Photos courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society
Ice Polo
The first “ice polo” tournament, hosted by the St. Paul Winter Carnival.
Every year in March, school buses and motor coaches and minivans haul teenage boys to St. Paul: from Roseau, the Iron Range, the Arrowhead, and every other quadrant of the state. On March 6, of course, the puck dropped at Xcel for the 75th edition of the Boys’ State High School Hockey Tournament. But then hockey has been flowing south into Minnesota since the late 19th century, when Manitoban immigrants imported the game to the Iron Range by way of James J. Hill’s Great Northern Line. Skate backward with us, will you?
1886
The St. Paul Winter Carnival hosts the first “ice polo” tournament. The sport—played on skates with a field-hockey stick and a ball—marks an evolutionary step from the Scotch-Canadian game of “shinny.”
1895
In January, two teams turn up at an outdoor rink on 11th Street and 4th Avenue South in Minneapolis. The result: Minnesota’s first organized game of ice hockey.
1916
Thirty women try out for the first Gopher women’s hockey team. By 1929, the lady Gophers have their own rink behind the library.
Golden Bears
1926
The Eveleth Golden Bears, a high school squad of bad-ass Iron Rangers coached by Cliff Thompson, begin their dynasty, going undefeated over a three-year stretch.
1945
Gene Aldrich, athletic director for St. Paul schools, organizes the first state high school hockey tournament. Thief River Falls beats the White Bear Lake Bears, 3–2, in the inaugural game. To this day, the Bears have never won in the first round.
University of Minnesota Athletics
John Mariucci
1954
Arguably the best Gophers team ever, coached by legendary Evelethan John Mariucci, loses the NCAA Final to RPI in an overtime upset. Mariucci never wins the big one.
1958
Former Olympian and Eveleth goaltender Willard “Ike” Ikola takes the coaching job at Edina High School. During 32 consecutive winning seasons, Ikola’s team earns eight state titles. If you don’t live in Edina, you resent each one.
Photos courtesy of Minnesota historical society
North Stars
1967
The NHL expands beyond “the original six,” and the Minnesota North Stars make their home debut in a new arena in Bloomington. Goldy Goldsworthy scores the team’s first goal at Met Center.
Wikimedia commons
U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame
1973
Frustrated by the stingy Hockey Hall of Fame, in Toronto, which rarely inducts Americans, we build our own U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in . . . yup, Eveleth.
1977
Steve and Jeff Carlson take a leave from the Minnesota Fighting Saints to play the goony Hanson brothers in Paul Newman’s Slap Shot. A third brother, Jack, can’t appear, after getting called up tothe Edmonton Oilers.
University of Minnesota Athletics
Lou Nanne
1978
After three years with the Gophers and 11 with the North Stars, “Sweet Lou from the Soo” Nanne hangsup the skates. The North Stars immediately hire him as GM.
Steve Fenn/ABC via Getty Images
Team USA
1980
Team USA, coached by Herb Brooks, upsets the Soviet Union, 4–3, in the Olympics. Do you believe that Kurt Russell will one day play a plumber’s son from St. Paul in a movie called Miracle? Yes!
1981
Bloomington’s Decathlon Club founds the Hobey Baker award—hockey’s own Heisman. (Baker, a Princeton winger, skates through This Side of Paradise, by classmate F. Scott Fitzgerald.)
Buena Vista Pictures/courtesy of Everett Collection
The Mighty Ducks
1991
Filming outdoors in St. Paul through a negative 55-degree wind chill, actors Emilio Estevez and Heidi Kling apply warm water to their lips to perform the kissing scene in Mighty Ducks.
1993
Only a year after goingto the Stanley Cup Finals, the double-crossingNorm Green—to deafeningMet Center chants of “NORM SUCKS!”—decides to move the NorthStars to Dallas.
Photos courtesy of Minnesota historical society
MN Wild
2000
The Minnesota Wild, the state of hockey’s second NHL expansion franchise, begin their inaugural season in “The X,” the house that Mayor Norm Coleman built. Almost two decades later, their team name remains the worst in pro sports.
2002
Under the tutelage of the tastefully bemulleted Don Lucia, the Gophers win their first NCAA championship since 1979. (They beat Maine, 4–3, in a classic final, at the Xcel Energy Center.) Dinkytown burns.
University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Repeat
2002
Under the tutelage of the tastefully bemulleted Don Lucia, the Gophers win their first NCAA championship since 1979. (They beat Maine, 4–3, in a classic final, at the Xcel Energy Center.) Dinkytown burns.
2005
In the longest title game—79 minutes, 37 seconds—in state tournament history, T.J. Oshie’s Warroad Warriors defeat Totino-Grace in the 1A championship, 4–3, in double OT.
2011
Fallon ad man and hockey dad John King launches the first of the viral “All Hockey Hair Team” videos on YouTube. Flow.
University of Minnesota Athletics
Gopher Women Hockey
2016
The Gophers women win their second consecutive and sixth overall NCAA national championship. Dinkytown remains unburned.
