Oct. 1—GRAND FORKS — John Tortorella told Dane Jackson he was doing a poor job as captain.
The Rochester Americans were several games under .500 in the American Hockey League. There was a divide in the locker room between the established pros and the young, up-and-coming prospects.
The 1995-96 season was on the verge of disaster.
It didn’t end that way.
Things turned and that year helped shape Jackson’s beliefs in what makes a successful hockey team.
Jackson is now in charge of one of the sport’s storied franchises, the University of North Dakota.
UND has won more NCAA national championships than any program in the last 50 years. It draws more fans per game than any hockey team in North America outside the NHL and brings in more ticket revenue than any NCAA sports team outside football and men’s basketball.
Few have expectations quite like UND, either. Case in point: In March, the Fighting Hawks fired coach Brad Berry, who won an NCAA title, five league championships and never had a losing season.
Jackson knows the history.
He played four years at UND from 1988-92, serving as an assistant captain as a senior. He returned in 2006 to become an assistant coach under Dave Hakstol. He has been in Grand Forks for the last 19 years.
Now, it’s his turn to call the shots.
Jackson will build the team by leaning on a lifetime of hockey experiences to guide him. He’s been around some of hockey’s elite minds since elementary school.
His childhood best friend was Travis Green, now the head coach of the Ottawa Senators.
Cary Eades and Dean Blais, the assistant coaches who recruited Jackson to UND, have seven NCAA national championship rings between them.
Jackson’s head coach at UND was Gino Gasparini, who may be the most important figure in program history outside those who started it. Not only did Gasparini win three NCAA national titles, he also brought every successive coach to campus — Blais, Hakstol, Berry and Jackson.
Jackson’s Walsh Hall roommate was Brad Pascall, now the assistant general manager of the Calgary Flames.
His first NHL coach was Hockey Hall of Famer Pat Quinn.
His first coaching job was in Manchester, N.H., under Bruce Boudreau, a Jack Adams Award winner as NHL coach of the year.
And there was that year as a captain under Tortorella, who won a Jack Adams Award, a Stanley Cup and is one of the top-10 winningest coaches in NHL history.
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It started with dinners.
Jackson instituted a rule that all players had to come to his place on Sundays for an hour.
The first time, everyone left after 60 minutes. A couple weeks later, players started lingering. Week by week, more players lingered — and for longer. They had deep conversations. They got to know each other on a personal level. They understood each other better.
The rifts died. The season turned. Rochester started winning.
The Americans were seven games under .500 in mid-January. They went 10 games over .500 in the final three months. They made the playoffs. They went 11-1 in the first three rounds to reach the finals.
The finals went to Game 7. Rochester won 2-1.
“We had good ability on that team, but we had a lot of guys that cared about our group,” Jackson said. “We ended up doing a lot of stuff together and became a close team. We socialized a lot together in that second half once we got past our B.S. I realized that was part of what makes a great team — getting real and honest. It’s about care and work and battle and toughness. You can go a long way with that on a team.”
Jackson has a team photo framed on the wall in his office.
If you want an idea of how Jackson will coach his UND teams, that’s a starting point.
“You’re going to see a close-knit team that plays for one another and plays hard,” said Dixon Ward, one of Jackson’s UND classmates and Rochester’s playoff MVP in 1996. “Nobody loves UND more than Dane. He’ll make sure everyone else follows. He won’t have it any other way. The standard will be set Day One.”
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Jackson has spent more than a third of his life in Grand Forks. But now that he’s taking center stage, he could use an introduction.
He and his wife, Carrie, have three children — Dillon (20), a sophomore at UND, and twins Dallas (17) and Lila, seniors at Red River High School.
His musical interests range from AC/DC to U2 to Morgan Wallen. His favorite movie is Shawshank Redemption. He loves nachos and a backyard steak. He enjoys leisure sports like throwing bags and ping pong.
He loves reading and usually does it when traveling. He recently finished a book on the legacy of the All Blacks, the wildly successful New Zealand national rugby team.
Jackson was born in Winnipeg, the youngest of three boys.
His father, Barry, is from Stonewall, Man. He worked as a personnel manager. His mother, Geneieve, is from a farm outside of Swift Current, Sask. She has 11 siblings and worked as a teacher.
The family moved from Winnipeg to Sherwood Park, Alta., when Dane was 5, and then to Castlegar, B.C., when he was 10.
Castlegar sits in a deep valley in the Selkirk Mountains about 45 minutes north of the U.S. border. It’s a picturesque town of about 7,000 with the Columbia River cutting through it. Its largest employer is a pulp and paper mill.
Jackson’s older brothers, Dave (six years older) and Mike (three years older), played youth hockey but turned to downhill skiing when the family moved to Castlegar. Red Mountain Ski Resort is 25 minutes outside of Castlegar.
Dane stuck with hockey.
He became close with Green, who was the same age.
“We were buddies right away, shooting pucks, playing road hockey,” Jackson said. “We played on the same teams growing up.”
Green left for Canadian major juniors in 1986, which made him ineligible for college hockey. Jackson was listed by WHL Seattle, but kept the NCAA option open.
“Dad wanted me to play major,” Jackson said. “Mom was pulling for college.”
Castlegar had some history with college hockey. Steve Bozek starred at Northern Michigan from 1978-81, and Jim Smith played at Denver from 1982-86. So, the family was familiar with the route.
As a high school senior, Jackson left home to play for Vernon in the British Columbia Junior Hockey League. His NCAA recruitment picked up that season.
Jackson visited Northern Michigan along with his Vernon teammate, Dallas Drake, who went on to play more than 1,000 NHL games. Wildcats coach Walt Kyle offered Drake for the 1988-89 season and Jackson for 1989-90.
Jackson then took a visit to UND. He first learned about the program from a 1987 Sports Illustrated article detailing the Hrkac Circus.
On his visit to Grand Forks, Gasparini offered a spot for 1988-89. Jackson committed almost immediately.
“He was a good skater with a pretty good stick,” Gasparini said. “He was hard to play against, because he was always on the edge. He was a very competitive guy.”
Jackson helped Vernon win a BCJHL title, then became the highest-drafted player ever from the league. The Vancouver Canucks selected him in the third round, No. 44 overall.
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Jackson moved into Walsh Hall 308B as a freshman with Pascall. His class included several NHLers — Ward, Russ Romaniuk, Jason Herter and Justin Duberman.
It wasn’t an easy transition to college hockey. Jackson was scratched at times during the first half of the season.
“I was calling home,” Jackson said. “My mom was worried about whether I was doing well in school and making friends. My dad was like, ‘What do you mean you’re getting scratched? Why is that? Are you not working hard?’ I said, ‘I’m working hard, but guys are really good down here.'”
Jackson had four goals and nine points as a freshman.
He lived in the dorms again as a sophomore. He couldn’t afford a car, which meant he couldn’t live off campus. Jackson roomed with freshman Greg Johnson that year — and played on a line with him and Romaniuk. Jackson’s point total took off. He had 15 goals and 26 points.
After his sophomore year, Jackson worked on a road paving crew near Trail, B.C., to save up enough money to buy a car. The crew fell behind on the job and worked from dawn to dusk to catch up.
Jackson didn’t have free time to work out. So, he tried to find ways to stay in shape on the job. He ran between telephone poles and did pushups when there was down time. On Aug. 1, he left to begin training harder for the hockey season. A month later, he won the team’s annual Iron Man competition.
“Dane was always leading the pack,” Ward said. “He was fit, committed, always in tremendous shape. To play the way he played, he had to be.”
UND players recognized early that two players on the roster, Hakstol and Jackson, were natural leaders in different ways.
“Dave is more stoic and process-related, very even-keeled emotionally and very professional in everything he does,” Ward said. “Dane wears his heart on his sleeve a little more. He’s very upbeat, energetic and positive. It’s very easy to settle in and feel comfortable with him. He does a lot of really good things that make people feel important. That’s Dane’s natural state. None of it is put-on or manufactured. He’s been like that since the first day I’ve met him. He’s very charismatic and fun.”
That translates into coaching and recruiting.
“He has that honest personality,” Pascall said. “I think that’s going to be a real strength having him lead the program as the guy that has to finish off deals and commitments. They’ll look at him and have that level of trust and see the passion in his eyes (and think), ‘Not only is he truthful, he’s going to make me a better player.'”
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Jackson wants UND to get back to the Frozen Four. The Fighting Hawks haven’t been there since 2016, when the program won its eighth NCAA title.
He believes it starts with recruiting the right players, so he turned one of his full-time assistant positions into a general manager and full-time recruiter. He hired Bryn Chyzyk for that spot.
Once the players get to campus, Jackson believes forming deep relationships and bringing a selfless mentality is imperative. He saw how cohesiveness transformed his Rochester team. He’s seen it at UND, too.
Jackson asked former UND captain Matt Greene to be in Grand Forks for the first week of school to be an influence on the players.
Jackson explained to the players that Greene tallied just nine points in his last year in college hockey, but went on to win two Stanley Cups and make over $25 million in the NHL.
“He wasn’t a high-skilled player,” Jackson said. “They paid him because he was the man. They know you win with guys like that.”
Jackson restarted UND’s pro camp, bringing back more than 20 former players. Among them were Brock Boeser, Nick Schmaltz and Derek Forbort — all of whom are in line to hit 600 NHL regular-season games played this season.
Jackson noted that UND has a history of selfless superstars — something he wants to maintain.
“Our best players have not been all about themselves,” Jackson said. “The best guys we’ve had — Jonny Toews, T.J. Oshie, Brock Nelson, Boeser, Nicky Schmaltz, Josty (Tyson Jost) — they were high-end draft picks, but they were not selfish. They were all about winning and being a good teammate. When you have high-end guys that are competitive, hard-workers, and team-first character guys, you have that multiplier effect.”
A lesson Jackson learned from Hakstol was to never let standards slip. He installed a sign in the coaches’ office that says, “If you’re not coaching it, you’re letting it happen.”
He plans to push his players, hold them accountable and coach them hard.
In order to do that, Jackson said the coaching staff needs to form tight bonds with the players. If the players don’t know the coaching is coming from a place of care, it won’t work.
“If you have a surface-level relationship,” Jackson said, “you’re going to have surface-level coaching. If you show people how much you care and are connected, they’ll go to the wall for you.”
So far, players have been receptive.
“I obviously came back for a reason,” All-American defenseman Jake Livanavage said. “I wanted to be here. I wanted to be a part of this new era of North Dakota hockey. The changes that have happened, it’s unbelievable. There’s more discipline, keeping guys accountable. . . nobody is bigger than the program. I’m really excited to get started.”
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Adversity is going to hit. It always does. UND won’t escape it in a year where it has 15 new players, the program’s most since 1973.
Adversity probably hits harder in Grand Forks than most places. It’s part of playing at a program that’s under a microscope every night.
There will be times when the fan base believes the team is hopeless and the coaching staff should all be replaced. It happens nearly every year.
Jackson wants players who handle adversity the right way. And he wants his coaching staff to embrace it.
“We’re going to be process-oriented,” Jackson said. “We’re going to build to get better. That was one of Hak’s great things. Our teams always got better.
“I saw how Hak leaned into adversity. When the times were the worst and we felt things were really going bad, he worked and focused and found every little detail to get the most out of every player and get them in the right seats. There was a never-ending relentlessness to finding every little thing he could to get the most out of his team. That was something I really admired and respected. At the hardest moments, he was at his best.”
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When the UND head coaching job opened in March, athletic director Bill Chaves and deputy athletic director Erik Martinson took dozens of calls a day from people advocating for their preferred candidate.
Jackson’s biggest support came from players who had played under him.
“I think he’s a perfect example of what a North Dakota hockey player is, the way he shows up and works,” said Schmaltz, a Utah Mammoth forward. “He’s going to make sure everyone’s firing on all cylinders. I think they’re going to be a relentless team and outwork a lot of teams. In those games where they’re not feeling it, I think they’re going to be able to get by on pure grit and work ethic.”
Boeser said: “They’re going to be hard-nosed, gritty. They’re going to be super detailed. That’s just kind of how Dane is as a person. He’s a team-first mentality guy. I’m not saying we weren’t before, but it’s going to be, ‘Have your brother’s back before your own.'”
Forbort added: “They’re going to be well conditioned, high intensity and they’re going to have fun playing the game.”
A new era of UND hockey is about to begin.
But don’t expect a total program overhaul. Jackson knows the elements that have made UND successful for the last 50 years still ring true today.
“They’ll play with part of his personality, which is ‘Let’s go, let’s get after it. We’re not going to sit back. We’re going to play with energy, passion and relentless pursuit of the puck,'” Ward said. “He knows the Xs and Os and structure. He’s been doing it for a long time. He knows none of it matters if they’re not getting after it.
“It will be a high-energy group that plays with emotion and passion. They’re going to love to wear the green and white as much as Dane did. He’s loved that school for as long as I can remember.”
2003-05 — Manchester (AHL) assistant
2005-06 — Adirondack (UHL) head coach
2006-15 — UND assistant
2015-25 — UND associate head coach
2025-present — UND head coach
