Public Skating

It can be taken for granted in the moment, but young hockey players growing up playing the game in Minnesota are living in a Golden Age.

Community hockey in the Gopher State is more affordable, more inclusive, and most notably, more effective than anywhere else in North America.

Why does Minnesota Hockey continue to evolve and innovate better than anywhere else?

It’s a consistent list of pillars: community owned rinks that aren’t out to make a profit, charitable gambling that significantly reduces costs for families, minimized equipment barriers, and qualified volunteers giving their time.

But what really makes Minnesota not just the last bastion of hope against an increasing national trend of youth sports privatization and commercialization, but also the leader… is what we provide: an ecosystem like no other.

“Our product is stronger because our base is bigger, we include more athletes,” says Mike MacMillan, USA Hockey National Coach-In-Chief. “We also provide opportunity for our elite athletes at the top, but because it’s more affordable and the entry point is more reasonable, the foundation is so much broader (than other states). That allows us to continue to have success.”

The proof is in the data. Minnesota has over 55,000 players across the state and is on the verge of 20,000 8U registered players, a number that has never been surpassed by any other state, ever. These youth players go on to compete at the collegiate, professional, and olympic level. 

Last year, 248 Minnesotans were playing Division I Men’s Hockey, nearly 20 more than the next closest two states, Massachusetts and Michigan combined. Minnesota leads the world in developing DI Men’s Hockey talent, and is second only to Ontario for producing NHL talent. At the 2025 NHL draft, 12 out of 13 players played Minnesota high school hockey. 

On the Women’s side, the North Star State continues to lead the way in producing top-end talent. USA Hockey is nearing 100,000 female registered players, nearly 1 out of 5 are from Minnesota.  At the collegiate level, 33% of American women that play D-I hockey hail from Minnesota. In 2024, Minnesotans accounted for nearly 40% of Americans in the PWHL- a number expected to increase the season with the addition of 6 Minnesotan draft picks and several others competing training camp this November. These statistics demonstrate the success of the community hockey system that allowed players to live out their dreams.

Trend Toward Privatization Hurting Development Elsewhere

In Massachusetts and Michigan in particular, there is minimal emphasis on community hockey, and players are pushed from an early age towards AAA and club programs. With the intent of chasing intense competition and exposure, teams draw from a large geographic area at the expense of community pride and support. Travel coordination and costs start to mount, which creates a barrier and excludes families from participating.

Michigan has seen a decrease in USA Hockey membership over the past 15 years for a variety of reasons including a shift from USA Hockey programming in lieu of privatization, as well as a decrease in the number of rinks. 

In Massachusetts, though they’ve seen significant growth in girls hockey participation, costly elite prep schools and AAA programming have decimated public school hockey in a once talent-rich hotbed.

According to reports from The Boston Globe, the traditional high school hockey system in Massachusetts is currently in a state of "existential crisis,” largely due to the rise of a private, for-profit club system that has begun to dominate the youth hockey landscape. 

As a result, many top players are leaving their community high school hockey teams for more exclusive and expensive clubs, which had begun to be seen as a better pathway to college and professional hockey.

The decline is so pronounced that since 2001, at least 78 towns and cities have dropped their boys' hockey programs, a trend that The Globe attributes to the high cost and privatization of the sport. Private money has increasingly taken over the game, with clubs charging "exorbitant prices" for spots on elite travel teams. 

This has also led to the privatization of many rinks in Massachusetts, which operate as revenue generators and charge high fees for ice time. Ultimately, this has resulted in a shift in how college scouts recruit, as they now focus on the AAA club and prep school circuits rather than the public high school leagues, further accelerating the exodus of talent. 

This shift has created a fragmented system that is less accessible to many families and has weakened the traditional high school leagues that were once the cornerstone of Massachusetts hockey.

Ice Time, The Right Level Within Reach

If you live in the Twin Cities, and the west metro in particular, your association could draw a 10-mile radius around your home rink, and find more than 20 other rinks within a 15-minute drive. 

State-wide, Minnesota ranks tops in the nation with around 230 indoor rinks, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of outdoor rinks in city parks across the landscape.

That keeps travel costs down as well as ice time bills manageable. 

Keeping the cost down is one thing, as it allows more players to be introduced to the game. But meeting the needs at the top is quite another thing. And again, Minnesota has been at the forefront of that development as well.

Minnesota offers programs like the Tier I Fall Leagues and Spring High Performance Programs that sandwich the association season, as well as the ultra-competitive Upper Midwest Elite League for the high schoolers. These programs serve as serious incubators of young talent at local rinks, again eliminating travel costs while welcoming a never-ending stream of out-of-state guests.

“Our base is huge, but we also provide opportunities for our elite athletes at the top (in the High Performance and Tier I Leagues),” MacMillan says. “We provide a strong foundation that shoulders the regular season in a way that allows more athletes to become involved and play, and maybe excel at the elite levels. 

“We are always evolving and changing to lift up the structure we have,” he added. “We worry about ourselves, and we’re not worried or focused about what others do. We focus on providing the best environment for our players.”