7 Ways Minnesota Treats High School Hockey Differently Than the Rest of the Country
Minnesota’s state high school hockey tournament set a new single-session attendance record in March 2024, when 20,208 fans packed a Class AA quarterfinal at Xcel Energy Center.
Minneapolis TV station KARE 11 called it a new record for the event that same night.
These are the ways Minnesota treats high school hockey differently than the rest of the country.
1. Finals in an NHL Arena
The state holds its state hockey tournament inside Xcel Energy Center, home of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, every year.
Wisconsin’s tournament plays at Legacy20 Arena in the DeForest area, a regional rink built for exactly this kind of amateur event.
Wisconsin still crowns two hockey champions each year, just not in front of an NHL crowd.
Michigan sends its champions to USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, a dedicated amateur facility, not an NHL building.
Not every state has one.
Only 16 states have an NHL team to lend a high school tournament in the first place, according to the league’s team list.
Minnesota is one of them, and it hands the keys to teenagers every winter.
2. Statewide Hockey Holiday
Minnesota gives one January Saturday over to Hockey Day Minnesota, an outdoor, statewide hockey holiday with a different hometown committee every year.
The Minnesota Wild, Minnesota Hockey and broadcast partner Bally Sports North run it together.
Bally Sports North airs more than 16 hours of hockey that day, blending youth, high school, college and NHL games into one broadcast.
The event marked its 19th year in January 2025, when Shakopee hosted a full slate of boys’ and girls’ games building toward a Minnesota Wild game that night.
A new town every year.
That traces the tradition back to 2007, nearly two decades of statewide outdoor hockey.
Hastings was tapped to host the 2026 event, part of a rotation that partnered that year with the United Heroes League to bring veterans and military families to the games.
3. Hockey’s Legal Status
Minnesota’s state legislature made ice hockey the official state sport in 2009, the same kind of law that names a state bird or a state flower.
The statute reads: “Ice hockey is adopted as the official sport of the state of Minnesota.”
Not many states bother.
States commonly name a bird or a flower, but a law naming a sport is rare, and Minnesota’s calls out hockey by name.
4. Equal Treatment for Girls’ Hockey
The state crowns a separate girls’ champion every year, split like the boys’ bracket: Class A for smaller schools, Class AA (AA, for short) for larger ones.
The girls’ tournament plays a separate week at Xcel Energy Center too, typically in February, weeks ahead of the boys’ bracket in March.
Michigan, a state serious enough about hockey to hand out a Mr. Hockey award every spring, doesn’t sponsor a girls’ state tournament at all.
Wisconsin sponsors girls’ hockey too, which makes Michigan’s gap stand out even more for a state that treats the sport just as seriously.
Same sport, different treatment.
5. Newspaper Just for Hockey
The state supports its dedicated hockey newspaper, Let’s Play Hockey, based two hours northwest of the Twin Cities in Sauk Centre.
The paper covers high school games, rankings, and awards, and it’s now marking 50 years in business.
Fifty years, one sport.
Bryan Zollman publishes it today, running the operation out of a town many readers outside hockey circles have never heard of.
The paper still hosts its summer expo for coaches and players. It’s a niche subscription list. It apparently still pays the bills.
Psst! How much do you know about Minnesota’s hockey towns and legends? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Minnesota Hockey IQ
Answer these questions on Minnesota’s hockey towns, legends, and records. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Which Minnesota town claims that no U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team has ever won gold without one of its players on the roster?
6. Head Start on Michigan
Minnesota crowned its first state high school hockey champion in 1945, when St. Paul athletic director Gene Aldrich organized the very first tournament.
Thief River Falls beat White Bear Lake, 3-2, in that first final.
One tournament, eight decades.
Michigan's high school athletic association doesn't list a champion earlier than 1975, three decades after Minnesota's tournament began.
The two states split their fields differently today -- Michigan into three divisions, Minnesota into two -- but Minnesota's head start predates either format.
Minnesota's tournament was already three decades old before Michigan's official records even begin.
7. Sellout Crowds at Xcel Energy Center
The state hockey tournament fills Xcel Energy Center, the Minnesota Wild's National Hockey League (NHL) arena, for a full week every March.
The tournament broke its attendance record twice in one day in March 2024.
An afternoon session drew 19,765 fans, edging past the old record of about 19,200, and the evening session that followed pulled in 20,208 fans to break the mark again.
Lines start hours early.
That's a lot of parkas packed into one hockey barn.
Fans start lining up outside Xcel Energy Center hours before the first puck drop, the same way they would for a Minnesota Wild playoff game.
For one week every March, the Wild's arena turns its ice over completely to teenagers chasing a state championship instead of a paycheck.
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