Bemidji remembers George Pelawa 40 years after NHL draft pick

A Lakeland News special revisited George Pelawa’s story 40 years after the Bemidji forward went 16th overall to the Calgary Flames in the 1986 NHL Entry Draft. The draft-day milestone brought pride across Bemidji, then tragedy followed when Pelawa died in a car accident just months later at age 18.

Pelawa was born Feb. 22, 1968, in Bemidji and had already become one of the city’s best-known young athletes by the time Calgary called his name. He was named Minnesota Mr. Hockey in 1986, had verbally committed to the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and left Bemidji High School with school records for goals and points. He also helped Bemidji reach the Minnesota state championship tournament in both his junior and senior years.

Contemporaneous UPI coverage from the 1986 draft focused on Pelawa’s size, calling it the biggest question surrounding him that day. Pelawa answered the attention with dry humor, saying, “I sink in water,” when asked about his build. Later profiles said he scored 29 goals and 55 points in his senior season, numbers that helped explain why the hometown player drew national attention before his 18th birthday.

What has kept Pelawa’s name alive in Beltrami County is not just what he did in a Bemidji jersey, but how often his story still turns up in local hockey life. The Bemidji Youth Hockey Association runs a George Pelawa Memorial Bantam AA/A Tournament, giving a new generation a direct link to the player who once represented the city on the draft stage in Calgary, Alberta. A 2023 local story noted that Pelawa’s cousins played in the memorial event, a small but telling sign that his family connection to the game remains active.

Pelawa is listed as buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Bemidji, a resting place that sits close to the community that still claims him as one of its defining hockey figures. Forty years after the draft, Pelawa remains part of Bemidji’s sports identity because his story still carries both sides of hometown hockey: the promise of what a local player can become and the loss that followed when that promise ended far too soon.