Tourney's Shine Transcends Brackets

When the Minnesota Wild came into existence in 2000, they pushed Minnesota as the "State of Hockey," and even produced a "fight song" about it. A bit corny, yes, but it's been an effective marketing tool for the Wild.

The Wild has developed quite a following by tapping into the romance of hockey in Minnesota. It's a romance that predates its existence, as well as the existence of the Wild's predecessor, the Minnesota North Stars. Indeed, the passion for hockey in Minnesota extends far beyond the NHL franchise the state loves so much.

Back in 1945, Eveleth beat Thief River Falls 4-3 for the first-ever Minnesota State High School Hockey Championship. It started a tradition that has become one of the most significant in all of American youth sports. It's a tradition that is reinvented every March, and begins again Wednesday.


Every year, 16 of the top boys hockey teams in the state meet at the XCel Energy Center in St. Paul. The small schools (Class A) are lucky to fill half the building, but that doesn't diminish the passion on the ice. The big schools (Class AA) play before near-capacity crowds that hover around 18,000. Fans from all over the state make the pilgrimage to St. Paul. They bring friends, family, and many take time off work, all in the name of some high school hockey games that often don't involve their alma mater, favorite team, or even anyone they know.

The games are televised around the state, and you can subscribe to an online video stream of the games. There's live audio available online. Fans who can't make the trip to the Twin Cities are often glued to their television, radio, or computer, and those who have moved away from Minnesota can follow it all on the internet.

It's not only a big deal to the fans, it's also a huge deal for so many small Minnesota towns. Kids grow up together, and as they hit the outdoor rinks whenever possible, they do it with the dream of someday playing under the bright lights of a state tournament.

For Gino Guyer, this dream came true back in 2001. Guyer played his high school hockey at Greenway High School, situated in the small town of Coleraine, which is some three-plus hours from St. Paul. Before he went to college at Minnesota, Guyer led the Raiders of Greenway to a third-place finish in Class AA. In a 2004 piece by Jess Myers on ESPN.com, Guyer explained how helping the Gophers win a national championship compared to leading his hometown Raiders to the state tournament.

"This is amazing, but it's different than high school because there you win with the guys you've known since you were little and who you've played with all your life," he said. "Still, winning this national title is an incredible feeling, and it's almost as good as making it to state."

I'm not sure I can explain it any better than that (emphasis mine). For a Minnesota kid, getting to the state tournament trumps winning a national championship. Ask any of the Division I prospects playing in St. Paul this week, and they'll probably tell you a tale of an opportunity they had to play outside of their high school, whether it be in the United States Hockey League or in the National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They'll tell you of that opportunity, and they'll tell you how they turned it down so they could have a chance to win a state title with kids who have been playing together since they were barely out of diapers.

And it's not just the players who feel that way. The coaches do, too, even elite coaches like the late, great Herb Brooks.

A few years ago a hockey columnist quoted former University of Minnesota and U.S. Olympic coach Herb Brooks as saying that winning a state championship for St. Paul's Johnson High in 1955 was one of the best moments of his career. Upon reading it, Brooks called the writer and claimed he had been misquoted. Brooks said it was the best moment, better than coaching the Miracle on Ice team in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

I grew up in Superior, Wis., a stone's throw from the Minnesota border. In my hometown, we have our own hockey tradition. The high school team in Superior has made the Wisconsin state tournament 32 times, winning a record 12 championships. As good as the Spartans are, they really can't compete with the best Class AA teams in Minnesota. That's because hockey in Wisconsin is different. The state tournament is played at the dingy, dirty, old Alliant Energy Center (formerly the Dane County Coliseum) in Madison. While the Wisconsin Badgers' hockey teams have long since moved home games to the on-campus Kohl Center, the high school state hockey tournament is stuck in a rut.

No such problem in Minnesota, where the state tournament continues to thrive. Over 100,000 fans will walk into the XCel Energy Center this week. The old-timers may yearn for the days of the old one-class state tournament, when the little schools like Eveleth, International Falls, Warroad, and Roseau were forced to compete with big-time, high-enrollment schools such as Edina, St. Paul Johnson, and St. Paul Washington. But they show up to watch the two-class event, anyway.

These days, a number of Class A schools choose to "play up" to Class AA. Roseau won a state title in 2007, then took a 28-0 record into the 2008 tournament before losing in the semifinals. Grand Rapids, decked out in old-school orange uniforms and dubbed the "Halloween Machine," made the Class AA final in back-to-back years, losing to Roseau in the second of those runs in 2007.


Being a hockey legend in Minnesota doesn't require that you play one second in the NHL. Sure, it helps, but it's not a requirement.

Just ask Dave Spehar.

He learned how to play hockey in Duluth, a city of around 85,000 on the western tip of Lake Superior. As a junior at Duluth East, the preeminent program in the city at the time, the dynamic duo of Spehar and Chris Locker led the Greyhounds to the state tournament in 1994. In that year, East fell to eventual Class AA champion Bloomington Jefferson in the semifinals. They settled for third place.

While Duluth East was a highly-regarded team in 1995, and Spehar was clearly one of the state's best players, no one could have envisioned the three nights East would experience. Nine goals and a state title later, Spehar was a legend in state folklore forever. No one had ever before posted hat tricks in three straight games of the state tournament, and no one has done it since. If that wasn't enough, Duluth East returned to the state tournament in 1996. While it was again forced to settle for a third-place finish, it did have a part in what many say is the greatest game in state tournament history.

Matched up with future pro Erik Westrum and Apple Valley, the Greyhounds needed a late Locker goal to draw even at 4-4. The two teams tussled back and forth deep into the night. There was a tinge of controversy in the second overtime, as East defenseman Dylan Mills ripped a slapshot past Apple Valley goalie Karl Goehring. The puck rang off the crossbar and bounced away from the net. Replays were inconclusive, but seemed to indicate the puck may have hit the top bar inside the net, meaning it could have been a goal. However, there was no replay used in the state tournament in 1996 (they have it now, though), and the officials on the ice ruled it was not a goal. Apple Valley went on to win the game in the fifth overtime, well after midnight local time. The Eagles won the state title the next night.

It didn't matter that Dave Spehar went on to a largely inauspicious career at the University of Minnesota, and it didn't matter that he would never play a second of professional hockey.

Long before Spehar, Eveleth's John Mayasich established himself as one of the state's great high school players. Mayasich would star at the University of Minnesota, play on two medal-winning Olympic hockey teams (including the gold-medal team from 1960), and he is a member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.

He may be most remembered, though, for his exploits in the state tournament. From 1948-1951, Mayasich picked up 46 points as the Eveleth Golden Bears won four straight state championships.

Names like Spehar and Mayasich might mean nothing to a hockey fan in, say, Dallas, but they mean practically everything to a hockey fan in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, guys like Neal Broten (pictured), Paul Martin, and Tom Gilbert, among many others, have gone on to accomplished pro careers without ever winning a state title.

In Broten's case, it's something that forever haunted him. He played in the Olympics, for the Gophers, and in the NHL, but talks glowingly about his days as a youth player in Roseau, a small town in far northwestern Minnesota near the Canadian border.

"Growing up, my heroes weren't the NHL guys though, they were the Roseau High School hockey players. I feel really lucky to have grown up in such a wonderful hockey town, where the tradition runs so deep in the community. I mean hockey is what that town is all about for basically eight months out of the year - it's pretty amazing, and to be a part of that is something special. In small towns like that, you start playing with the same group of guys from when you first get on skates, all the way through pee wees and finally through high school. So when it's over, it's like saying goodbye to family. I was lucky though. We got to play in the state tournament..."

Those are the words of St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist and local radio show host Joe Soucheray, who appeared in a 2004 Fox Sports North documentary on the state tournament called "Ice Dreams." The hour-long special still airs occasionally on FSN during the winter, and received rave reviews.

Veteran hockey journalist John Gilbert has covered NCAA Frozen Fours and events like the Indianapolis 500. To this day, Gilbert tells me, his favorite event to witness and cover is the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament.

Normally, there is some controversy in Class A. First, there's the fact that Class A even exists. The two-class tournament is still a sore spot for many traditionalists. There's also the presence of private schools among the small-school field. Private schools don't have district boundaries to draw from, and they often draw accusations of recruiting.

There are three private schools among the eight in the Class A field this year. St. Cloud Cathedral plays Mahtomedi in the quarterfinals. Mahtomedi upset defending state champion St. Thomas Academy (a private school) in its section championship game. The "star" of Class A is Little Falls. Little Falls takes a perfect 28-0 record into the tournament, and it's led by senior Ben Hanowski, who has scored a state-record 189 goals and also has the state record for career points. The Flyers open the tournament Wednesday against Virginia/Mountain Iron-Buhl/Orr, a cooperative team that is making just its second-ever appearance in the state tournament. Too often, Virginia fans had to watch towns like Eveleth and Hibbing bask in the glory of a state tournament team. To have two teams in the tournament in the last five years is the sign of a surge for the Blue Devils. Warroad, Hutchinson, Breck, and Rochester Lourdes make up the rest of the Class A field.

Thursday is the day for the Class AA teams to play quarterfinal games. Defending state champion Hill-Murray was rocked by the removal of four players from the boys hockey team in January, but it's back to defend its title. Hill-Murray will play Eden Prairie in the quarterfinals. Longtime power Duluth East is back for the first time since 2005, and they're led by Division I recruits Max Tardy and Derek Forbort. Top-seeded Edina lost star Zack Budish to a knee injury during football season, but Edina returns, seeking redemption after a shutout loss to Hill-Murray in last year's final. The Hornets are instead led by fellow football star and Notre Dame recruit Anders Lee. Duluth East plays Cretin-Derham Hall while Edina battles Moorhead in the quarterfinals, along with Blaine taking on Rochester Century.


No matter the favorite, it's among the most entertaining four days of high-school sports you'll find anywhere in the country. It rivals the tradition of Indiana's legendary basketball tournament, and features some of the best young hockey players anywhere. No other single sporting event captures the attention and passion of Minnesota sports fans like the state hockey tournament. Hundreds of thousands will take in the games, whether it be on television, radio, or the internet. Meanwhile, fans of all ages -- many with their own state tournament stories to tell -- will be on hand at the XCel Energy Center to watch around 300 teenage boys from all corners of Minnesota live out their lifelong dreams. Only a handful of them will ever go on to play in the NHL, but even that handful will have a hard time experiencing anything like this week.