Blink, and it’s over, exhausting and exhilarating, from a snowstorm to sixty degrees in four short days. The 2025 State Tournament arrives with its normal fanfare, and there is no place I would rather be. I set my schedule, see the familiar faces, show a few Tourney Virgins from out of state the Class A final and smile in delight as they eagerly stand in line for an hour for AA. I down a good meal here, grab a drink there and drift through Grand Seven on Saturday afternoon. Enjoy a moment of morning Zen before 12 hours of hockey and then a crash in my hotel room, the cycle perfected, complete immersion in this world for four fateful days.

Hockey is a lesson in learning to hold dissonance in one’s brain. To shut down the pain and go out for another shift. To pour meaning into what may seem a silly game after an injury or a death. To unleash all joy in a singular mission with a group of boys, even if some locker room drama may not be too far away. To lock in and be fully present even if some other part of life may be crumbling in the background. To balance old, beloved routines with the new opportunities that arise.

Learning to hold these conflicts is the definition of maturity. Some will find it, and some never will, but it isn’t something that can be learned from an essay or a self-help video. They may provide a framework, sure. But it must be lived. Felt in the moment, put in a position where one must respond, marshal will, make a fateful choice.

Not all of us will win at these moments. This is a cruel reality this sport shows: vanishingly few get to lift a trophy of any great value. But what we do when we don’t is the story that defines a life, often much more so than a medal at age seventeen.

Andover could hold bitter feelings for the goalie who transferred away, and no doubt a few there do. But when presented with a choice after he shuts them down, they embrace him as one of their own. Jackson Knight, too hurt to play, bangs the boards relentlessly with his stick, trying to induce every ounce of energy he can out of his Orono squad. The Moorhead managers rise to the challenge in the escalating manager outfit arms race and yet also hang a jersey for Ethan Monshaugen, their late brother-in-arms gone too soon.

The sport had its losses in the past year, too, from coaching greats to devoted fans, a sad sweetness that will tinge any great thing built on tradition and memory. Sometimes that tension is out in the open and sometimes it is held deep inside, but it gathers, creates deeper meaning.

It lingers, but for a time, it can be buried. This sport gifts a freedom to have a flair that the demands of an adult life too often squeeze out or shunt aside.

Hibbing brings that flair in abundance to the Class A Tourney, but even a shutout win over Luverne points to the underbelly that East Grand Forks would later exploit. The burst comes first from Cole Bies, the Green Wave defensive stalwart, and Tyler Palmiscno built a machine in the mold of Mahtomedi teams past, less about star power than about depth and steadiness and the confidence that no game is out of reach. The regular season is merely a warm-up act, and they withstand a valiant attempt at a title defense from St. Cloud Cathedral before the hockey gods smile on Jace Van Eps’s audacious shot.

I am by nature a fan of grinding, Green Wave-style hockey, and day one of AA is a vote in its favor. St. Thomas Academy outlasts Shakopee’s creativity, and Curt Giles’ Edina wins a war of attrition with Rogers. But in the end, no structure can contain Moorhead’s pure skill. The Spuds go through this Tourney unleashed, leaky but prolific enough to overpower everyone, with pro-style adjustments on their top lines to juice the team for a key moment. They come to St. Paul with an embarrassment of riches and show the promise of what a Hibbing could be in a year or two’s time. The Spuds save their glamour for their goal-scoring, ditching the showy celebrations or the over-the-top hair and letting their performance be the lasting memory.

The Spuds take a scare from feisty Lakeville South in the first round, and from there, everything builds toward Edina versus Moorhead, the Friday night ideal: north versus metro, free-flowing skill against the defensive machine, rogue students (in the suites of all places) rolling, relentless chants and buzzing energy. Mason West goes stride for stride with the Spud surges and the top seed tightens up in back, the two heavyweights trading careful blows. Suddenly, absolute silence, 20,000 held breaths as the Spuds head to the power play with two minutes left. And, then, the explosion. Zac Zimmerman’s goal made the Spuds only the second team to topple Edina on a Friday night, and this wistful Greyhound will welcome them into that proud tradition.

The first three minutes of the final make it seem like Moorhead might race from there into immortality, but the Ponies from Stillwater keep on coming. Two flashy lines and a beastly defensive corps will not quit. Gaps tighten, and nerves grow, but the Spuds have enough, a dubious record erased and a community’s promise made good. Of course, it helps to have Cullens and Krafts in one’s midst, but there was a reason those past heroes chose to go home to the Red River Valley to raise their hockey princes, the ties that bind going deeper than the blind chase. Mason Kraft gives the Tourney a quote to trot out for years to come as he gushes about what this journey means in his postgame remarks, and the Spuds return to their hotel to rapturous applause.

I make my way back toward my own hotel. A batch of young Spuds runs down Seventh Street; a few yell from a car, and I hoist my stuffed Spuddy in celebration, earning some joyous shouts. These Tourneys have become a staple of life, an unbroken dream, a dip into a fountain of youth that no longer makes me feel older but instead younger, still in touch with an eternal core that I want to feed for the rest of my days. This Tourney is for you, boys, and may it serve as a reminder that, though you may get mashed eight times, you may yet become golden on the ninth.