The Raiders played host to the St. Louis Park Orioles on Jan. 11th in a high-energy game full of excitement. That excitement culminated with an amazing save by the Raider’s netminder, Kody Niederkorn in the second period with the Raiders leading 2-1.

The Raiders were in the process of clearing the puck from their defensive zone when an Oriole player made a great steal at the blue line creating a very quick two on zero opportunity. Niederkorn set up for the shot coming from his left side, unaware of the player to his right. The first player passed across the front of the net and that is when Niederkorn suddenly realized there was another Oriole in the mix.

The next split second, in a desperate move to make the save, Niederkorn kicked up his right leg and threw his glove hand around his back. It was his only option given he had fully committed to the initial shot to his left and could not follow the puck to the right the way he wanted to.

The Oriole player shot and Niederkorn made a miraculous glove save that was all caught on video. Hastings Community TV was on hand broadcasting the game in conjunction with KDWA Radio. They had multiple cameras set up for the game and caught perfect video of the save. That video included a slow-motion replay for viewers at home and for social media uploads later. During the broadcast, announcers Josh Colvin and Trey Lower could not believe what they saw.

“OH MY GOD!” Said Colvin unable to contain his excitement.

Lower followed up with, “Are you kidding me? ARE… YOU… KIDDING… ME??? Kody Niederkorn with the save of the century!”

HCTV’s Sports Director Hunter Pinke, the producer of the live broadcast, was ecstatic to see the video he had to work with for the social media upload. Once he had the highlight video complete, he put it on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, tagging as many national sports media outlets as possible. First the NHL-ESPN channel on TikTok picked up the clip, then the NHL account on Instagram shared it for it to go a bit viral. Within 20 hours of the NHL post, there were over 72,000 likes of the video and thousands of comments. Locally, Fox 9 and KARE11 picked up the video as well.

‘It’s been an awesome feeling seeing something you’ve worked on get national attention,” said Pinke. “Waking up in the morning to two direct messages, one from ESPN and the other from the NHL is pretty surreal.’

HCTV added a sports director position back in 2020 and Pinke was hired. HCTV has always had sports coverage to an extent, but never the way it is now. Pinke has expanded the coverage to include a variety of sports.

Here is the video: www.instagram.com/p/CnVJTNnp6VR/ The Journal was there live taking pictures from the bench during the insane sequence and caught a gem of a photo. The best part after the save was the reaction of the crowd on both sides, especially the benches. Both teams were in disbelief at what they just saw and both cheered for the save.

The Raiders did lose the game 4-3 in overtime but everyone in attendance walked away with a cool memory of seeing the save.