The Aldrich Advantage—There’s No Place Like Home.
When it comes to Minnesota prep sports, the crown jewel is our State High School Hockey Tournament. Home-grown kids playing the game they love for their school and community. It’s broadcast on TV and played at a sold out—18,000 seat Xcel Energy Center. It’s the ultimate dream for every Minnesota hockey player who grew up in the land of 10,000 rinks.
Hold my beer, Texas football.
To get to State, teams must make it through their regional section playoff bracket, of which there are eight across the state for both Class A and AA. Let there be no mistake, some section games are better than the actual state tournament games. That’s because there’s often a handful of the best teams playing in one bracket. With crazy-competitive programs, die-hard rivalries and rabid fan bases, you would think there would be a defined process for where these critical section games are played. The Minnesota State High School League’s founding purposes reads, “To establish uniform and equitable rules for all students in extra-curricular programs.” While there there doesn’t appear to be actual written rules about where games are held, both Class A and AA choose their venues similarly. That is, all except Section 4AA.
HOW IT STARTED / HOW IT’S GOING.
Across the State, each section designates a section leader, who works with the MSHSL to decide the venue. While not the best plan for consistency, the vast majority of the sections have taken a level-headed approach. Just looking at Class AA, in seven of the eight sections, the higher seeds host the quarterfinals and semifinals. And championship games are played at a neutral site. Now let’s take a look at section 4AA (needle off the record/puck off the crossbar). In section 4AA all games, including quarterfinals, semifinals and the championship are played at one arena: Aldrich Arena. This 3,400 seat stadium is a great venue for section hockey. Just ask the team whose name is on the locker room door and emblem is painted at center ice . . .Hill Murray.
Aldrich started hosting 4AA games in 2015 after the beloved Fairground’s Coliseum closed its doors to hockey. It’s a move that has served Hill Murray well. In these last eight years, they’ve been to the section championship game every year, winning it all but twice. Of course, it is unfair to claim that Hill Murray’s success is all about the venue. Hill Murray is a well-coached and dominant hockey program, ranking second for most state tournament appearances with 33, closing in on Roseau’s record of 34. They’re good, but obviously home-field advantage is a thing. There’s a reason why all NHL playoff games don’t go through Chicago or Madison Square Garden. Check out the uber-competitive west metro. Braemar Arena, home to the Edina Hornets, hosted both Section 2AA and Section 3AA. Edina did not play there. They are in Section 6 and played their games at Bloomington Ice Garden. Could you imagine if Edina were able to play all their section games at the house that Willard Ikola built? You can bet your breezers Wayzata parents would form a human chain and lock themselves to the arena entrance. Which begs the question, if Edina can’t have their cake and eat it too, how come 4AA continues to be the anomaly?
WHERE ALL MY RINKS AT?
Depending on who you ask, determining where section games are held, comes down to three factors—capacity, cost and proximity. Above are the rinks that currently hold section playoffs and their capacity. Also, sources tell us that officials are looking for rinks with seating on both sides of the ice. It seems like we’re eliminating some great venues like St. Louis Park Rec Center because we’re afraid that hockey moms are going to talk smack and make their husbands fight each other. Even so, it seems like there’s enough rinks to go around. This is Minnesota, after all.
What about proximity? Is it a deal breaker for people to have to travel an hour or so to get to a game? We’re guessing many parents would love another out-of-town tournament and one more chance to get kicked out of a Hampton Inn lobby for being too loud while playing Left, Right, Center. Already, across most sections, programs are traveling up to an hour away for games. In Section 1, both Lakeville teams battled it out in Rochester. In Section 7, Andover made the trek to Duluth, where even the hometown Greyhounds had to play at a neutral site in Amsoil Arena. And way up north in Section 8, Moorhead and Roseau played their championship in East Grand Forks. Not nearly as bad though as the semifinals where Elk River traveled over 5 hours to play higher seed Roseau.
Based on this, venues are not chosen based solely on proximity. Many people think cost is the bigger factor as sold out venues are also a revenue generator. Perhaps that rules out the easy solution of playing 4AA games at a higher cost venue like Ridder Arena, which can charge around $10,000 per game for staffing and other resources. How that compares with a facility like Amsoil Arena is unclear. Do Section 4AA players need to go door to door and sell more pizzas to make up the difference? Perhaps new venues at University of St. Thomas and a now smaller Mariucci will become options in the future.
SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION
With fairness the goal, there seems to be several scenarios that could fix the Section 4AA anomaly:
Solution 1:
Perhaps the most obvious is to swap venues with another section, such as moving 3AA to Aldrich and sending 4AA to Braemar. Easy enough.
Solution 2:
Here’s a more controversial take. Keep the section playoffs at Aldrich and remove the only team that has a conflict of interest. Simply swapping Hill Murray with another east-side contender such as Cretin-Derham Hall or St. Thomas Academy would seem to do the trick. Realignments happen more often than you think, with the last one happening as recently as 2019.
Solution 3:
Why not host multiple section championships at the same venue. Braemar already does this by hosting 2AA and 3AA. Many venues such as the Rochester Rec Center and Amsoil Arena hosted both the Class A and AA championship. Even better yet, since most section championships sell out in minutes, rather than have people watch games through a fire escape at Aldrich, or wrapped around the boards at Braemar, why not create a “Super Section” event at Mariucci? There’s your revenue generator, and possibly the greatest date night of all time.
Girl’s hockey Section 4AA also play their games at Aldrich. But rumors are circulating that this is about to change with 4AA potentially moving out of Aldrich for 2024 and rotating venues moving forward. Which goes to show us all, if you want something done right, have the women do it.
IN THE TOURNEY WE TRUST
So where does this leave us? On one hand, this is youth sports, and we all need to have some patience and understanding for administrators, volunteers, coaches, referees, and players who created something in this state that is special and extraordinary. But just as much so, we need to have fair and transparent overarching guidelines, keeping this treasure of ours pure for future generations.
This year at the Section 4AA championship game, while Hill Murray was well on their way to securing a 3-0 victory, their student section shared an opinion on the subject. In that familiar chanting cadence followed by five claps, they called out “THIS IS OUR HOUSE!” Yes, we get it kids. Now maybe it’s time the MSHSL does as well.
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