Kurvers excited for new role with hometown Wild

ST. PAUL --Tom Kurvers has had a front-row seat to some of the greatest teams in hockey at every level he's been a part of.
A native of Bloomington, who grew up a couple of blocks from Jefferson High School, Kurvers played on the first state tournament team in school history as a senior in 1980.
He went on to win a Hobey Baker Award as college hockey's best player at the University of Minnesota Duluth, helping the Bulldogs to the national championship game in his final season along the North Shore.

Drafted by the Montreal Canadiens, Kurvers played for Jacques Lemaire and won a Stanley Cup with the club in 1986.
After years as a scout and in management in both Phoenix and Tampa Bay, Kurvers
joined his hometown Wild
on Monday as assistant to General Manager Paul Fenton. Here, he hopes to be a part of the first Stanley Cup team in the state's history.
Kurvers' start in hockey was by chance.
By today's standards, Kurvers was a late bloomer, not playing on his first hockey team until he was nine years old. His baseball coach, Dick Wineberg, was a bantam hockey coach when the high school program began in 1971. Wineberg saw an athlete and convinced Kurvers to start playing the sport.
"I played a whole year of squirt hockey and didn't score a goal," Kurvers said. "Only kid who didn't score. I was the last player on the team. There's a lot of stories out there about being the last player cut, I was the last player to make that team.
"And then the game kind of takes over your life."
Things got better for Kurvers, who overcame the rough start and became one of the best players on a Jefferson team that made it to its first state tournament in school history as a senior in 1980.

The Jaguars lost to Grand Rapids in the semifinals in St. Paul that year, but would go on to win their first state championship the year after Kurvers left in 1981.
Over the next decade and a half, Jefferson would become one of the most powerful forces in high school hockey, winning state championships in 1989 before a three-peat in 1992, 1993 and 1994, becoming the first team in three decades to accomplish the feat.
During the late 1980s, the eventual stars of those teams -- Nick Checco, Mike Crowley, Ben Clymer, Mark Parrish, Dan Trebil and Toby Peterson, among others -- were often in Kurvers' driveway playing road hockey when he'd come home from another season in the NHL.
"Those players were friends of my younger brother Mike - Fenton adds Ferreira to staff as senior advisor