Uh,
headphones?
Skates?
A
two-billed hat that reads insurance agent by weekday and hockey analyst by
weekend?
Jake
Brandt never tires of the inevitable banter that comes with plastering his name
on his own State Farm insurance office in Brainerd, Minn. In fact, he embraced
the 2011 advent of the long-running ad campaign, concomitant with the time he
established his office.
“I
get a lot of ‘what are you wearing, Jake from State Farm’? questions,” he
confessed between chuckles during an exclusive phone chat with Pucks and
Recreation.
“I
actually enjoy it. I have a lot of fun with it. I have some ‘Jake from State
Farm’ T-shirts that I give to a lot of people, and a pair of khakis.
“It’s
been something that I’ve used to get some free advertising. It’s great.”
Leave
to a former college hockey goaltender to guzzle the nectar of a good-natured
occupational jesting. Entering the fraternity of crease custodians has a way of
preparing one for that.
It
also let Brandt enter a spontaneous side gig at the Midco Sports Network with
less anxiety than he might otherwise. A 2005 graduate of the University of
North Dakota, he saw action in 60 games for the squadron formerly known as the
Fighting Sioux. That included the majority of the workload as a sophomore, then
a virtual 50-50 split with Jordan Parise the next season.
Yet
despite majoring in communications as an undergraduate, he admits to having no
formal broadcasting experience prior to the fall of 2015. His continued
involvement in hockey as a Bantam AA coach one state over, not to mention his
ties to the proud UND program, were the attraction when Midco needed a new
color commentator.
A
domino phenomenon in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks helped to precipitate the
opportunity as well. When native son Tyler Palmiscno, who overlapped with
Brandt at UND for three years, left his post as the East Grand Forks High School boys’ coach, fellow alumnus and EGF athletic director Scott Koberisnki
filled his skates.
As
it happened, Koberisnki had been complementing play-by-play voice Dan Hammer in
the Midco booth. But with ample scheduling conflicts ahead, he unplugged that
gig.
“So
they kind of brainstormed at UND and thought, ‘Who could we get that would
maybe me colorful or would maybe come and enjoy doing this?’” Brandt recalled.
Distance
would be the ostensible obstacle to dangling the offer before Brandt. Per
Google Maps, the shortest drive from Brandt’s Brainerd office to Ralph
Engelstad Arena covers 219 miles and takes an estimated three hours and 34
minutes.
That
notwithstanding, Brandt said, “I am very passionate and loyal UND fan, and I
thought it would be a great way to get reconnected back in and go to a bunch of
games.”
Adjustments and
tradeoffs
On
no less than a half-dozen occasions in each of the past two seasons, Brandt has
abbreviated his Friday at his Brainerd office. Covering a two-game series in
Grand Forks entails taking off between 11 and noon, ensuring one hour to kill
and check into a neighboring hotel before entering “The Ralph” and full
broadcaster’s mode.
Brandt
credits the men’s hockey programs sports information contact, Jayson Hajdu, and
Grand Forks Herald beat reporter Brad
Schlossman with supplying ample information for him to hit his analyst’s pond
sprinting. He also cultivates firsthand information through a phone chat with
Fighting Hawks bench boss Brad Berry on the Wednesday or Thursday before a home
series.
Working
with first-year play-by-play announcer Alex Heinert, he proceeds to mold the
material into a fast-paced session of on-the-fly puck talk.
“The
greatest thing about it is, depending on what happens on the ice, we kind of
get paid to talk and have fun with it,” he said.
But
there is also a symbiotic dependency between the duo. Heinert, who stepped in
when Hammer pursued other opportunities, needed a commentator of Brandt’s
background for his first wave of exposure to the UND hockey community.
“I’m
always taken aback at how he knows everyone we come across,” Heinert told Pucks
and Rec. “Parents of players, old teammates, lifelong UND fans…Simply put, Jake
knows everybody and everybody knows Jake, and in most cases, it’s not just on
the surface level. To me, that level of investment in a place over nearly two
decades is special.
“In
terms of hockey sense, Jake’s brilliant. He breaks down what happens in a play,
tells you why it happened and usually tells you what could’ve been done to
prevent it.
“It’s
only his second year in an analyst role, so he’s still working on telling that
to the viewers in the most concise manner possible, but it’s still pretty
impressive to hear him digest everything’s that happening on the ice and on the
benches in real time.”
Brandt,
in turn, admits that he is still grasping the finer protocols of live game
telecasts.
“It’s
way more difficult than I think people think just because when you watch
someone, people that have been doing it on the networks make it look so easy
because they’re so good at it,” he said.
“The
hardest thing is when you have your headset on and they’re talking to you in
your ear but you have to continue talking and that was a little bit of a
learning curve, just because you’re taught not to talk when someone’s taking to
you. You have to listen to what they’re saying, because they’re telling you how
time until a commercial break, and not try to lose track of your thought
process.”
This
season, there is at least no longer the nag of imminent commitments elsewhere.
Weather conditions have tended to dictate how soon Brandt reverses his commute.
If the forecast prompts caution, he may depart at 2 a.m. Sunday following the
second installment of the series. Otherwise, the itinerary calls for a more
leisurely return to reality.
He
had more to consider, and less time to build up to the Saturday tilt the way
one would on the Hockey Night In Canada
crew, when he also wore the Brainerd Bantam AA coach’s cap. In 2015-16, he
occasionally squeezed a morning game elsewhere in the state or across the
border between Parts I and II of the UND weekend. He usually followed his hasty
return to Grand Forks with another bolt to another Brainerd commitment before
finally hustling home.
Just
like Koberinski the year before him, Brandt had to choose between the coach or
commentator bill on his second-job lid.
Unlike
Koberinski, he kept the latter. That choice, combined with the grueling commute
it entailed, “speaks volumes of the place North Dakota hockey has in his life,”
Heinert said.
Blue-paint
patriotism
Brandt,
originally from Roseau, Minn., still holds a pair of less consuming puck
positions in his home state. He sits on the Let’s
Play Hockey magazine’s Minnesota Minute Men club, which votes on the
scholastic Mr. Hockey and Frank Brimsek Awards. In addition, he keeps his
skates sharp for Monday night shifts as a goaltending instructor for various
Brainerd teams.
If
the Midco job underscores his devotion to his alma mater, the other rink-based
gigs he retained for 2016-17 speak to his loyalty to the clan that every former
and current goaltender comprises. The Brimsek Award is Minnesota interscholastic
hockey’s answer to college hockey’s Mike Richter Award.
Both
honors have, at one time, gone to Zane McIntyre (nee Gothberg), a Thief River
Falls product and UND alumnus. Brandt had coached McIntyre in the Bantam ranks,
but barely missed out on calling any of his college career. McIntyre inked a
professional contract before what would have been his senior season in 2015-16,
Brandt’s first in the Midco booth.
But
that twist also allowed Brandt to witness a storyline that hit home. McIntyre’s
exit left a vacancy to be filled by one of three successors who combined for a
paltry 43 minutes and 19 seconds of prior collegiate experience.
All
of those minutes and seconds belonged to Cam Johnson, but fresh off a draft
selection by the Philadelphia Flyers, Matej Tomek was an eye-catching
candidate. Lone upperclassman Matt Hrynkiw was raring to finally earn his
stripes as well.
But
Tomek’s preseason injury bumped Johnson from his presumptive backup post. He
would need to shake off an October injury of his own to ultimately wrest the
No. 1 job back from Hrynkiw.
By
season’s end, after back-to-back Frozen Four semifinal losses failed to
consummate McIntyre’s ornate tenure, Johnson was an NCAA champion backstop.
“That
was the big question mark coming into last year,” Brandt said. “Zane had left,
they needed goaltending and it turned out that with Cam Johnson, there was no
falloff from when Zane left.”
He
added, “Cam Johnson’s been brilliant this year in my eyes. (The team) just lost
a lot (of skaters) from last year. Defensively, they lost a lot as well, so his
job is a lot tougher.”
Brandt
cited “not being a homer” as the toughest aspect of his current job at Engelstad
Arena. While he was referring to the need to tame his built-in loyalty to his
alma mater, he could just easily be talking about lifetime goaltender’s
fraternity membership.
Putting
it another way, he is as much a member of what the Twitterverse dubs #goalienation
as he is a part of UND’s all-time roster.
Brandt
believes those in UND’s annals got hooked on the hashtag through Karl Goehring,
who backstopped the program’s previous national title in 2000 and now
volunteers on Berry’s coaching staff. Both masked men, who missed overlapping
at the school by one summer, regularly post original stick salutes to their
successors or retweet comparable content.
“I
think the goalie nation thing is one of those things where everyone is kind of
obsessed with being on our own,” Brandt said.
On
their own in body, yet unified in spirit. And it is not exclusive to the crest
and colors on one’s jersey, either. Case in point: Atte Tolvanen’s recent bid
to break Blaine Lacher’s NCAA shutout streak record.
The
Northern Michigan contemporary matched one mark of five straight 60-minute
goose eggs. But the former Lake Superior State standout’s run of 375:01 without
a setback remained on top when Tolvanen’s streak ended at 339:05.
There
was added excitement around Grand Forks when Johnson went on his own lengthy
tear of perfection last winter. Johnson’s streak of 298:25 enveloped four
straight shutouts between December 2015 and January 2016.
In
both cases, ex-netminders were hanging on every second, as it meant positive
publicity for the position.
“We all want to see goaltenders succeed and do
well and make us proud,” said Brandt. “So the fact that when you wear the pads
and you’ve been a part of that, you can appreciate when you see a goaltender
who is having success.
“You
make sure to watch it just because you gravitate towards goaltenders and
success. We pay attention to the success that they have. The goalie nation
thing is just that, we are a little bit single out, people tease us and joke
about us. We kind of embrace it a little bit. We’re a little different and a
little odd because we take great pride in the position that we play.”
Only the best
Despite
the experiential discrepancies between his past and present roles in “The
Ralph,” Brandt insists that playing net “was a more stressful job.” But having
now catered to a home arena mass and a home television audience for roughly the
same number of games, he appreciates the sustained pleasure of catering to
Fighting Hawks (nee Sioux) fanatics.
Brandt
likens the scrutiny of the Grand Forks fans to those of the Montreal Canadiens
in that they “expect nothing but the best, and if you’re not, they let you know
a little bit about it.”
Given
that Montreal’s Bell Centre boasts the largest seating capacity in the NHL, the
comparison has credibility. Engelstad Arena is an anomalous mansion of a
college hockey venue that accommodates 11,643 spectators.
Those
who have a share of the power over what happens between the boards aim to
sustain a high volume and positive tone for two-plus hours. If all goes
according to their plan, they will literally set off fireworks at the final
horn.
For
those working the booth, the task is merely sustaining concentration and
talking over the clamor. No worries about talking down to the viewer in this
market.
“When
we do our broadcasts, we know we’re going out to a lot of people just because
of the fan base that UND does have,” Brandt said. “It’s not like we are telling
the audience anything they don’t know because they are so knowledgeable, so
there’s no way to go sugarcoat it when they’re playing poorly, because they
know.”
Because
of that, not unlike the skaters who service them, Hawks fans will pounce on any
elevated challenge beyond their turf. Besides a slew of Frozen Four appearances
in recent years, they have flocked to NCHC road games and regular-season
neutral-site contests in other time zones.
Madison
Square Garden hosted three games hosting a combined six college hockey programs
this season. Of those six teams, North Dakota made the longest trip. Yet the
crowd of 11,348 for its bout with Boston College eclipsed the 10,148 that took
in New Hampshire-Cornell and dwarfed the 5,002 that turned out for
Wisconsin-Ohio State.
Early
this February, tickets went on sale for an Oct. 27, 2018 date with the
Minnesota Gophers at Las Vegas’ Orleans Arena. With another 20 months left
before that game, all 7,773 seats have already been claimed.
“Not
many college programs can go out to New York and pack as many people in a
Madison Square Garden venue and have it be a success like UND can,” Brandt
said. “Not many people can go down to Vegas and literally sell out a 7,500-seat
building in seconds on Ticketmaster, and that’s because of the Champions Club
and the fan base.”
One’s
objectivity is perfectly intact after one makes that statement. Still, as is
relatively common among regional network color commentators, the inner
ex-player is not always so inner.
Then
again, that is what draws a man of Brandt’s ilk to a job of this nature. It
will take more than a semimonthly seven-hour round trip to keep him away from
Engelstad’s allure.
“We’re
very proud at UND of what we put out on the ice as a product,” Brandt said. “We
feel we have the best coaching staff in the country, we have the best
facilities in the country, we have the best trainers in the country, we have
the best sports information directors in the country, the best beat writers in
our college area.”
“We
gravitate toward the team,” he added. “We put a lot of pressure on the UND
hockey team, but in saying that, we recruit guys that we feel can go in and
have success at that level.
“I
say ‘we’ (even though) I’m not a part of the team, but I’m a part of the past
and tradition, and I’m one of the most loyal alums that there are, and there’s
a lot of them out there.”
As
far as Heinert is concerned, in the words of Prymaat Conehead, that assessment
“sounds most appropriate.”
“Of
course, if he wasn’t on the air, he’d be in Ralph Engelstad Arena for the
majority of these games as a supporter,” Heinert said. “But we’re certainly
happy with his choice to remain in the broadcast booth. He’s a great
combination of a former player, proud alumnus, knowledgeable coach and
passionate fan, and it shows in his call on game days.”
