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An Extended Family-Sibley Hockey

By frederick61, 10/15/14, 7:15PM CDT

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Sibley's Brandon McFadden goes for a goal in District 8 last season

Sibley Area Youth Hockey Association has struggled the past two seasons to keep a home arena intact as West St. Paul debated the fate of the West St. Paul Arena.  They have not only survived, but flourished going into the 2014-2015 aided by a rule change and an extended family circle of community, schools, city councils, and parents.  It is one of the good stories emerging as the 2014-2015 hockey season gets underway in this state. 

It has been three full seasons since Minnesota Hockey changed the ruling on where kids could play association or traveling hockey.  Before the change, kids signing up for association hockey had to play for the association where they lived.  The prior approach was based on the idea that there was one community, one high school, and one association.  That concept began to make less and less sense over the past 30 years.  The one to one to one didn’t fit the pattern of population growth in certain areas in the state.  Some areas grew into no community, one high school, and one association (Eastview).  Some areas had one high school that served multiple communities and one association (Eagan high school includes areas of West St. Paul, Burnsville, Inver Grove Heights, Apple Valley, and Eagan) and has one association.  Sometimes one association serves one community and multiple high schools.  The Rochester Association serves Rochester MN, a city that has four high schools (Mayo, John Marshall, Century, and Lourdes high schools).

Minnesota Hockey made the change three years ago.  Under the new rule parents and kid could choose their association.  They could choose to play for the association where they lived or to play for the association where they went to school.  This October, three years later, the associations are signing kids to play and forming teams.  What is the impact of the Minnesota Hockey’s rule change three years later?  Like most decisions, there are surprising consequences.    

The Sibley Area Youth Hockey Association is located in the Mendota Heights/West St. Paul area.  It is an association that serves multiple communities and multiple high schools.  It benefited from the rule change, but in a manner totally different than one would expect.  It is based on how the association structured themselves within the two cities and how they approach youth hockey.  The Sibley Association considers itself part of an extended family circle.  Their approach to teaching kids the sport is driven more by letting the kids set their own path to high school and high school sports rather than striving to get kids to attend a specific high school.  


Sibley Area Youth Hockey Association's home base, West St. Paul Ice Arena

It keeps the focus on kids learning the sport in their youth hockey, not worrying about making the local high school team.

The West St. Paul Arena

The Sibley Association’s home base is the West St. Paul Arena.  For the past two seasons (2012-2013 and 2013-2014) the city of West St. Paul has threatened to tear it down at the end of each season.  For two years the Sibley Association had to scramble and develop backup plans for home ice.  If there was a list of associations in the state that were under fire last January, the Sibley Association would have to be on it and near the top.  Before the 2012-2013 season, the city of West St. Paul announced the demise of the association’s home base.  In April 2013 it would be torn down.  Too expensive to repair was the reason.  Then the arena got a reprieve.  There would be at least one more season before the wrecking ball would do its job.


The St. Joseph's bell rings at noon Wednesday

Before the 2013-2014 season, West St. Paul reiterated its position and announced that in April 2014 the arena would be torn down after the last scheduled youth games in March.  It was still too expensive to repair.  The association spent those two season’s scrambling to survive and find a solution that they never used.  It was the Mendota Heights City Council that stepped in to help in early 2014.  With a push from the Heights, the two cities put a plan together to fund the 1.8 million (plus $300K for improvements to the locker room area) for the needed improvements.  The arena would not be torn down in April 2014.  The improvements will be phased in over the summers to allow use of the arena during the winter seasons.  The Sibley Association had a home base.

This past week they had tryouts for their bantam and peewee teams at the West St. Paul Arena.

Things changed

What is most amazing is that after all the turmoil raised by having no arena for the past two years, 83 bantam players signed up to play hockey for the Sibley association this fall.  They also had good numbers in peewees and squirts.  The 83 bantam players that signed up makes the Sibley Association’s bantam level one of the top five largest in the state for the 2014-2015 season.  Edina has taken over as the largest association (based on overall numbers) in the state and has the honor of having the largest program.  Wayzata has the second largest program overall.  Edina and Wayzata will each field 8 bantam teams for the 2014-2015 season (Lakeville Association will field 9 bantam teams, but split the teams between Lakeville North and Lakeville South).  Winning the Class AA tourney twice in a row has spurred the Hornets’ growth; finishing second to Edina last March has spurred Lakeville North’s growth).  The Hornets will field 12 peewee teams this season, the most of any association.

Sibley’s numbers this year match Woodbury’s, District 8’s perennially largest association, Lakeville North’s, and Eagan's.  Sibley will field five bantam teams (AA, A, B1, and two B2).  The Warriors’ Bantam AA team should contend for the title in a combined District 8 and District 2 Bantam AA league this season.  The Bantam A should also contend for the D2/D8 Bantam A title.  The mystery at the Sibley tryout was how does a program that should have been down this season after all the uncertainty about the arena and no significant present at the high school level last year be up.


Mike McFadden's family has been part of Sibley's extended family

One of the reasons is the strong leadership on the association’s board.  It kept things together.  One conversation with Mike Magnusson, the board president and assistant varsity football coach at the Cretin/Derham Hall, will be enough to convince anyone that the board knows how to lead and understands the community they serve.

But behind the leadership, there has to be willingness.  Not to follow, but to do.

The Family Connection

Most hockey people outside of Sibley see a St. Thomas Academy connection with the Sibley Association.  There is a connection, but it is driven more by the Sibley Association’s parents and players having a family connection with St. Thomas Academy then St Thomas driving the association.  The connection is buried in the roots of these people.  The Sibley players who end up at St. Thomas Academy go there because their parents live in the Sibley Area and are often former St. Thomas graduates.  Mike McFadden, running for senator, is an example.  McFadden has had sons playing Sibley sports as a youth, playing at St. Thomas Academy and moving on to college and college sports. Mike has been a youth coach in the area.  Last year was his 14th season coach youth sports.  With son's playing hockey, he has been in almost every hockey arena in the state.  McFadden’s son, Brandon, a YHH Top peewee A 50 pick in 2013 and 2014 (who just made the Sibley Bantam AA team), seems destine to follow that path to St. Thomas Academy and on to college.  His father will get to see more Minnesota rinks.

But the Sibley story goes deeper than just a parent’s connection to St. Thomas.  One of the real sources of Sibley’s strength is the stability provided by St. Joesph’s School in Mendota Heights.  St. Joseph’s is a preschool-8th grade school that believes athletics are a part of a good education.  The school was founded in the late 1940’s and has grown.  They have their own hockey team.  The school is a member of the Catholic Athletic Association, but the school’s approach to hockey is laid back mixing boys and girls on the same team.  Sports are for fun and competition at St. Joesph’s in that order.  Brandon McFadden went to St. Joesph’s.

The people living in Mendota Heights/West St. Paul area form a strong family oriented community.  It is not surprising that they Mendota Heights Council stepped in.  It is what one does for family, they help out. The cities, the schools, the parents, and in the end the kids do things together among each other and it creates a larger extended family.  St. Joesph’s is one of the foundations of that community.  To say that Sibley is St. Thomas Academy driven would be wrong.  St. Thomas is driven by families that have integrated the St. Joesph’s, St. Thomas’, the Sibley Association, the Sibley High School, and the two cities into their extended family circle.


St. Joesph's School in West St. Paul

The Minnesota Hockey Rule Change

So how did Minnesota Hockey’s rule change help Sibley three years ago.  It was one of the keys to making that extended family circle stronger.  By making the extended family circle stronger, it made the Sibley Association stronger.  When Minnesota Hockey allowed kids to choose their association, they opened a door to the Sibley Association to include St. Joesph’s kids; the kids going to St. Joesph’s could now play Sibley Association hockey.  That completes the circle within Mendota Heights and West St. Paul communities.  St Joesph’s in turn has provided the Sibley Association with kids interested in hockey, as a sport, for fun.  And that is how you get to 83 bantam players without a potential arena to play in.  That is hockey in Minnesota.

Sibley hockey will be interesting to watch this year.     


Inside the West St. Paul Arena. The arena re-modeling will be done in phases starting next summer.