North Dakota
Anchorage’s Mac Swanson charges into Frozen Four with University of North Dakota
Coming into his sophomore season at the University of North Dakota, Mac Swanson was facing more uncertainty than at any point in his young hockey career.
By his own admission, Swanson, 20, struggled at times on the ice as a freshman. And after the 2024-25 season, the Fighting Hawks had replaced their head coach, introducing another variable.
But first-year coach Dane Jackson has now led UND to a 29-9-1 record, and Swanson has added multiple dimensions to his game in his second year of college hockey.
Now Swanson and UND are among the final quartet of teams playing for a national championship this weekend at the Frozen Four in Las Vegas.
The Hawks take on Wisconsin on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. Alaska time with a chance to advance to the championship. That game will be preceded at 1 p.m. by the first semifinal, pitting Michigan against Denver, which is coached by Anchorage’s David Carle. Both games are scheduled to be broadcast on ESPN2.
A mainstay on UND’s second line, Swanson has added strength, improved his scoring and taken on more responsibility on defense.
“I felt confident throughout the year,” Swanson said. “My goal-scoring has improve and obviously we have a great team this year. It’s easy to play with those guys.”
When UND announced it was replacing longtime coach Brad Berry, Swanson said players were in a holding pattern. But Jackson, who was on the UND staff for nearly two decades before taking the head coaching role, helped maintain continuity for the players after a couple weeks of wondering who would lead the team.
“There was a lot of uncertainty in the program for the first time in a while,” Swanson said. “It was definitely a weird time for all of us that were kind of deciding whether to stay or transfer out. But when coach Jackson got the job, we all felt pretty confident in him and his abilities, so we really did think that we would have a good team this year.”
Swanson described Jackson as a “hard but fair coach” and said the announcement secured his future with UND.
“I love my time here,” he said. “I love playing at The Ralph (Engelstad Arena), and I didn’t really want to leave at all. So I’m happy with where I’m at.”
Swanson’s production this season has been consistent. He’s seventh on the team in scoring, with 11 goals and 17 assists in 39 games. He showed a major uptick in his goal-scoring ability, after notching just two as a freshman.
Swanson believes his progression at UND is similar to what he was able to accomplish with the Fargo Force, where he played before signing with the Fighting Hawks. There he developed into a much more dynamic offensive player in his second season with the USHL team. Swanson has been especially effective the last half of the season with 13 points in his last 15 games.
“I think (my game) has evolved a little bit,” he said. “I’ve really tried to round out my two-way game. I started penalty killing this year too, which just adds another dimension to my game and makes me more valuable to the team.”
Mac’s dad, Brian, had a standout hockey career at Colorado College and was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award in 1999. Having his dad as a sounding board has been invaluable as he’s progressed through his college career.
“He’s always there for me,” Swanson said. “But he never forces anything upon me, which I think is a good thing. He obviously is there for me whenever I need to talk or just a quick text before or after a game. … It’s great to have someone who’s been through everything I’m going through.”
Part of Swanson’s offseason mandate was to add strength. In Alaska over last summer, he worked out independently as well as at Mac’s Strength & Power in Eagle River, operated by his cousin.
“It gave me a good opportunity to grow in some areas I needed to,” he said.
The Frozen Four is shaping up to be one of the most interesting in recent history. The four teams have the four most NCAA championships in history, led by Denver’s 10 and followed by Michigan (9), UND (8) and Wisconsin (6).
“It’s really cool it’s kind of all these blue-blood programs,” he said. “Obviously we’ll try not to focus on too much of the stuff going on in Vegas and just focus on us.”
UND was dominant in reaching the Frozen Four, winning a pair of games by a combined 8-0 score in the Regional at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He had family in attendance for those games and in the week and a half since has received plenty of messages from friends and family.
“Obviously you feel that support being from Alaska,” he said. “When someone is doing well, everyone is happy for them, which I think’s pretty cool about the hockey community back home.”
The Community Calendar publishes events, meetings and fundraisers in The Jamestown Sun at no charge. To submit an activity, email it to news@jamestownsun.
Saturday, May 23
Buffalo City Group Alcoholics Anonymous, 9 a.m. (open), AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
James River Alcoholics Anonymous, noon (open) and 8 p.m. (open), AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
James River Alcoholics Anonymous, 1:30 p.m., women (closed), AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
James Valley Street Machines Shop Tour 2026. Schedule: 9-9:30 a.m.: Dakota Engine Builders, 2809 U.S. Highway 281; 9:40-10:20 a.m.: Adam Auto Express, 3735 U.S. 281; 10:30-10:55 a.m.: Tom Ravely, 1205 15th St. SW; 11:05-11:35 a.m.: Klein’s Body Shop, 414 17th St. SW; 1-1:30 p.m.: Preferred Transmission, 825 5th Ave. NE; 1:40-2:15 p.m.: Kainz Klassics, 2614 4th St. NE (take 3rd Street Southeast, turn left on 85th Avenue North); 2:30-3:15 p.m., Jon Greeinstein, 1424 Hwy 281 (across from the North Dakota National Guard); 3:25-4 p.m.: Neil Baker, 1142 41st St. NW; 4:10-5 p.m.: Steve Jaskoviak, 500 block 1st Street East (east of Orphan Grain Train, north side of street).
Sunday, May 24
James River Alcoholics Anonymous, 1 p.m. and 8 p.m., AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
James River Alanon Family, 4 p.m., AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
Adult Children of Alcoholics, 7 p.m., AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
Narcotics Anonymous, 4:30 p.m., New Hope Free Lutheran Church, 1545 4th Ave. NW.
Monday, May 25
James River Alcoholics Anonymous, 4:30 (open) and 8 p.m. (closed), 518 10th Ave. SE, (topic).
Celebrate Recovery, 6 p.m. dinner, 7 p.m. meeting, Church of the Nazarene, 1306 6th Ave. SE.
Narcotics Anonymous, noon, Clubhouse. 518 10th Ave. SE.
Memorial Day observances in the area:
Jamestown: 9 a.m., Gladstone Inn and Suites, followed by naval ceremony is planned at Nickeus Park, visits to city cemeteries, 11 a.m. Veterans Memorial Wall ceremony. Freewill lunch, 11:30 a.m., All Vets Club.
Gackle: 10 a.m., Gackle Legion Hall Mayer-Morlock Post #250, followed by ceremonies at the Gackle Cemetery, Alfred Cemetery. Potluck lunch after at Gackle Legion Hall.
Kensal: 10:30 a.m., Kensal Public School, followed by ceremonies at Kensal Cemetery and St. John’s Cemetery. Lunch at St John’s Catholic Church.
Medina: 10:30 a.m., Medina High School, followed by visits to Medina Community Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery. Dinner follows at American Legion.
Pettibone/Woodworth: 9 a.m. at Pettibone Cemetery; 10:30 a.m., at Woodworth Gem Cemetery. Potluck dinner follows at Woodworth Fire Hall.
Pingree: 10:30 a.m., Pingree Community Center. After, meet at the depot and march to the cemetery to decorate military veterans’ graves. Noon meal follows at community center.
Sanborn: 9:30 a.m., rifle volley, Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery; 9:45 a.m., at Fairview Cemetery; 10 a.m., donuts and coffee at the Sanborn Community Center.
MINOT — “It’s hard to do enhanced oil recovery,” Charles Gorecki said during a Plain Talk podcast interview from the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference.
Gorecki is the head of the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota. That organization conducts exploratory research explicitly driven by North Dakota’s industrial and environmental needs. Stuff like how to reduce flaring, how to build safer pipelines and how to enhance oil recovery.
The theme of the conference, which
brings together all the major players in North Dakota’s oil and gas industry,
was “cracking the code,” which is a reference to ongoing efforts for enhanced oil recovery. Something that could perhaps set off a second oil boom, and prolong the oil and gas industry’s prodigious contributions to North Dakota’s economic prosperity and tax revenues.
Gorecki said there are many promising paths to enhanced oil recovery, but using captured carbon emissions to unlock more oil from wells is one of the most promising. The problem? We don’t have enough of it.
“I’ve talked about CO2 being the thing that we need in massive quantities, hundreds of billions of tons to really unlock the Bakken,” he told us.
“For context, our coal fire power plants in the state of North Dakota produce annually about 30 million tons of CO2,” he continued. “So it would take all the coal fire power plant CO2 emissions captured times three or more to really enhance that recovery to have what we would consider basically, volumetrically, a second boom in the Bakken.”
But getting that carbon to North Dakota has proven politically fraught. Opposition to a carbon pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions has
caused that project to be rerouted to Wyoming,
and while some of that outcome had to do with Summit’s
aggressive and ham-handed
approach to landowners, there’s no question there’s a noisy and organized movement against carbon pipelines in general.
Gorecki told us “there’s a lot of misinformation” about the issue. “We transport things in a number of different ways in this country. We transport them by truck, by train, by pipeline,” he said. “And by far the safest way to transport large amounts of liquids and gases is in pipelines.”
Also on this episode, guest co-host Alison Ritter and I talked about the controversies around data centers, and carbon pipelines, and whether too many in the public are taking North Dakota’s economic prosperity for granted.
If you want to participate in Plain Talk, just give us a call or text at
701-587-3141.
It’s super easy — leave your message, tell us your name and where you’re from, and we might feature it on an upcoming episode. To subscribe to Plain Talk, search for the show wherever you get your podcasts or use one of the links below.
Apple Podcasts
|
Spotify
|
YouTube
|
Pocket Casts
|
Episode Archive
The Community Calendar publishes events, meetings and fundraisers in The Jamestown Sun at no charge. To submit an activity, email it to news@jamestownsun.
Friday, May 22
Jamestown Overcomers Narcotics Anonymous, 7:30 p.m., Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1201 4th St. NE.
James River Alcoholics Anonymous, noon (closed, topic) and 8 p.m. (open, speaker meeting) AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
Overeaters Anonymous, 5:30 p.m. Regular weekly step meeting; phone meeting only. Call 701-320-2386 before meeting time to get information on calling into meeting.
Saturday, May 23
Buffalo City Group Alcoholics Anonymous, 9 a.m. (open), AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
James River Alcoholics Anonymous, noon (open) and 8 p.m. (open), AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
James River Alcoholics Anonymous, 1:30 p.m., women (closed), AA Clubhouse, 518 10th Ave. SE.
James Valley Street Machines Shop Tour 2026. Schedule: 9-9:30 a.m.: Dakota Engine Builders, 2809 U.S. Highway 281; 9:40-10:20 a.m.: Adam Auto Express, 3735 U.S. 281; 10:30-10:55 a.m.: Tom Ravely, 1205 15th St. SW; 11:05-11:35 a.m.: Klein’s Body Shop, 414 17th St. SW; 1-1:30 p.m.: Preferred Transmission, 825 5th Ave. NE; 1:40-2:15 p.m.: Kainz Klassics, 2614 4th St. NE (take 3rd Street Southeast, turn left on 85th Avenue North); 2:30-3:15 p.m., Jon Greeinstein, 1424 Hwy 281 (across from the North Dakota National Guard); 3:25-4 p.m.: Neil Baker, 1142 41st St. NW; 4:10-5 p.m.: Steve Jaskoviak, 500 block 1st Street East (east of Orphan Grain Train, north side of street).
-
Missouri4 minutes ago
Missouri Lottery Mega Millions, Pick 3 winning numbers for May 22, 2026
-
Montana10 minutes agoMontana Plan hurts Montana business
-
Nebraska16 minutes agoInvasive Species Awareness Week starts Sunday, May 24 – Sandhills Express
-
Nevada22 minutes agoWhat to know before Nevada early voting begins
-
New Hampshire28 minutes agoBest New Hampshire schools for athletes? According to one study, these are top 25
-
New Jersey34 minutes agoWhy the Brooklyn Nets Need to Start Embracing Their New Jersey Roots More
-
New Mexico40 minutes agoGuards who rape inmates at New Mexico women’s prison get lenient sentences, records show
-
North Carolina45 minutes agoNC A&T State University researchers testing new ‘smart intersection’ technology
