

While we spend the bulk of our non-work waking hours at the rink – a couple of Sundays ago, Kyle was there from 6:30am to 8:00pm and I was there from 8:00am on because I am the suckier parent – we don’t actually spend any time together. One kid is always in the locker room or on the ice, the other is running around with his friends or at the concession stand, and Kyle is as far away from me as physically possible without having to actually leave the building.

Kyle likes to watch hockey. He likes to WATCH it. He does not like to chit-chat about post-game lunch, or browse the wares at the concession stand, or hold my coffee while I go outside to the car to take my ~~pants~~ shoes off. He likes to WATCH. HOCKEY. He likes to WATCH IT.

He also wants to remain married to me. He wants to REMAIN MARRIED. Because he wants to remain married to me, he cannot say, “Amanda, shut your piehole about the meltiness of the cheese at the concession stand and watch frickin’ hockey,” and so, instead, Kyle has found a way to avoid me by streaming the games on Facebook Live for his twenty-person throng of adoring fans.

He streamed for the first time last year. We were in Devils Lake, and he stood at the back of the bleachers on the side of the rink opposite from me and used the camera on his phone to follow the play.

“I’m doing this for your dad,” he told me. “He wanted to see the game.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

He streamed again the next day in Grand Forks…at a place with a Rink Cam that could be accessed online. This time, he called out penalties and goals and player names.

“Your dad can’t hear the sound on the Rink Cam,” he said. “It’s for your dad.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

The following weekend, Kyle started doing play-by-play for his audience of three: my dad, and two grandmas who didn’t want to drive in the cold. He also added in some light color, notably by proclaiming that the stream was sponsored (it was not) by a business owned by one of our friends: Great Plains Plumbing and Heating.

“This game brought to you by Great Plains Plumbing and Heating,” he said into his phone. “Great Plains Plumbing and Heating: We’re coming in hot!” (That is not their tagline.)

Both my dad and Kyle thought he was very funny.

A few days later, my dad presented Kyle with two lavalier microphones that plugged into his phone and clipped onto jacket lapels. A month after that – now with ten-plus grandmas and grandpas on the stream who tuned in primarily to hear their grandchild’s names and secondarily for Kyle’s commentary (“We’re broadcasting live from Minot; so close to Canada you can smell the taxes”) – the other parents gave him a t-shirt with “NACHO AVERAGE COMMENTATOR” written across the back. And, with that, Kyle became the self-proclaimed official gameday network of all of our sons’ hockey teams in perpetuity.

Less than thirty days later, Kyle’s official status became a bit of a problem at the start of Eleven’s spring hockey season because another dad on the team (a different group than the winter season) was ALSO the official gameday network of his own sons’ hockey teams. Fortunately, that dad had a nicer phone and Kyle had a nicer microphone setup, so they joined forces with the other dad on play-by-play and camera work and Kyle on color and microphone ownership. His Emmy-nominated line of the season was, “Looks like he’s getting that penalty for, um…reasons.” Great Plains Plumbing and Heating was, once again, an unwilling and unpaid sponsor.

Fast-forward to this winter season. Now a seasoned broadcaster, and the owner of a gimble thanks to a generous gift from another hockey family (while Kyle’s commentary is spot-on, his camera work leaves something to be desired – especially since he likes to WATCH HOCKEY and sometimes forgets that he’s holding a camera), Kyle’s production has been taken to the next level. For example, he has more unsigned sponsors, including Spicer Container and Salvage (“Spicer Container and Salvage: Get That Stuff Out of Here”) and North Dakota Nice (“North Dakota Nice: [Our street address]’s most popular blog, 2021”). He has added in a section called “Profiles in Profile,” in which he turns to whomever is seated nearest to him, points the camera on the side of their face, and asks what they think of the game (Spoiler: everyone thinks the boys are doing a good job).

Kyle also has taken to including guest announcers whenever possible – selected, like “Profiles in Profile,” based on proximity. As most of the parents have figured out that if you sit next to Kyle he’s going to hand you a mic, the majority of his co-commentators are children. Our own seven-year-old did the first period at a recent game, during which Kyle asked him how he expected the next hour to go.

“Well, it’s either going to go really, really good, or really, really bad,” Seven said.

“Hard to contradict that,” Kyle said in response.

Fortunately, Kyle’s demographic is almost entirely over 60 or under 8, so these guests do very well. In fact, one of the grandmas routinely asks for updates on her own granddaughter sitting in the stands.

Another one of those grandmas also suggested that Kyle stream her other grandson’s Peewee game.

“Haha,” Kyle said, but not in a real HAHA way, more like in a “Maybe” way, which made me a little nervous because we don’t really need any more rink time. I’m considering asking him to start a lawn dart league so I can at least sit outside (pants optional).

Last weekend, our son’s team played the other Grand Forks team at a tournament. It was quite the competition – for the dads – because pictured here is Kyle and his co-presenter (the dad mentioned above) having to call the game on two separate, competing streams. This is as close as I was allowed to get.

Bring yo’ kids’ best smiles; the North Dakota State College of Science Allied Dental Education Clinic is providing free dental work on February 10. (Wahpeton Daily News)

Cavalier’s Ava Robinson won the junior Beargrease as a 14-year-old and is now preparing for the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. (Valley News Live)

Best of luck to Wyndmere’s McKinnlee Haberman, winner of the local 2023 Poetry Out Loud contest, who is now headed to the national competition. (Wahpeton Daily News)

For communities without a public library, there is now a book vending machine. (Hillsboro Banner)

The Fargo community came out to support a new supermarket, owned by a brother-sister duo who came to North Dakota after escaping Vietnam. (Fargo Forum)

I did not know this was a thing until now: congratulations to the winners of the Barnes County Wildlife Annual Coyote Calling Contest – the results of which (by number of coyotes called) are listed here. (Valley City Times Record)

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Somehow, they manage | January 11, 2023

A month or so ago, Kyle texted me at work and said, “Do you want to be the team manager?”

To which I replied, “I’m sorry, I regretfully have to pass; thank you for asking.” (I actually think I said, “No frickin’ way,” but this is my story and I’ll tell it how I want.)

Our eleven-year-old is in his second year as a Squirt hockey player. Grand Forks Youth Hockey recently kicked off the travel portion of the Squirt winter season, meaning the kids now play teams in other cities and not just one another. The “team manager” Kyle referred to is a Mom who somehow miraculously finds an extra ten hours in a day to arrange all of the non-game activities that come along with toting around fifteen kids and their families from place to place. Specifically:

Selecting hotels and negotiating room blocks. A good hockey hotel is located close to the rink; offers rooms with enough space for a hockey bag to be opened and everything inside to spread out to dry without stinking up an entire family’s worth of clothing, snacks, drinks, pool toys, blankets, pillows, takeout pizza boxes, and extra children; serves a free breakfast; has a pool and/or a place for everyone to hang out between games (preferably away from other guests on the RARE occasion someone isn’t giddy with excitement about relaxing in the middle of the equivalent of a Mardi Gras parade); and costs $100 a night. Did I mention that sometimes the rinks are located in a town with only one option…and it’s an 8-room motel with a shared bathroom and you have to take one of those Tom Sawyer rafts to the rink?
Ordering stuff. In addition to the briefcases full of cash regularly doled out for skates, pads, helmets, gloves, sticks, practice jerseys, Gatorade, registration fees, gas, hotel rooms, and takeout pizza boxes, it is widely agreed that our little popsicles need promo items to effectively play hockey. From hats to eight-person ice houses – if you can embroider a last name and a jersey number on it, the team manager has to source, organize, order, distribute, and troubleshoot it. Also, it sure would be nice if the kids had gift bags filled with tape, snacks (the aforementioned hotel room snacks don’t count), energy chews, knee hockey pucks, and stickers, wouldn’t it? Yeah, it would.
Coordinating team meals, social activities, and related. Turns out, restaurants aren’t immediately ready for 50 people who need to eat, drink, and get out of there in an hour. Who knew? Fortunately, that’s only one person’s problem – the team manager.
Doing actual management things. Grand Forks Youth Hockey gives every team manager a backpack filled with all sorts of important gameday items – like, you know, the record book and the First Aid kit. And, like, you know, Grand Forks Youth Hockey expects someone to do whatever it is they do with all of those objects…which, I wouldn’t know, since I’m not the team manager.

“No problem,” Kyle said. “I’m sure Youth Hockey will find someone.”

Later that night, after the kids had been scrubbed down and put to bed, Kyle said to me,

“Good news! We have a team manager.”

And then I said,

“Great! Who is it?”

And then Kyle said,

“This Other Dad and I are going to split it.”

So then I said,

“No.”

We blinked at each other for a while.

“Why not?” Kyle asked.

“Because,” I said. “It has to be a second-year mom.” (PS, kids play Squirts for two years, so a second-year mom is someone who has a kid that has already been a Squirt for a year.)

“Why?” He said.

“Because,” I said. “That’s just the way it’s done.”

“But why?” He said.

“Because the second-year moms learn from the previous year’s second-year moms,” I said, exasperated. “You were never a first-year mom, so you’re not going to know what to do…which means [deep breath, pause for dramatic effect] NOW I’M GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT.”

“Oh, that’s no big deal,” he said, brushing me off. “You can tell me what to do. Besides, the other team manager is our friend, and she can help us. Like a partnership!”

“Harumph, Kyle,” I said. “HARUMPH.”

The next day, Kyle met me for lunch.

“We got the hotel for the Duluth tournament,” he said. “I also went to the embroiderer and picked out a beanie for the boys.”

“Harumph,” I said.

“The Other Dad is going to coordinate the book and the box workers for this weekend,” he said. “And check it out – he made a song playlist for between whistles.”

“Harumph,” I said, and then, “What about the door signs?”

“What door signs?” Kyle asked.

Every year, the moms and grandmas get together during a practice to paint large paper signs for the front doors of our houses. These signs have the kids’ names and numbers and say something like, “Go team!” to make it easier for burglars to figure out who is out of town for the weekend.

Kyle pulled out his phone and typed something.

“Okay, one of the moms said she’d be in charge of the door signs,” Kyle said. “By the way, I was thinking we should organize a group dinner after the Park River game.”

“Harumph, Kyle,” I said, pulling out my own phone. “Fine. Here’s a restaurant in Park River with a kid’s menu. I’ll call them after we eat.”

“I called them already,” Kyle said. “They are going to get a bunch of tables ready for us.”

“Oh,” I said, and then, MORE BEGRUDGINGLY THAN ANY PERSON HAS EVER BEGRUDGED, “That’s nice.”

We’ve now had two weekends’ worth of games – and in the most annoying situation ever, Kyle and the Other Dad continue to do a good job as co-team managers. I keep telling myself it’s because all of us moms have such low expectations for their output that whatever they do seems acceptable – but they approach everything with such gusto that it’s hard to find fault. They send messages! They buy pin bags! They hang out with other dads in the scorer’s box! They bring the backpack to the rink! They take the backpack back home! Sure, the moms have had to redo a few things, but overall they are a major success; so much so, that I’m thinking Grand Forks Youth Hockey should always have dads be team managers – second-year dads, of course.

The photo above is of one of our two team managers.

The Three River Crisis Center in Wahpeton had 1,762 (after finding one hidden away!) pairs of undergarments under the tree this year. (Wahpeton Daily News)

In North Dakota-adjacent news, Red Lake Falls’ Alex Gullingsrud is back on the ice. (Grand Forks Herald)

This is a story about a clock. (KFYR TV)

Teen author and Lansford-ian Lindsey Undlin has written a second book. (Minot Daily News)

Fargo’s Russ and Robin Nelson ate at a different locally-owned restaurant every week and wrote about it on Facebook. (Fargo Forum)

Trust no one at the Dickinson Public Schools Foundation’s annual murder mystery dinner. (Dickinson Press)

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Goalie Mom, or a brief lesson in unclenching | December 7, 2022

When my eleven-year-old was around seven, he came home from hockey practice and announced he wanted to be a goalie.

“Great!” My husband said.

“Erm,” I said.

Here was my concern: hockey is a team sport, but the goalie’s mistakes stand alone. In fact, sometimes, the goalie shoulders the burden of the entire team’s mistakes; for example, we were recently at a University of North Dakota hockey game and UND scored on the opposing team’s net.

“Sieve, sieve, sieve, sieve!” the crowd shouted at the goalie while the goal replayed on the screen.

“See that,” Kyle (as a reminder, a hockey agent) said, pointing at one of the opposing defensemen. “He lost his man.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, even though I didn’t see because my knowledge of the intricacies of hockey stops at whether they serve hot dogs or brats at the concession stand, and also because it’s hard to keep your eye on everyone when there are ten people quickly chasing a small black disk on a big sheet of ice (and you’re busy eating a brat).

Anyways, I didn’t want my sweet, doe-eyed seven-year-old to face that negative attention, warranted or unwarranted.

“How about this,” I said. “You can play goalie for your Tuesday practices, and play out for your Thursday practices.”

“I want to play goalie all the time,” he said.

“Let’s start with Tuesdays,” I said.

That plan lasted exactly one week. On the second Thursday, I popped by the rink after work to pick up our toddler from Kyle and wave to the big boy. Shore ‘nough, I found him out on the ice in his borrowed goalie equipment.

“I thought we agreed on Tuesdays,” I said to Kyle.

“He wouldn’t get dressed otherwise,” Kyle said.

That first year, he let in approximately nine billion goals. I sat in the stands scrunched like an old dried-up sponge, searching his face behind his mask for an anticipated torrent of tears. They never came; instead, he’d dance along to the music that would play during the whistle.

He was still wearing borrowed equipment by his second season – “I don’t want to spend the money if he’s not going to stick with it,” The Killer of Joy told Kyle – although I had willingly agreed to pay for goalie lessons because I needed another thing to obsess over. Before every practice, lesson, or game I’d say to our son, “Have fun and do your best,” and then spend the next hours and days fretting over why he wasn’t paying enough attention, or getting his stick down fast enough, or saving every shot, or whether the other goalies were better and if they were and he was cut from the team would he have any friends anymore and should we just pack up and move right this second to a town in the middle of the desert that had never seen ice? WELL SHOULD WE?

Of course, I didn’t want to share these neuroses with an eight-year-old, so instead I’d tamp down every emotion into a tight ball and ask with the eyes of a psychopath, “Do you still like being a goalie, buddy?” And our son would always answer, “Yes!”

Once, I decided to mention a few of these anxieties to my best friend, who has neither children nor any interest in youth sports. After a loooooooong pause, she said, “I don’t think he needs goalie camp, I think you need Valium.”

Fast-forward another year, to when my parents met us for one of the final games of the season. I was sitting in the stands next to my mother, who was talking away about something when she stopped and asked, “Are you holding your breath?”

“Yes, I guess I am,” I said, exhaling quickly.

“Why?”

“I’m nervous,” I said.

“About this game?”

“About everything,” I said.

“Well, what is the point of THAT?” She asked, as if I had told her I owned more than one can opener. “It’s a game, Amanda. Games are meant to be fun. Is he having fun?”

She pointed to my son, who was zipping around in his net.

“Yes,” I said.

“If he doesn’t do well, are you going to go out there and play for him?” She asked.

“No,” I said.

“Then you can either have fun or not have fun, or be nervous or not be nervous, but none of those things are going to change the outcome of this game.” Then she went back to whatever she was talking about before, probably can openers.

I thought about what she said all summer, through baseball and road trips and goalie equipment shopping trips (because I’m not a total monster). I thought about it while we were packing up for his first fall hockey tournament, and while we were walking into the rink for the first game.

“Have fun, buddy,” I said, with a depth of emotion that can only come with total enlightenment – because that was what I was going to do: enjoy myself, and my son’s time in the sport.

“Okay,” my son said, not giving a crap about my spiritual growth at all.

Today, fifteen zillion games later, my younger son has also decided to become a goalie. At one his first games, he got tired of playing, leaned his arm up on the back of his net, and just…let in goals for a while. Kyle and I were standing together and we burst out laughing (and then knocked on the glass to get him to pay attention). I may not have yet achieved total Zen, but at least I was having a good time.

“Man, I don’t know how you can stand to be a goalie parent,” one of the moms said to me after the game. “It would be too stressful for me.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” I told her.

The photo above was taken by photographer Jeff Wegge. My older son (then eight years old) got to play with the Little Chippers during the first intermission of the UND game. As you can see by his face, he had a REALLY good time.

Caitlynn Towe, Myah Johnson, and MacKenzie Olson of Rugby, Hazen, and Watford City, respectively, are on their way to New York to sing at Carnegie Hall. (KFYR TV)

A Bismarck non-profit called Badlands Search and Rescue now has a pup named Copper. (KFYR TV)

In North Dakota-adjacent news, Breckenridge’s Jared Hoechst was recently honored for saving an elderly couple from a burning vehicle. (KFYR TV)

In celebration of her birthday, West Fargo’s Gowri Pillai has donated 5,000 pounds of food – her 10^th year of gathering food donations. (KVRR)

This is a sweet little read about memories. (Minot Daily News)

Bismarck’s Christian and Wilfried Tanefeu had Thanksgiving dinner with their new friend, Kelly Ripa. (KFYR TV)

Minot’s Josh Duhamel – you may have heard of him – is the voice of the main character of a new video game. (Fargo Forum)