Last Updated on Thursday, 12 March 2015 09:27
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
High Schools and colleges have homecoming week. In Minnesota, we have the boys’ high school hockey tournament. No offense to the girls, whose game has grown beautifully, but the boys’ tournament is still our homecoming event.
State tournament week means a lot of things to a lot of people. Of course there will be excited players, with their troop of supporters involved in one of America’s truly exciting events, a state high school tournament that is rivaled by few others. But because it is hockey and, in my opinion, one of the greatest spectator games of any kind, it may be the best of all high school state tournaments.
We Minnesotans share in a cultural phenomenon. We get to see our own young men blossom into great players from our own ponds and neighborhoods. I am not old enough to have seen the great John Mayasich play, but I have seen some greats in Mike Antonovich, Henry Boucha, Phil Housley and the Roseau connection of Broten, Broten and Erickson, to name a few. To experience in some small way the growth of our game and our players is something we all are privileged to be a part of. It is a common bond that Minnesotans share.
Many of the memories are forged a few steps away from the games as well. We walk around the concourse between periods, meeting old acquaintances. These meetings often mean getting back to your seats after the next period has started. These sometimes planned and sometimes chance meetings lead to questions of where the next burger will be bought and who might be there. Some head next door to the great Saint Paul Hotel. For whatever reason, I have grown to be a West Seventh Street guy. You might find me at Tom Reid’s or Patrick McGovern’s. But wherever one goes, there will be friends everywhere. There is an ever-popular consumer hockey show next door for those so inclined as well.
At a sectional game this past week at Aldrich Arena, another landmark that seems a part of my yearly hockey homecoming, I ran into good friends Marsha and Greg Scott. Their son Jonathon has married and moved to Arizona. He and his wife recently had their first baby. While I am sure there is nothing more important to Jonathon and his new wife than this precious new baby, Marsha told me with a Minnesota pride, “Oh, he is still coming home for the state tournament.” That’s what many Minnesotans do … we come home for our event.
Growing up in St. Paul, my father always said that St. Paul was a “hockey town.” I think it is. When the Wild franchise chose to build the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, it just seemed so deservedly so to me. I loved the years at the old Met as well. It was a great arena with a great ice sheet and lots of parking for tailgating. But the state tournament, in my eyes, is right where it is supposed to be – in St. Paul.
We’ll be walking the concourse meeting old friends. We will be at Reid’s, McGovern’s, Cossetta and the Saint Paul Hotel. We may or may not see the next Mike Antonovich or Henry Boucha, but if we do, we will see him together. We will see some exciting hockey, some great wins and some disappointing losses. We often see a snowflake or two also.
We all get to share in this at a time of year when we are ready for winter to be over, and the boys’ Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament gets us together for our homecoming while bringing one more winter to a close – two things we all love!
Kevin Hartzell was most recently the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s. His new book “Leading From the Ice” is now available at amazon.com.
