We have a television in the office, a twelve-inch black and white job with rabbit-ears. This TV, recovered more than once from the garbage, is switched on precisely once a year: in March, during the state boys high school hockey tournament. We just can’t help it. If you were born and raised anywhere in this good state, from Luverne on up to Pigeon Falls, it’s in your genes. And even though management here is, in part, Iowan in both origin and practice, we rustics are indulged in a thousand different ways.
But we are worried. One of our origin myths is taking a beating in the corners. We’re less concerned with Republicans throwing their elbows at our proud Scandinavian progressivism, and more concerned that Darby Hendrickson—the sole Minnesotan on the Wild’s roster, and the first goal-scorer at the Xcel Energy Center—has been exiled to the minor-league locker-room in Houston. Is the decline of real Minnesotans in the NHL evidence of globalism, a resurgent Canadian dynasty, or just the degrading local effect of Olive Garden?
There have been other causes for concern. When the high school league agreed in 1991 to split the state into two divisions, we were gratified that twice as many kids would realize their dream of playing hockey live on Channel 9. On the other hand, we have to be honest and say it felt like a dissipation. How much longer would we get to see Warroad, pop. 1,722, come to town to thrash Edina, pop. 47,425? How much longer would we sustain the dream that all Minnesotans owned hockey on a spiritual level—that the talent pool of the suburbs would never dominate the frozen pond of the tundra town?
Hollywood may come to our rescue with that most questionable proposition—the hockey movie (Slap Shot; Youngblood; Mighty Ducks; Mystery, Alaska…). There is no greater mythmaker today than the movies. Miracle has opened to widespread mirth, at least around these parts, and it’s no wonder. It is a throat-catching tribute to Herb Brooks and his 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. That “Miracle On Ice” team won the gold medal with twelve certified Minnesotans on the roster, and a quorum on the bench, too. And while we tend to view provincialism and nationalism with suspicion, we figured, what the hell? This is our time, this is our place. If tiny Eveleth can take on the evil empire of Hill-Murray, why shouldn’t a bunch of amateurs from the Range stand up to a red army of Soviet pros? Our private war against the cold was writ large as a definitive moment in the Cold War.
Have basketball, baseball, or football ever done that for us? Root all you like for the Wolves, the Twins, even the godforsaken Vikings. But give us hockey—the Wild, the Gophers, the International Falls Broncos. These teams are among the most admired in the country, in any sport, in any season. If a place can own something as ephemeral as a sport, Minnesota’s claim on hockey is surely stronger than Indiana’s on basketball, or Texas’s on football. We are the state of hockey, indeed.
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