HIBBING, MINN. - On a pitch-black night in early January ahead of a Friday night game against undefeated Falls High, the only visible light flickers from headlights and a truck loading up ore.

Most game nights, the Hibbing Memorial Arena holds a decent portion of the town’s population. The road to the high school ice rink from neighboring Chisholm overlooks mine pits that peak and valley like a miniature mountain range.

“This is the only building that our whole town could probably fit in,” said Benny Galli, a senior forward and captain for Hibbing. “It means a lot when it’s full.”

Hockey, for as long as most can remember, is the thing to do in Hibbing on a blustery Friday evening, and it’s always been the bandage keeping the town patched together during rough economic bouts.

Today, the city’s historic status as a proud mining town is a far cry from reality: The town’s population is sagging, the school district’s $2.8 million budget shortfall is slowing enrollment and a slew of school and mine layoffs are chipping away at morale.

“People are scared,” said boys hockey head coach Aaron Jamnick, also a former Hibbing player. “Hockey is a shining light.”

In Hibbing, it’s hard to separate mining and hockey.

The two come together in a smattering of vacant storefronts where a “We support mining, mining supports us” sign shares a window with a flyer wishing Hibbing’s boys hockey team good luck at state. The town’s history museum — half hockey memorabilia, half mine figurines — is housed in the ice rink’s lobby. Outside of the locker room, as the players get ready to face off against the two top scorers in the state, a few teens toe off work boots before slipping on skates.

“They lift this community up, being that we have some down times and some layoffs in the mines currently,” said Chad Baucom, a local real estate broker and former high school player, from the stands. “This is how we deal with it. This is our pastime.”

Hibbing/Chisholm’s boys hockey team boasts a 14-2-2 record this season. In the midst of economic turmoil, the roster of 20, many of them sons of miners, aims to do what it couldn’t last year: bring home a state title after a 53-year dry spell.

“It has become a rallying point during times of uncertainty,” said Hibbing Mayor Pete Hyduke, whose grandson, Ethan Sundvall, is a team captain. “They remind us that even when circumstances are difficult, community pride and connection endure.”

Welcome to hockey country

“We’re in hockey history country,” Hyduke said, gesturing to the framed photos of past players lining the team’s locker room corridor. “Hockey’s in our blood.”

“It means everything, especially to the town,” added Sundvall, eager to get on the ice as he shifted from his right skate to his left. “It’s a big hockey town. We just want to give everybody a show.”

Everyone from past mayors to senators’ sons has played hockey through hard times in Hibbing.

The same decade Hibbing won its first hockey state title in 1952, researchers started to question the mining industry’s longevity up north.

When Hibbing’s 1973 team won a second state title, the town went through a similar economic downturn as natural ore began to run out. As the resource on which the fragile local economy was founded threatened to disappear, Hibbing’s hockey team offered a reprieve.

This season feels eerily similar. Despite being teenagers, Hibbing’s players are aware of what is at stake.

“You definitely see it,” Galli said. “A lot of people losing jobs, just saving lots more money than usual.”

An all-too-familiar bleak year

As 1st Street bends into downtown Hibbing, a large banner reads “Get Hired Now.”

In Hibbing, neighbors know each other’s phone numbers by heart and last names are recycled on locker room stalls. So, it hurts that much more when the layoff notices start rolling in.

When parent company and Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs laid off more than 600 workers from Minorca Mine in Virginia and Hibbing Taconite last March — citing $700 million in financial losses in fiscal 2024 and an excess supply of taconite pellets — the punch of economic uncertainty came just a week after Hibbing lost to East Grand Forks in the state boys semifinals.

Weeks later, the Hibbing School District cut 21 positions.

For the first time in his 25 years on the job, Benny’s father, Mike, was laid off briefly in the summer from Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, which has a minority ownership stake in Hibbing Taconite, before being called back in the fall. Some of his fellow Hibbing miners, working at Minorca or Hibbing Taconite, weren’t so fortunate.

“Some of them might have had an opportunity to go work at a different, close facility,” said Mike Galli, a third-generation miner. “But there are some people I know that are still not working. There are definitely people on unemployment.”

The Mesabi Range is home to the state’s largest number of miners. In September 2025, mining unemployment insurance claims in Minnesota hit a year-high, with more than 15 times the amount of claims filed in September 2024, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The entire region was hit hard in 2025. Virginia, 24 miles northeast of Hibbing, had the largest unemployment rate in the state last year with 7.8% in August, more than double Minnesota’s average at the time. Hibbing had the second-highest rate in the state that month at 6.8%, reaching 7.0% in July.

“To be honest, I hope I’m the last miner,” Mike Galli said. “I don’t want to put a bad light on it, but it’d be nice for [my kids] to do something different.”

On a blue-skied afternoon in early January, Hyduke stood on a metal-slatted balcony overlooking a 600-foot-deep snowy taconite pit. The mayor pointed to smoke billowing on the horizon as proof of his steadfast hope: There are still miners at work.

The cyclical tendency of the mining economy makes him certain that this is just a low point in a long history of economic swings for the region, especially with the state’s first new taconite mine in 50 years, Mesabi Metallics, moving in down the road.

Unemployment on the Iron Range is something miners have learned to expect, he said.

“We’ve been here before,” Hyduke said. “When I moved here in 1962, we were one of 16 homes on the road I lived on. My dad was the only one working.”

Hyduke used the word “resiliency” often. As the former Hibbing High girls hockey coach and a local boys peewee coach for four decades, he recognizes how important the hockey team’s success is to the town’s resilience.

Going into that Jan. 9 game, the morning news of 45 more layoffs from Hibbing Taconite made a win that much more necessary.

But that also means the weight of history rests on the shoulder pads of Hibbing’s boys hockey team.

Leaving a legacy

Palmers Tavern and Grill is home to “Northland’s Best Burger” and a mean plate of sweet potato fries. It also happens to be a local hockey history fan’s altar.

“Everybody you talk to in this town knows exactly where they were when Hibbing won that state tournament in 1973,” Sandy Rohwer, the bar’s former owner, said. “It was that important to us.”

Her voice gets softer as she speaks about the mines but lifts to an excited pitch when hockey is brought up. Before retiring in August, Rohwer made sure the high school hockey shrine covering the bar’s back wall remained intact.

The ode to high school hockey began when the goalie on the 1973 title-winning team’s goalie brought in newspaper clippings and his old stick. She added to it when her son, Austin, joined the team and when his high school teammate Adam Johnson died while playing professionally in England in 2023 after a skate blade cut his throat. Johnson’s framed jersey has its own section in the Palmers shrine, and his No. 7 hangs from the Hibbing Memorial Arena rink’s rafters.

This year’s batch of seniors makes a good argument for a future feature on the wall, with the highest team tryout numbers in 20 years and the best season record in recent memory.

“These boys that are seniors right now, I know them all. They were a huge part of Palmers,” Rohwer said. “I couldn’t believe how much it meant to the community when these kids won peewees, and then they won bantam. It just rallied the whole town, especially when things aren’t so great up here.”

Sometimes, the boys hockey team heads to Palmers after a win.

When the final buzzer sounded after Hibbing’s 4-2 win against Falls, the crowd packed up bleacher cushions and shuffled out into a snowstorm pummeling the streets of Hibbing. Meanwhile, players lingered in the locker room.

There are no celebrations.

The boys let their opponents slip in two goals. They won’t admit that the pressure gets to them, but they sit in their stalls, heads lowered, dejected.

They showered, brushed off a game they labeled as “poorly played” and picked up PlayStation controllers and chess pieces. As they wind down, a reminder looms down from the wall: “Leave a Legacy.”

So, what does it mean to leave a legacy in a town like Hibbing? “Probably everything,” Benny Galli said. “Everything in my hockey career.”

...

Hockey Across Minnesota

Minnesotans in the NHL: In St. Paul, Dylan Samberg takes a trip down memory lane

How could he not?

Samberg won two consecutive Class 1A high school state championships with Hermantown, the latter as a senior in 2017 after he scored in double overtime against Monticello/Annandale/Maple Lake at what was Xcel Energy Center at the time.

“That one was obviously very special,” Samberg recalled. “That was a really important one for our seniors and Bruce Plante.”

The longtime Hermantown coach retired after the season.

“We were very happy to get that one for him,” Samberg said.

Next up was playing at Minnesota Duluth, and Samberg’s freshman season ended the same way … with a title at the Wild’s home rink.

Minnesota-Duluth also captured back-to-back championships with Samberg, beginning in 2018 when St. Paul hosted the Frozen Four.

“Being able to grow up watching [the Bulldogs] play and eventually be able to play for that team was pretty special,” Samberg said.

Although his dad, Mike, tried to get him into basketball, Samberg felt he was “born” into hockey, skating on outdoor ice in northern Minnesota.

“That’s where it all started for the most part,” Samberg said. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool to eventually work your way up and play in the NHL. But, yeah, [you] never really forget where you come from.”

A second-round draft pick by Winnipeg in 2017, Samberg is in his fifth season with the Jets, and while the NHL is different than playing in high school or even college, the success Samberg experienced along the way is still helpful.

“You can lean on those playoff experiences and being in those big games, especially when we eventually make it to playoffs,” said Samberg, who also has silver and bronze medals from representing Team USA at the World Junior Championship. “You can [look] back on those things. It’s definitely beneficial.”

— Sarah McLellan

College spotlight

With an 8-14-1 overall record, the Gophers men’s hockey team is not having a season that approaches the program’s lofty standards. Minnesota is coming off a series in which it was swept 5-1 and 3-2 in overtime by No. 1 Michigan, and now the Gophers carry a five-game losing streak into a series at No. 2 Michigan State on Jan. 23 and 24.

There was one bright spot for the Gophers against Michigan: goalie Luca Di Pasquo. The junior transfer from Michigan State tied his career high with 47 saves in the opener and made 45 in the series finale. He was victimized by defensive zone turnovers that led to Michigan’s tying and winning goals in the Saturday game.

“He’s giving us a chance,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said. “… He hasn’t played a lot of games the last couple years, and he’s a battler. We’re getting really comfortable with him."

Di Pasquo played only 11 games behind Michigan State goalie Trey Augustine during the past two seasons, but last weekend, Motzko gave him both starts rather than splitting games with Nathan Airey.

“I’m just trying to get better every game,” said Di Pasquo, who has a 3.08 goals-against average and .914 save percentage. “The second half is a fresh start, and if I can every game just get a little bit better, by the time the playoffs come, I’m hoping my game’s at the top, where it can be.”

Di Pasquo was encouraged by the Gophers’ performance in the series finale against Michigan, a team that’s 20-4 and has won 10 of its past 11 games.

“We’re that close,” he said. “We can play with anyone. That’s a heck of a hockey team, but we really came together tonight. That’s gonna give us more confidence moving forward.”

— Randy Johnson

Top 25

Girls: Centennial/Spring Lake Park remains as No.1 as other teams welcome back players from the U18 World Championships.

Boys: Moorhead and Minnetonka tango for the top place this week.

This week’s apple

Meet Addison Brown and Lexi Wood, who travel almost daily from Canada to Minnesota to play on International Fall’s hockey team.

Thank you for reading Hockey Across Minnesota (HAM). Email me at olivia.hicks@startribune.com with story tips or message me on X or Instagram. See you at the rink!