North Dakota coach Brad Berry knows the importance of doing due diligence on recruits from the NCAA transfer portal, but junior forward Cameron Berg’s commitment may have been secured easier than most.
A West Fargo native with family elsewhere in North Dakota, including a grandmother living three hours west in the Bottineau area, Berg spent the last two seasons at Omaha and is fresh off a 10-goal, 24-point sophomore campaign with the Mavericks.
So when Berg entered the portal, Berry moved quickly.
“We did some video work and background work, calling previous and youth coaches and stuff to get the character side checked out,” Berry said of Berg, a New York Islanders draft pick who now leads UND in faceoffs won, winning draws at a 63 percent clip.
“We obviously had a recollection of playing against him, but I think it was a situation where last year, we weren’t as deep as we are this year, and he fit a role that we needed as a guy who’s a strong-bodied centerman, a guy that can finish plays and score, a guy that’s very good on the power play and someone who’s just a strong body up the middle of the rink.
“We desperately needed that, and I think he saw that as far being an opportunity,” Berry continued. “The other part is the development side. He sees what we have in and around our facility with coaches and infrastructure, and he saw it as a way of not only winning a championship here, but also to invest in himself to hopefully one day play in the NHL.”
So far, so good for Berg in his time with the second-ranked Fighting Hawks. He has 12 points through 14 games, with three of those points coming last weekend in a home sweep of Bemidji State. Berg scored twice Friday in a 3-2 UND overtime victory, in which the Fighting Hawks were made to crawl out of an early 2-0 hole.
UND only trailed by a goal at the first intermission after Berg fired a shot from high at the right circle in off the iron at 18:05. He then tied the game 5:18 into the third period, on a one-timer that he connected on between the blue line and that same faceoff circle.
“He scored two really nice goals that were out from a distance, but he has such a quick, hard release with accuracy that he picked a couple of corners and caught the goaltender off guard a little bit,” Berry said.
“(Berg) has that in his game, and there are some guys who are playmakers but not quite finishers, and I think he’s both. He makes plays, and he can also finish.”
Berg finished a good weekend for him by assisting on UND’s second goal in a 5-0 win Saturday. He had the second assist on a goal by Jackson Blake, who netted Friday’s overtime winner.
Early in his time back in the Red River Valley, Berg has performed exactly as advertised.
“Everything we saw on video and saw playing against him (indicated that Berg is) a guy who competes extremely hard, and it fits into our culture that way,” Berry said. “We have skilled players, but they’re skilled players who are high competitors and compete hard every day in practice, which leads to games, and he does that, as well.
“From the onset here, the first couple of months, he’s loving it here and he’s getting ingrained and embedded into our team, and the feeling is mutual, both ways.”
