Community celebrates opening of Red Baron™ Arena & Expo

Attendees at the the grand opening enjoyed free samples
of Red Baron® pizza.

Sept. 16, 2016 — We recently joined hundreds of Southwest Minnesota residents for the grand opening of the Red Baron™ Arena & Expo in Marshall, Minnesota. The celebration was an opportunity to showcase the new facility for spectators as well as honor the community-wide effort that went into the development of a one-of-a-kind facility for the regional area.

“This is awesome. This is an amazing place, and this doesn’t happen by accident,” CEO Dimitrios Smyrnios said at the grand-opening program.

Referencing early contributions of our company founder Marvin Schwan and his dedication of giving back to the communities of our consumers and employees that support us, Dimitrios said Schwan is continuing that legacy today.

“We will continue to support the communities that support us,” he said.

The Red Baron™ Arena & Expo is the cornerstone facility of The Schwan Regional Amateur Sports Center and a part of the Marshall Amateur Regional Sports Hub (MARSH), which includes more than three-dozen city, school and university sporting facilities in Marshall. The Red Baron™ Arena & Expo features two sheets of ice, 78,200 square feet of space, 1,250 seats for hockey fans and can be used as an exposition center.

Several of our employees not only attended the event with their families, but also volunteered to help with door prizes and distribute complimentary ice cream novelties from Schwan’s Home Service and Edwards® pie slices from Schwan’s Consumer Brands. Our Red Baron® branded sampling truck was also at the event distributing free pizza slices.

Filled with festivities for the entire family, one of the main highlights were the autographs and appearances from Minnesota celebrity sports figures. They included Jared Spurgeon, defenseman for the Minnesota Wild; Ryan O’Rourke, pitcher with the Minnesota Twins; Pat Micheletti, a Gopher alum and former member of the Minnesota North Stars; and Darrell Thompson, former Gopher football great and radio color man.

Also present were the Minnesota sports teams’ mascots, including: TC Bear from the Twins; Crunch from the Timberwolves; Nordy from the Wild; Goldy Gopher from the University of Minnesota; Champ the bulldog from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Stanger the mustang from Southwest Minnesota State University.

Additionally, a hockey mini-camp and skills clinic for youth that was run by Don Lucia, head coach of the University of Minnesota men’s hockey team; Brett Larson, assistant hockey coach with the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Nadine Muzerall, assistant women’s hockey coach at the University of Minnesota.

Following the event’s activities, guests were asked to take a seat as Marshall Mayor Robert Byrnes, SMASC Board Chair Jacob Fahl and Dimitrios welcomed the community to the new facility and thanked the parties and individuals involved in making it all possible. The event concluded with a ceremonial puck drop at center ice.