General admission seating has become a thing of the past for the small-school classification games at the Minnesota boys hockey state tournament.

Grand Casino Arena announced Monday, Feb. 23, that attendees at the Class 1A boys tournament will now need a reserved ticket.

Previously, the 1A boys hockey tournament games had general admission seating, but now the arena will use the same reserved ticket system it’s been using for the Class 2A games.

Tickets cost $20 for adults and $13 for students for the boys hockey tournament, which runs March 4-7 this year. Once again, the tournament will start with four Class 1A quarterfinals on Wednesday followed by four Class 2A quarterfinals on Thursday.

The 2A games are usually sellouts, with a 12-year wait for season tickets, and attendance has been building for the 1A tournament.

The announced attendance for the 2A games last year was 82,822. For the 1A games, it was 33,474, a number that has increased every year since 2021, when COVID-19 was still a factor.

Grand Casino Arena also announced that teams reaching the state tournament will once again get a presale code to purchase tickets, a system that raised problems for the two teams in last year’s Class 2A championship, Moorhead and Stillwater.

When the presale window closes, attendees can purchase them through Ticketmaster, with remaining tickets sold at the arena box office one hour before the first session each day.