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Kurvers, Minnesota Wild’s deputy director, was diagnosed in January 2019 with adenocarcinoma, a small cell lung cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes and sternum.
Kurvers, a member of the DECC Hall of Fame, joined UMD in 1980 at the age of 17 from Bloomington Jefferson High School. He defeated Hobey as a parent at UMD in 1983-84 after scoring 76 points from 18 goals and 58 assists. He was also named WCHA Player of the Year and All-American when he served as Captain of the Bulldogs in the 1984 NCAA Championship and programs in the first WCHA regular season and subsequent seasons.
He was admitted to the UMD Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991, and the defender to this day has school records of career goals (43) and points (192).
Former Minnesota Duluth coach Mike Sertich, right, throws his hands around his captain Tom Kurvers and congratulates Kurvers on winning the 1984 Hobey Baker Memorial Award. Kurvers was the first of six Bulldogs to win an award. News Tribune file
Former Bulldogs coach Mike Sertich said Kurvers was truly top notch in 1983-84, when he became the fourth recipient of the Hobey Baker Memorial Award.
I always thought that if my sons grew up like Tom Kurvers, I would be a successful father. He meant so much to me as a player on our team, Sertich said before Kurvers joined DECC’s Hall of Fame in 2019.
I think (Hobey Baker Committee) understood his leadership skills. He was an excellent student. He was very good in the community. Everything I’ve ever asked those guys to do, they did. It was part of the whole story. They loved themselves into the community at a time when the community needed something to seize. Tommy was the captain and leader of the whole thing. It was very obvious to many people outside of Duluth. This kid is pretty special.
Kurvers played on seven different teams in the NHL for 11 seasons, starting with the Canadiens, where he won the Stanley Cup in 1985-86. He was traded three times from Montreal to the Buffalo Sabers in 86-87, from Buffalo to the New Jersey Devils before 87-88 and again at the start of the 89-90 campaign for the Toronto Maple Leafs for Scott Niedermayer.
Former Minnesota Duluth captain Tom Kurvers will be shown here playing against Minnesota in February 1984. (News Tribune file image)
He played one season with the Vancouver Canucks 90-91, three with the New York Islanders 1991-94 and finally one season with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 94-95.
After playing in the NHL, he spent the last more than 20 years as a scout and leader in the league. His first 11 were employed by Arizona Coyotes as a radio analyst, a skilled scout, and then as a chief of call staff. The next 10 were with Tampa Bay Lightning as Deputy Director and then as Senior Advisor to the General Manager. In June 2018, he returned home to Minnesota to serve as deputy director of Minnesota Wild and general manager of a franchised minor league subsidiary, Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League.
Those who played with Kurvers and later worked with him gave his elite vision both on the ice and in the front office a long and successful career in the NHL.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
With his eyesight both on and off the ice, he is very cerebral. He’s very smart, Seattle Krakens ’director of player human resources and UMD’s Kurvers’ former roommate Norm Maciver said back in 2019. He’s thinking things over. One thing about Tom is that he asks a lot of questions. Not that he has all the answers. He is very curious. He wants to ask a lot of questions, he wants to talk to people he really respects in the game.
It was precisely this insatiable desire to learn and be a better person, a better leader, a better player. It has carried him throughout his career.
Kurvers credited his father Jim and his mother Julie for their success in hockey.
Jim was a multi-sport athlete at Hopkins High School. In addition to being a state state footballer and four-year correspondent in baseball, he was also a member of the power plant’s Hopkins basketball teams, which won state titles in 1952 and 1953.
Tom Kurvers said his father knew how to be a good athletic parent because he was an athlete himself. Jim Kurvers was supportive, but also knew when to be quiet. He demanded the children’s effort and commitment to the game, but didn’t throw any extra rubbish.
Meanwhile, Julie Kurvers, who died from her own cancer battle in January 2018, instilled roughness and defiance in Tom and her four siblings.
For me, the home where I grew up was a huge factor in all of my athletic success, Kurvers said in 2019.
The year 1984 is being considered
Tom Kurvers (left) poses for a photo in January 1984 with his Minnesota Duluth teammates Bill Watson (second from left), Matt Christensen (second from right) and Tom Herzig. (News Tribune file image)
Before he was inducted into the DECC Hall of Fame in the summer of 2019, Kurvers considered Hobey’s victory in 1984, which started it all for UMD. Kurvers said he and others have benefited from each other’s victories, but nothing has shone as brightly in the spotlight for him, the Bulldogs and the university as what Scott Perunovich and the company have done in recent years winning backward national championships.
According to Kurvers, the NCAA Titles are now properly overshadowed by the now six Hobey winners, with Perunovich being the most recent in April 2020.
It has brought more attention to all of us than Jack won his Hobey Baker in 2012, Kurvers said after the UMD repeated in 2019. It is now a championship program with five winners. It’s quite a story there in Duluth when you put it in that context. I think the Titles are bigger than these awards.
Winning the award in 1984 at Frozen Four Lake in Placid, NY, was an emotional roller coaster for Kurvers. Sertich initially informed the Kurvers team in the locker room after winning the 2-1 overtime from North Dakota, who sent the UMD to the national championship match.
After we won the semi-finals against North Dakota, he came in and informed everyone. I was surprised, Kurvers said. We were already in a really good mood after winning overtime. It was pretty cool, but you already felt as good as you can feel. It wasn’t like I suddenly felt better. I was really happy and really excited about what we had just achieved.
The next morning, with the rest of the team practicing for the NCAA title game, Kurvers and Sertich went on to the official announcement of the 1984 Hobey winner. Kurvers said as flattering as receiving the award, he didn’t like the feeling of being fired from his teammates the day before a possible loss to Bowling Green State in the NCAA Championship.
Minnesota Duluth’s Tom Kurvers (right) tries to avoid Scott Sandelin of North Dakota during the January 1984 game. Sandelin, of course, is now coaching the Bulldogs. File image / Duluth News Tribune
I remember feeling uncomfortable about it, Kurvers said and recalled the experience. I used to talk about it, I haven’t said this in ten years. I thought you had to find a better time to do it. Do it after the game, do it on a Sunday night, do it at a different time. Don’t place that honor on a player who has to play another game. Its heavy. Its humble, great, but you didn’t get there by playing a single sport. You get there by being part of a good team in almost every single case throughout the award. Quite a few players have been selected and played the championship the next day. I thought it was pretty heavy. One, a missing workout on Friday and two, it interrupted the preparation for the biggest game of your life.
Leave it to Kurvers captain and UMD longtime roommate Bill Grillo to make his teammates feel better about the prize the next morning. During the team’s breakfast, Grillo got up and gave Kurvers a fake newspaper, which he somehow obtained from Lake Placid, with a headline that read, Kurvers tied Grillo to Hobey.
Kurvers kept that newspaper. He said the memory of receiving the award was always up to him.
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