Hudson Native Joins Minnesota Swarm Dance Team
By Randy Hanson
Hudson Star-Observer
A former Hudson High School Raidaire will be a member of the dance team that entertains crowds at home matches of the Minnesota Swarm for the 2010 season.
Dancing professionally has been a longtime dream of Beth Hoaglund, a 2004 graduate of Hudson High and the daughter of two Hudson schoolteachers.
“I’m very excited for the season to get under way,” Hoaglund said in a phone call before Christmas.
The Minnesota Swarm is a professional lacrosse team that plays its home matches at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
Hoaglund was one of 10 women selected for the Performance Team from a field of 48 candidates during tryouts last October.
“It was a talented field, so I feel really blessed to have made it,” Hoaglund said.
The Minnesota Swarm Performance Team rookies are featured for the month of November on the team’s 2010 calendar. Beth is standing to the right.The Performance Team’s coach, Tami Krause, also coaches the Minnesota Vikings Cheerleaders.
Hoaglund has been dancing ever since her parents, Gayle and Bob Hoaglund of North Hudson, began taking her to jazz, tap and ballet lessons when she was three years old.
She continued with dancing lessons throughout her elementary school years and made the Raidaires as a sophomore, the first year she was eligible to try out for the high school dance team.
She was selected for the UW-Eau Claire dance team as a freshman and performed with the team throughout her college years. She was a team captain her junior and senior years.
The UW-Eau Claire team attended the national university dance team competitions in Orlando, Fla., each year. In Hoaglund’s senior year, the Blugolds placed third in their division in one of the dance categories.
Hoaglund graduated from UW-Eau Claire in December 2008.
She majored in social work and now is a social worker at a long-term care facility in Eden Prairie, Minn., where she also resides.
She greatly enjoyed dancing with both the Raidaires and the UW-Eau Claire team and tried out for the Swarm Performance Team because she wanted to continue dancing.
She said she’s having a lot of fun being part of the Performance Team. She likes the other dancers and the motivation to stay physically fit.
The Swarm’s first match of the season is Jan. 15 against the Calgary Roughnecks. The team has eight home matches in a season that runs through the end of April.
You can learn all about the lacrosse team and its dance team at www.mnswarm.com.
Hoaglund’s mother, Gayle, is a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Hudson Middle School. Her father, Bob, is recently retired from teaching fifth-graders at North Hudson Elementary School.
