You’ll know when John Mittelstadt pulls up to the New Hope Ice Arena.

You’ll hear the car, and you’ll hear a few members of the Eden Prairie hockey team rhyming along with Wiz Khalifa’s “Hopeless Romantics,” a collaboration with Swae Lee of Rae Sremmurd released three weeks ago that’s totaled a cool 17 million views on YouTube.

The bass line of Mittelstadt’s preferred pregame anthem announces the arrival of John and sophomore brother Luke, the forward/defender combination that represents two of the four Eagles on the Team Southeast roster. Senior forward Spencer Rudrud and sophomore Carter Batchelder round out the Eden Prairie connection.

“We get to carpool to the games, and that’s one of the best parts,” Mittelstadt said on Tuesday night after his Team Southeast trounced Team Northeast 6-3 behind his hat-trick, a stat line that has eluded Mittelstadt since he was a bantam. 

Two of Mittelstadt’s goals came on breakaways, where he refuses to overcomplicate the one-on-one opportunity. 

“I just kind of read the goalie,” Mittelstadt said. “The third (goal) was just kind of obvious (because) I saw the whole corner, but (on) the second one, the five-hole was all I had,” Mittelstadt added. 

Mittelstadt scored the lone goal of the first period and followed that score with a breakaway tally early in the second, one of four goals Team Southeast would total in the period.

Fellow Eagle Rudrud netted a goal for Team Southeast, as did Brendan McFadden and Spencer Schneider. Batchelder handed out two assists, and Luke Mittelstadt added a helper on Schneider’s goal with just one second left in the second period.

“It’s so fun,” John said of skating with Luke. “He’s such a good player. In my opinion, he’s probably one of the best ’03’s in the nation,” John added, referring to Luke’s birth year. 

The University of Minnesota shares John’s opinion, having accepted verbal commitments from both John and Luke in June. Older brother and 2016 Mr. Hockey Casey spent one season with the Golden Gophers before jumping to the NHL as the Buffalo Sabres’ top draft pick.

Outside of his hustle and ice-awareness, the standout quality of John’s is the permanent smile behind his black wire mask. Whether he’s celebrating after scoring his third goal of the game or skating back to the bench after robbed of his fourth, the grin doesn’t dim a watt. 

“Playing with some of the boys out there, they’re really funny,” Mittelstadt explained with a grin. “They make it a good experience.”