The State Hockey tournament

It’s tournament time here in Minnesota. Well, not for the Gophers. Their Tournament hopes look bleak. I’m talking about the state high school hockey tournament. It’s like basketball in Indiana or football in Texas for many Minnesotans. In fact, I am even in a state hockey tournament pool. Incredible.
For many hockey fans, if you aren’t cheering for your own team, you are cheering for an outstate team. In the Twin Cities metro area, it is too easy to build a powerhouse given the available population and the ability to go to a school that might have a better athletic program. Private schools compound the issue, because the best athletes can pay or get scholarships, and dynasties can be constructed. Who wants to root for those yuppie chumps anyways? Not when there is the pure hockey of rural Minnesota.
The funny thing is, of course, that most of the population lives in the Twin Cities. I went to a private school in the Twin Cities. I am one of the yuppie chumps who nowadays roots for Hermantown, even though my school beat them on the way to a state championship in 1999. The other funny thing is that power shifts regularly from suburb to suburb. It’s Minnetonka and Edina that look good right now. When I was in high school, Elk River and Hastings. Before that, Bloomington was a strong hockey school. Warroad and Roseau, towns along the Canadian Border with a combined population of less than Victoria are in the state tournament every year. Roseau won it all just two seasons ago. Even Hermantown, a suburb of Duluth, is in the tournament annually, it seems.
I can’t explain it. Something about hockey in Minnesota speaks to me. Many people here play, and you never know where the next great team is going to come from.