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Join the "Ultimate Sports Guys" broadcasting live on Saturday mornings from the Ultimate Sports Bar & Grill. The Ultimate Sports Guys is a live local sports talk show featuring Kurt Haider, Tom Frericks, Mike Killeen, Kevin Allenspach and Emmett Keenan. Local sports, national sports and everything in between is up for discussion. Stop by for the discussion and enjoy some great food and drink from the Ultimate.
A native of St. Cloud, Kurt played football, basketball and baseball at Cathedral High School. He also played American Legion baseball for the St. Cloud 76ers and St. Cloud amateur baseball teams Rec, Park and Saints. Kurt attended St. Cloud State and played baseball there for a short time before embarking on a career in broadcasting.
Kurt began his broadcasting career in Alaska doing play by play for football, basketball, hockey and summer collegiate baseball.
In 1988, Kurt moved to Roseville, MN to work at KSTP AM1500. He moved back to Alaska in 1989, accepting a job in Anchorage to become the radio voice of University of Alaska Anchorage Division 1 hockey and Division 2 basketball, and the Great Alaska Shootout Division 1 basketball tournament.
He won numerous state-wide awards from the Alaska Broadcasters Association for Best Play By Play and Best Sports Reporting.
In 2015, Kurt accepted a job with the Alaska Aces professional hockey team, serving as the Director of Media Relations and Broadcasting for the ECHL club for 2 years before the franchise folded. Prior to his return to Central Minnesota, Kurt was the morning show host and sports director for 3 years on Anchorage’s news/talk KFQD, and continued to broadcast UAA hockey play by play and live talk shows.
Tom Frericks is the owner/operator of the Ultimate Sports Bar and Grill in Waite Park, Minnesota. He is a lifelong resident of the St. Cloud area and graduated from Apollo High School. He studied and played baseball at Fergus Falls Community College and St. Cloud State University. Tom then played many years of amateur baseball in the Central Minnesota area before turning his attention to coaching Apollo High School and Waite Park American Legion programs. He also founded the St. Cloud Blue Sox baseball program. Tom is the long-time owner of the Ultimate Sports Bar and Grill, and when fire destroyed the original building in April of 2020, Tom made the decision to rebuild with amazing results. Ultimate is now generally considered the top sports bar and grill in the central Minnesota area, with over 75 TV screens showing a wide array of sports and special programming.
I am a content writer at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University.
I worked on journalism for 30 years, most of that as a sports writer. I was at the St. Cloud Times from 1995-2016. I covered sports, including SCSU hockey ,for most of that time and also was assistant sports editor. During the last several years, I covered business, health and education and was on a three-person investigative team.
I worked several years as a grant writer before coming to CSB and SJU.
Most important, I’ve never stopped writing and am in the process of publishing a book about the Minnesota North Stars, for whom I was a PR intern in 1991 when they made the Stanley Cup finals. It will be out this fall.
Astronaut, doctor, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Mike Killeen is none of those things. But he has had a 40-year career covering professional, collegiate and high school athletics. Following his graduation with honors from Winona State University, he spent a year with the Winona Daily News before coming to the St. Cloud Times to cover St. Cloud State athletics. With the arrival of Coach Herb Brooks in 1986-87, his focus shifted to hockey and covered the Huskies' transition to Division I and the rugged WCHA. He left the Times and became a statistician for the SCSU men's and women's hockey teams, the Saint John's hockey team, and the SJU and SCSU football teams (until the elimination of the latter program), positions he still holds today. In the summer you can find him on area golf courses playing poorly.
I grew up in a baseball (and other sports) family in LeSueur in southern Minnesota, moved to St. Michael in 9th grade, and attended St. John's University.
I am finishing my 25th year as the Director of Athletics and Activities at Cathedral High School. I am extremely fortunate to be able to spend my days with high school and middle school students, doing something I love. It keeps me young and engaged.
For the past 20 years, I have also been involved in managing and working at many section and state tournaments for the MSHSL. Again, very fortunate to do what I love and hope I never have to get a real job.
Prior to Cathedral, I spent several years as a program director and sports director at a local radio station - doing play-by-play for many area high school teams, St. Cloud State, St. John's, and St. Ben's. I have an unverified claim to fame - I believe we did the first ever local high school play-by-play of soccer in Minnesota - a double-header when Cathedral qualified for the state tourney in both boys and girls soccer in the fall of 1997 - at least no one has ever challenged that assertion.
Before coming to St. Cloud in 1989, my wife Barb and I, along with our kids, spent 4+ years in Wisconsin. True to my promise when we moved over there, I became a Brewers, Bucks, and Bucky fan - but NEVER a Packers fan.
Much of our time now is spent cheering for our two granddaughters in soccer, tennis, dance team, hockey, and softball. Nothing is better.
There are few things involving sports that I don't enjoy - but my favorite might be running the play clock on a beautiful fall afternoon at St. John's. With all due respect to others, nothing compares to Clemen's Stadium in the fall.
I value the many relationships I have been able to develop over the past 34 years in St. Cloud and we consider the Granite City home.