Our March Madness: The Minnesota State Hockey Tourney

The 4 Day Festival of Hockey

Winter. It sucks! It’s cold, snow makes driving the ultimate test of survival, and it feels like it lasts forever. Minnesotans know this feeling. It’s late February at time of writing and everyone you talk to here is sick of the white fluffy nonsense and temperatures barely touching 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, spring is just around the corner, and the signs are everywhere. The snow is melting, the temperatures are rising above freezing, and the Xcel Energy Center is the center of the hockey world this weekend.

(2015 Class AA final between Lakeville North and Duluth East)

The Minnesota State Boys’ High School Hockey Tournament is our March Madness. Every year on the second weekend of March, 16 schools from across the state representing two classes (eight in each) descend on the home of the Minnesota Wild to decide who is the best. From the big public schools, the private institutions, and the small little towns who can’t stop producing amazing hockey players, everyone and anyone can play here. Its magic is hard to explain to outsiders. It’s a four-day festival of the state’s love for hockey. It’s taking what football means to Texas and what basketball means to Indiana and turning up to 20. The largest crowds to ever see a hockey game in Minnesota have come at this tournament. To an outsider, it might seem strange to see a state embrace a high school athletic competition like this. To us, it’s really more than that. It’s the dreams of so many young hockey players, the goal of high school hockey programs, the satisfaction of parents finally seeing their kid reach the mountain top after the many hours spent supporting them as they fought through conference play and then section tournament play to get to the state tournament. It’s the towns, big and small, reaching center stage. My high school was never so lucky during my time there, finally reaching the tourney my freshman year of college. Yet I still felt happy for them and my hometown (it helped that I still knew some of the players).

That’s really where the magic and joy of this tournament comes from. In pro sports, you are usually tied to your local team: a team that represents the city you live in or the state you live in. In college, it’s more so about supporting your institution (if you want), which can be a local school or a school thousands of miles away. High school sports are so closely tied to the towns people grew up in. There’s more of a connection there, knowing not just your school, but your entire hometown is being represented here, and winning means more because of that. It’s a reason so many older folk take joy in this tournament, outside of its insane history. It represents their towns and schools in a way that hits on a deeper personal level. Most people would’ve never heard of Warroad, Edina, Mahtomedi, or Roseau without this tournament. Plus, we just really like our hockey, ok? And this is hockey in one of its purest forms. There’s always something special and unique about amateur sports that captivates people; just look at the Little League World Series. And as the college game slowly moves towards feeling more neutralized and professional (NIL not at fault), just sitting back and watching high schoolers play hockey has a nice feeling to it. Also, like…damn, these kids have good hair. 

Now, if you want to watch this year’s edition of The Tourney™, which is FREE on prep45.com, here are some storylines and teams to watch.

CLASS A

Class A schools are schools with fewer than 500 students. 2020 Class A champions Mahtomedi return as the #3 seed, behind 1-seed Hermantown and 2-seed Warroad, all of them favorites to win the class. The biggest story, however, is the Minneapolis boys’ hockey team. They are the first Minneapolis-based public school to reach the tourney since 1994, back when it was played at the St. Paul Civic Center. The team is coached by 1990 Mr. Hockey Joe Dziedzic, a legend in the Minnesota hockey community. To see a public Minneapolis school make the tournament over the private schools of Blake, Benilde-St. Margaret’s, and Holy Angels will be a nice throwback to old days of the tourney when many public Minneapolis schools fielded teams and made the tourney on a regular basis. They will face 5-seed Alexandria tonight at 8pm Central with a big crowd expected. Only the top five teams are seeded in both classes; the unseeded teams are Mankato East/Loyola, New Prague, and Monticello Moose, all hoping they will be the next big upset artists.

CLASS AA

Class AA is for schools with enrollment higher than 500, which leads to the bigger name schools and towns showing up here. Perennial favorite Hill-Murray headlines the eight-team bracket as the 1 seed, looking to win its second title in three seasons at the Class AA level. The biggest missing piece of this year's tournament is Eden Prairie, who won last year’s tournament and were the runners-up the two seasons prior. You still have the familiar names of Lakeville South, who lost to Eden Prairie the previous year, and Edina, who are 10-time champions of this tournament. The most shocking part is that both enter unseeded, with Lakeville South getting the tall task of facing the top-seeded Hill-Murray while Edina gets 3-seed Maple Grove. Other teams of note are 2-seed Cretin-Derham Hall, who hasn’t seen a top-four finish since 2006 when they won their most recent title, 4-seed Andover, at their third tourney having yet to win a game outside of the consolation bracket (which they won in 2020), and unseeded Prior Lake, who got told to stop climbing the glass during their section win in one of the funnier videos to come from Minnesota High School Hockey.

Class AA tends to be the highlight of the tournament, with the massive crowds and two of the last three championship games going to overtime. 

So, if you have some free time this week and need a hockey fix, or just wanna see what this whole thing is about, head to prep45.com today (!!!!!) for some Class A action, and enjoy the magic of Minnesota’s March Madness.

And one last thing,


Fuck Edina.