5 Takeaways from Minnesota Hockey’s Leadership Conference

This weekend I had the opportunity to speak at Minnesota Hockey’s annual hockey leadership conference.  I was humbled to be asked and I came away even more enamored with the Minnesota Hockey model than ever.  I met so many honestly just awesome people in our game and learned even more on why Minnesota continues to lead the way in our country in growing the game and developing high level players.

Here are my five biggest takeaways from an incredible couple of days:

1. Minnesota Hockey’s role

In so many places around the country, the relationship between the region or state’s USA Hockey affiliate and the organizations they govern is adversarial.  It feels like it’s all about rules and regulations, and there’s a real political nature that can be incredibly toxic.

But not in Minnesota.

Their affiliate in the state, Minnesota Hockey, has a real collaborative and supportive approach to governing the state’s hockey environment.  The conference was all about “what can we do to help support you” rather than the “do as I say” nature that many other regions around the country feel about their affiliate.

Now in fairness, the affiliates have a difficult job in areas that aren’t so much about community. There are plenty of regions where people constantly look to skirt the rules or find a way to lift up their own association or their own kid rather than look at the greater good of the game as a whole in their area.  I see it all around the country. 

But Minnesota Hockey does a phenomenal job of being very proactive and collaborative in nature rather than being reactive to the things that go on.  By being proactive, having a unified message, and having their ear to the ground, they really understand the issues of what’s going on in each region in the state. With that, they don’t have to be so reactive and they can better serve their constituents in each of those regions.

The infrastructure that provides that support within each region of the state is really awesome.  Because they are so organized with their personnel and so clear with their messaging of what they’re trying to accomplish, I feel it lends to more volunteers wanting to get involved and live the mission.  When you have an accumulation of good volunteers that want to get involved and make a positive impact, that makes the job of an affiliate so much easier. 

Minnesota Hockey’s unified, collaborative, and proactive approach allows the state to operate in a way that’s extremely positive and fosters an environment where the game continues to grow year after year.

2. State and Community Pride

There are a lot of smart hockey people around the country (and around the world) that really believe in and admire the Minnesota hockey model.  But nobody has more pride in the Minnesota hockey model than families in Minnesota.    

Wow was it cool to hear people speak so passionately about what they’re doing in their hometowns to better the game for their kids and their families.  It was great to hear stories of how they’re making the game more accessible and affordable, what they’re doing to develop better players, and even what they’re doing to instill a pride in the logo on the front of the jersey that represents their town. It was honestly inspiring.

But what was really cool was that it wasn’t just about their own specific community.  It was about the “State of Hockey” too.  Everyone not only had pride in what they were doing in their own hometown, but it was connected to a pride in Minnesota as a whole as well.

In a recent conversation with USA Hockey’s Bob Mancini for our Hockey Think Tank community, he talked about the best models around the world having competition on the ice and cooperation off the ice.  So much of what we see in youth hockey in North America has become competition on the ice (with the kids) and competition off the ice (with the adults) and it leads to a toxic environment for everyone involved.  The cooperation part often gets lost in adult ego and self-interest.

The people of Minnesota have found an awesome balance between community rivalry and a commitment to the greater good for the state.  You better believe that Roseau and Warroad are going to BATTLE.  That Hill-Murray and White Bear Lake want to destroy each other every time they step on the ice.  And that everyone wants to beat Edina…

But once that buzzer sounds, each of those places wants to make sure that hockey in Minnesota stays strong.  There are a lot of external forces trying to break the strong link that Minnesota has built, but they continue to stay strong, live the value of community hockey, and lead the way for our country’s player development.

3. The Importance of Grassroots Leadership

Youth sports has become a business.  And within that business model, oftentimes too much of the thought and too many of the resources go to the “elite.”

Why?

Because if there’s an extra “A” at the end of the level…or if the word “elite” is at the end of a league or team name, people get to charge more money.

The problem is, it doesn’t grow the game.  It’s also not conducive to player development.  Our obsession with the word elite at way too young of ages, I would argue, is actually making us less elite.

“As many as possible, for as long as possible, in the best environment possible.”

This is the mantra Minnesota revels in.  By focusing on the grassroots, keeping hockey affordable, and putting a heavy emphasis on community, it attracts more people to the game and keeps more people in the game once they’re in the door.  The more athletes that choose to play hockey, and the better the experience they have within the game, the more elite players we are going to have.

In Minnesota, so much of their time and effort goes to the grassroots and growing the game.  It’s about building the base of the pyramid rather than narrowing the pyramid at much too young of ages.  And because of that, Minnesota continues to lead the way in growing the game AND developing elite players.

If we want to better our game and continue to grow our numbers, our focus has to get back to the grassroots.  Minnesota is a shining example of what those efforts and that mindset can do.

4. Community Hockey and High Performance can Coexist

When a lot of people talk about “community hockey” outside of Minnesota, it’s often in a dismissive tone.  Almost like it’s a house league where people don’t really care about pushing themselves or getting better.  And that’s not to belittle house leagues, because as a whole we need a lot more of them nationally.  But the mentality unfortunately in so many places is it’s CLUB OR BUST or AAA OR BUST.

Minnesota has shown that community hockey and high-performance (elite!!) hockey can coexist.  They’ve created opportunities in their model for older kids that have those high-level hockey aspirations to have more opportunity to play and train with the best talent in the state and compete against the best talent in the country.

Most people outside of Minnesota only really pay attention to or know about high school hockey in the state.  But Minnesota also has a fall elite league which is HEAVILY scouted by the NHL and D1 schools, a fall Tier 1 structure, and spring/summer high performance opportunities for best-on-best competition that lead into USA Hockey’s national select festivals.

A lot of buzz was created when the Minnesota Blue Ox beat the Little Caesars 2010 team in the semis at nationals on their way to winning a national championship.  The Blue Ox is not a full season team and it’s made up of kids from two districts in Minnesota who played for their towns during most the year. 

I bring that game up not to disparage full season Tier 1 as there are people in that world that do a great job of player development.  But for anyone to say that the community model doesn’t work in regions that have a large hockey population I think are either ill-informed or flat out lying. 

Massachusetts is learning that lesson the hard way right now.  If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Boston Globe articles on what is going on with Massachusetts youth hockey, they are a great read and a cautionary tale.

I don’t think Michigan is too far behind looking at some of the player growth and development trends.  Both of these states have moved further and further away from community hockey and towards the professional model and one could argue those business interests have really hurt hockey in the two states that should be leading the way with Minnesota.

Here’s some real time data backing some of this up:

1 out of 59 Americans are from Minnesota (1.7%)

1 out of 9.5 Americans that play hockey are from Minnesota (11%)

1 out of 5 American men that play Division One hockey are from Minnesota (21%)

1 out of 4.5 American men in the NHL are from Minnesota (22%)

1 out of 3 American women playing in the Division One hockey are from Minnesota

1 out of 2.7 American women playing in the PWHL are from Minnesota

NCAA Division One Men’s Hockey Players in 2025:

Minnesota – 247 | Massachusetts – 117 | New York – 113 | Michigan – 111

*90% played high school hockey with 68 high schools represented

NCAA Division One Women’s Hockey Players in 2025:

Minnesota – 204 | Massachusetts – 114 | New York – 48 | Michigan – 42

*99% played high school hockey with 61 high schools represented

NHL Hockey Players in 2025:

Minnesota – 61 | Michigan – 40 | Massachusetts – 36 | New York – 29

*89% played high school hockey with 31 high schools represented

PWHL Hockey Players in 2025:

Minnesota – 18 | New York – 7 | Michigan – 5 | New York – 3

*100% played high school hockey with 15 schools represented

Those are some STATS. Minnesota has figured out a way to provide opportunity for their top players to gain access to more training and best-on-best competition while holding true to the value of community hockey.  I think more regions should take a hard look at the model in Minnesota – and while it’s impossible to completely copy it due to external factors (mainly the privately held rinks), they should evaluate how they could move closer to it and create a better environment for their players and families. 

5. Minnesota Wild’s Involvement

If you talk to youth hockey organizations around the US and Canada, most will tell you that the NHL team in their area really doesn’t do much to help prop up youth hockey.  They may stroke a few checks on some initiatives but they don’t really heavily invest financially or time-wise into the fabric of youth hockey. 

That is not true in Minnesota.

The Wild are leading the way of what an NHL team’s involvement should look like in a professional hockey market.  They are heavily invested into growing the game and maintaining the fabric of keeping community hockey at the forefront of everything that happens in Minnesota.  Look no further than the Skate it Forward program. 

In Skate it Forward, the goal is to “one day make the first year of ice time free for every young hockey player in Minnesota.”

Talk about investing into the future.  I’d argue that this initiative is going to help create future life-long hockey players and Minnesota Wild fans – which in turn will help the owner’s wallet as well.

The outreach from the Wild Organization and the Minnesota Wild Foundation is incredible.  Led by Mike Snee, who is the VP for the Minnesota Wild Foundation (and who we had on the podcast!) spoke passionately at the conference.  What he and his team are doing should be the gold standard for what all NHL teams should be doing to grow the game.

The investment into community hockey – not just financially but holistically – is really, really cool to see.  Any time the NHL team can get that heavily involved not just with their wallets but with their messaging is a huge win-win for the growth of the sport in their market.  I’d love to see more NHL teams do this too.

At the end of the day, I fell in love a little bit more with the game of hockey after being at this conference in Minnesota.  The next day I spoke at a similar conference for hockey leadership in Vermont, and while they don’t have the numbers or history of Minnesota, their commitment to community hockey and their families in the Green Mountain State was just as inspiring. The VSAHA leadership are doing such a phenomenal job.

There are so many great people in our game.  Truly, there are.  And I think with a little more of a collaborative nature like I saw in Minnesota – people working WITH each other rather than AGAINST each other when it comes to youth hockey – our game will soar.