On Friday, Nov. 6, the Girls 12U B tournament opens the 2026-27 season at the Breezy Point Hockey Center. Marina II starts its hockey dinner buffets that same night: Italian on Fridays, Tex-Mex on Saturdays. The restaurant stopped full dinner service on Oct. 10 and won't bring it back until May 1.
That one change explains most of the winter season around Pelican Lake. The lakeside dining room that serves prime rib all summer now does dinner only as a buffet, and it serves those buffets only on hockey weekends. Breezy Point Resort's winter is built around the tournament calendar, and the closures, buffets and late nights all follow from it.
Ten Weekends, One Open Saturday
Here is the arena's published 2026-27 tournament list from Nov. 6 through mid-January:
- Nov. 6-8: Girls 12U B, closed
- Nov. 13-15: Girls 10U B, closed
- Nov. 20-22: PeeWee C, full with a waitlist
- Nov. 27-29: PeeWee B, one spot remaining
- Dec. 4-6: Bantam A, full with a waitlist
- Dec. 11-13: Bantam B, full with a waitlist
- Dec. 18-20: PeeWee A, one spot remaining
- Jan. 1-3: Squirt A, limited spots remaining
- Jan. 8-10: Squirt C, full with a waitlist
- Jan. 15-17: Squirt B, full with a waitlist
Between Nov. 6 and Jan. 17, Christmas weekend is the only one with no tournament. The list keeps going after that, with weekends booked into mid-February. Questions go to an email address at breezypointresort.com, so the resort runs the tournament business itself. The arena's website also hosts pages for Northern Lakes Lightning Hockey and the Breezy Point Figure Skating Club.
How the Kitchens Line Up Behind It
Look at the resort's restaurants side by side and the hockey schedule shows through.
Marina II, at 9252 Breezy Point Drive, has cut its winter down to two things: a breakfast buffet and the hockey buffets. Breakfast runs 7 to 10 a.m. on Fridays and 7 to 11 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Teams can book a group buffet through a form on the restaurant's page. The page also says hours and days depend on vacancy and may change, so a weekend with more people in town gets more service.
Antlers, the resort's steak-and-seafood room, has closed for the season and says it will be back in spring. Palmer's Grille, which looks out on Deacon's Lodge Golf Course, is closed until April. Both rooms are built around golf views and patio seating, and neither one opens for winter.
The two places that stay open are the casual ones. The resort pitches The North Star Roadhouse as the place to go "with your hockey crew after a big win." It's at 30898 Ranchette Drive and is open every day: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday. The kitchen closes at 9 p.m., and the bar may close an hour early if it's empty. It smokes local meats in a Southern Pride smoker and has golf simulators and a self-serve tap wall with more than 20 taps.
Dockside Lounge opens at 11 a.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Its kitchen stays open until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
The Quiet Days Belong to Locals
Turn the weekend schedule around and you can see the weekdays the resort keeps for people who are here all week.
Dockside is closed Monday and Tuesday. The North Star stays open those nights and runs a meat raffle at 5 p.m. on Tuesdays, plus a meat raffle and virtual races at 6 p.m. on Thursdays. Neither of those nights falls on a tournament weekend. The Chocolate Ox, the resort's ice cream and candy shop on Breezy Point Drive, is open Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. In March, the Echo Journal reported that the shop was expected to open in May. This is its first winter.
The resort's winter activities page lists ice-fishing house rentals from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., cross-country skiing and snowshoeing with rentals, lake skating with skate rentals, sledding, and snowmobiling within five miles of the Paul Bunyan Trail. If you'd rather stay off resort property, the city's Four Seasons Trail runs about two miles for walking, biking, skiing and snowshoeing, with parking off Winter Trail.
Holidays That Fit Around the Brackets
Marina II's Thanksgiving buffet runs Thursday, Nov. 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It costs $40.95 for adults and $18.95 for ages 5 to 12, and kids under 4 eat free. You need a reservation through OpenTable or by calling 218-562-7161, and groups larger than 12 should call. The menu includes herb-crusted prime rib, roast turkey, trout and lasagna. The PeeWee B tournament starts the next morning, so the buffet takes the holiday and the weekend goes to the teams.
Tami + The Bachelor play Dockside on Dec. 31 and again on Jan. 1, 2, 8 and 9, from 9 to 11:30 p.m. each night. Every January date lands on a tournament weekend: Squirt A runs Jan. 1-3 and Squirt C runs Jan. 8-10. Before all that, the Aastonishing Sound + Light Show DJ plays Dockside on Friday, Nov. 6, from 9 to 11:30 p.m., on the opening night of the girls' 12U B tournament.
The resort scheduled Ice Fest, its family winter event at Dockside, from 9 a.m. on Jan. 8 through Jan. 9, 2027. That's also the Squirt C weekend, which is already full with a waitlist. Ice Fest, the hockey families and the Friday and Saturday shows all happen the same weekend.
Off the Resort, a Room With Its Own Clock
Not every business in town runs on the arena's schedule. The Commander Restaurant & Bar at 30279 Airport Road has been in Breezy Point for nearly 50 years. Owner Neal Narveson partnered in the business in 1997 and bought the building in 2000. In a February profile, the Pine and Lakes Echo Journal reported that a group of Breezy Point residents helped the original owner pick the name, and that the building once held 10 motel units at one end. Narveson told the paper:
"Commander's really about the sense of community and friends and relationships over time. A lot of my other business I do comes and goes through Commander. It's a great resort-type atmosphere town and that's really what keeps it going for me."
The same story mentions weekend entertainment, a full food menu and a bar that stays open until 2 a.m. on weekends. It also notes a 1903 ship's cannon that once sat on the stone fireplace. Check with the Commander directly for its winter schedule.
What Goes Up While the Rink Is Busy
Drive along County Road 11 this winter and you'll pass the next piece of the resort being built. On Oct. 5, Breezy Point Resort broke ground on the Ace Valley clubhouse, a two-story building that will hold a pro shop and Happy Dave's, a bar and social dining spot named for longtime general manager Dave Gravdahl. Andy Staples designed Ace Valley as a 12-hole par-3 course with lights for evening play, an island-green bonus hole with a progressive jackpot, a tee shot from the clubhouse roof and a large putting course. It is going in on part of the historic Traditional Golf Course. The resort is keeping 10 of the original holes as the Traditional 10, and Ace Valley is targeted to open in summer 2027.
Resort president David Spizzo told the Echo Journal the clubhouse would be "a place where people can come together, share a meal or a drink and make memories, whether they played 12 holes or came to enjoy the atmosphere and watch the fun." The resort credits Hy-Tec Construction, Widseth Design, Pratt's Excavating, Borden Excavating and Central Lakes Landscape as partners on the project.
On the water, the Breezy Belle will stay at the dock for the 2027 season and be used as a floating event space. The resort says new operations and menu options are coming.
All of these hours are posted as subject to change, so check the venue pages before planning a night out. Through mid-January, the arena's tournament list is the most reliable guide to which nights in town will be busy.
At Larson Group, we pay attention to how the lakes area runs month by month: which kitchens stay open in winter, which weekends fill up, and what's being built along County Road 11. If you're thinking about what a full year on Pelican Lake looks like, or what your Breezy Point property means to the right buyer, we're glad to talk it through. Work With Us.
