Wednesday, Hermantown’s high school opens the Class A State High School tourney playing Luverne.  The Hawks are the big tourney favorites this year.  Ten days later, the Hermantown Association’s Bantam AA and Peewee AA teams play in Minnesota Hockey’s state tourneys.  Zip Codes, high school coaches, and outdoor rinks all play a part in Hermantown’s continuing hockey success, but for the last four seasons, the high school Hawks have hung runner-up banners over their ice.  It has been six years since they hung a state championship.

With St. Thomas gone and Duluth Marshall beaten at AMSOIL, the XCEL is wide open.  Saturday could be a good day in the Hawk’s Association's huge warming house next to their four outdoor sheets of ice that surrounds their single indoor sheet.  Their high school team could fly through the Class A state tourney and beholding the championship trophy above their heads skating around the Xcel.

Like a Hawk circling high over the frozen North Country, the Luverne Cardinals are the first red meat on the table.

Hermantown’s population has grown at a rate four times that of Minnesota the past fifteen years and still every home seems to have a backyard that borders on the Superior National Forest.  The Hawks’ school district matches the city’s boundaries.  And Hermantown’s hockey association matches the school district’s boundaries.  The city has two zip codes and as the coaching staff has pointed out, all their players live and play within those two codes 55810 and 55811.

A visitor to the Hawks’ ice arena is struck by two things, the wide open country feel the complex has and the four outdoor rinks that are constantly flooded by hockey association participants.  Association members believe the outdoor rinks are the strength of the program, but what makes the outdoor rinks is the combination dressing area and warming shack for people at the rink.  It is the size of a house and can accommodate people using all four outdoor rinks with short walks to the ice.  The warming house makes the indoor arena a dedicated facility to those using the indoor ice; five sheets of ice can be used at the same time.

On a chilling February Saturday YHH visit to the arena; the High School Hawks were playing Totino-Grace in a late afternoon game.  Two squirt games were being played on two of the rinks, and one rink had open hockey.  The parking lot was full.

The arena was full.  The Hawk/Grace game opened with a ceremony celebrating past Hermantown high school hockey heroes, the banners were strung down the center above the ice with the last four state banners saying bluntly “Second Place”, and the rowdiest of the fans were in their favorite corner.  The High School Hawks won 6-1.  A Totino-Grace fan lamented that last time they played at Hermantown they lost 7-1.

Hermantown and Totino-Grace could meet in the Class A state championship Saturday.  The Hawks disposed of their nemesis, Duluth Marshall, 6-2 in the Section 7A finals.  Grace beat Mahtomedi 5-4 in the Section 4A finals.  But Grace has to get by East Grand Forks and Hermantown will likely have to beat New Prague.

Leaving that Saturday game in the twilight of -10 degree weather, it was a still evening only interrupted by an occasional crack of a puck being flung against the boards on the outside rinks.  There were still kids in the warming house and a few more on the ice banging the pucks into goalie-less nets.

Hockey is flexible in how it can be organized and how facilities are developed.  In Minnesota.  It is generally left to the local community and association to fit kids and facilities together for their kid’s best solution.  The four outdoor rinks and single indoor rink works for Hermantown.  The Hawks’ association has produced good hockey teams and players.  And their approach fits their community, but it makes a person wonder.  If they headed to the woods bordering the complex of rinks, could they walk through woods to the Boundary Waters?