WATCH: Minnesota High Schooler Has Viral Moment On TV After Game-Winning Goal

If you were lucky enough to watch the boys hockey game between Cloquet-Esko-Carlton and Hibbing-Chisholm on Wednesday night, you got a real treat.

In a game where the winner represents a chunk of Northern Minnesota in the 2025 Minnesota State Boys Hockey Tournament as the representative from Section 7AA, the stakes were high. And the action lived up to the moment.

After a scoreless first period, Hibbing-Chisholm worked their way to a 2-1 lead in the second. Cloquet-Esko-Carlton came back in the third and the two teams skated to a 3-3 tie by the end of regulation.

Someone needed to win, and Hibbing-Chisholm freshman Whitaker Rewertz was the one to net the game-deciding goal in overtime to send the Bluejackets to their first state tournament appearance in nearly 15 years. For his efforts, he was named the player of the game by the TV broadcast crew.

In a postgame interview with Rewertz, the freshman got drenched by several of his teammates emptying their Gatorade bottles over his head while being interviewed on the ice by WDIO TV's Spencer Pierce.

READ MORE: Minnesota Among Top States To Become A Professional Athlete

Pierce highlighted that the last time Rewertz's team was in the tourney was when he was just starting his youth hockey career playing pond hockey. Rewertz called the moment "insane", being the one to score the game-winning goal in overtime to send his team to St. Paul next week.

Rewertz played things humble, saying anyone could have scored that goal, calling it all a team effort.

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It's when the freshman was asked about the opponent that things got interesting. When talking about the resilience of his team playing against the higher-seeded CEC, he paid respect to the Lumberjacks with an "earmuffs" moment that has since gone viral.

Rewertz called Cloquet-Esko-Carlton "A f**king good team", totally owning it before turning away from the mic and calling them a "good team" a second time and explaining they were a hard opponent all game long.

Ope. Sorry, Mom & Dad?

The video has been getting shared around, gaining some viral attention online.

The play-by-play personality, Zach Schneider, apologized quickly for the language before moving on with their postgame show.

WDIO's lead evening anchor Darren Danielson informed us that Whitaker and his coach both reached out to WDIO to apologize to interviewer Spencer Pierce and to the station for the "on-air slip-up". Danielson called it a "Minnesota Nice move" by the freshman and his coach.

In addition, Whitaker explained in an interview with FOX 9 in the Twin Cities that he normally doesn't swear much. He went on to explain that he's a good Christian kid who just got "super excited" and the expletive "just slipped out". The reporter, Amy Hockert, called the moment "endearing" over his passion in an exciting moment.

You can see what he had to say about the game, the incident, and what it means to have made the team as a freshman in the video below.

This gives Hibbing-Chisholm their first trip to the MSHSL Boys Hockey Tournament in St. Paul for the first time since 2011. They will learn their opponent this weekend when seeding is completed for the Class A bracket.

Their first game will be sometime on Wednesday, March 5. When seeding is completed, we'll know when they play on Wednesday.