On a minus 11-degree Friday night in late January, a sheet of ice should have carried a cacophony of hockey sticks slapping pucks, high-pitched giggles and the thud of wobbly skaters hitting the ice. Instead, the rink where girls from various backgrounds come together to learn hockey was echoey.

When the Minneapolis-St. Paul Starwhals, a youth girls hockey club, formed five years ago, the mission was simple: make hockey accessible.

The Starwhals — a cooperative between Langford Park Hockey, City of Lakes Youth Hockey and Edgcumbe Youth Hockey girls teams — have provided a safe space for the diverse team, which has welcomed Somali, Native American, Chinese, Karen and Filipino players. That is, until ICE agents swept through Minnesota and Operation Metro Surge began in early December.

Hockey parents were suddenly thrown into crisis management. What was once an icy playground now needed an emergency plan if ICE officers showed up at the rink.

“Do you make hockey available, or don’t you?” asked Cory Larson, the president of Minneapolis Titans Youth Hockey and the Starwhals. “Do you lock yourself in locker rooms?”

Practices now host a fraction of the club’s typical numbers. The under-8, under-10 and under-12 rosters have seen attendance dips.

“All the kids on the ice right now are white, and this is about half of these two teams,” said Starwhals communications director Bria Florell, whose daughter plays on the under-8 team. “The ice is empty right now. We’re feeling that for sure.”

What was once a celebration of diversity now threatens to put a target on some of the team’s families, who are sheltering in place, Florell said.

“We’ve tried to keep it as normal as possible,” said Aaron Flannigan, a hockey dad and the club’s secretary. He and Florell are two of the few parents watching from the glass as a pair of players take turns dragging each other across the ice by stick.

But returning to any semblance of normalcy was upset when federal agents fatally shot a second Minnesotan, Alex Pretti, on Jan. 24, the Saturday after practice. Minneapolis Parks and Recreation, which passed an anti-ICE resolution earlier this month, shut down all ice rinks for safety concerns later that day.

The Minneapolis Storm, a youth hockey association, said their practice registration system suggests attendance is down as well. The DinoMights, another metro youth hockey club with a large immigrant population, canceled all practices and games.

The Starwhals’ foundation puts them in a precarious spot: The youth hockey program started with the goal to introduce families to the game who wouldn’t have played otherwise — whether because of cost, skill or cultural barriers.

“That’s the Titans [and] Starwhals mission. We’re just trying to make hockey fun and affordable and competitive,” Larson said. “Twenty percent of our players skate for free. I’ve never turned down one scholarship request.”

Hockey is a predominately white sport, and of the nine neighborhoods in St. Paul and Minneapolis that the club pools from, three have a population of more than 70% residents of color, according to census data.

“We value diversity, and we’re not quiet about that,” Florell said.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul public high schools the Starwhals will eventually attend have just one team in each city, largely because of changing neighborhood demographics. The club prides itself on introducing the Twin Cities’ immigrant population to hockey, including teaching Lah Paw, the first USA Hockey-registered Karen player, to skate in 2023.

A disruption to everyday life

Across the state, young athletes have seen their daily and weekly sport routines upended by ICE’s presence.

Places that were once thought of as safe no longer feel secure, said Jane Graupman, the executive director of the International Institute of Minnesota, after federal agents detained two staff members at Roosevelt High School.

“It’s chipping away at people’s sense of security and safety in this country,” said Graupman, whose St. Paul-based organization resettles immigrants and refugees in the state. “Where are we safe in our community? It’s a question a lot of people are asking.”

Less than 24 hours before the Jan. 23 practice, a 2-year-old girl and her father were detained by immigration agents in south Minneapolis and flown out of the state despite a judge ordering the child’s release.

As Minnesotans make grocery runs and offer ride shares to neighbors in need, the Starwhals operate off a similar community model.

“We’ve been really staying close as a team, offering rides to kids who need it, making sure that we’re staying close at each team level to make decisions on what’s best for each team,” Florell said. “Hockey comes second to life.”

“Our goal is to make hockey manageable for people,” Larson added. “Last year, we had a little bit of trouble with a couple of girls just not being able to get to places. So, I hired a couple of people just to drive them back and forth to practices and make sure they got to games.”

From the free equipment housed in the corner of the ice rink to the team’s no-cut policy to ride shares, the team takes community hockey to a next level.

“Anybody who wants to get out here and skate with us on the ice can,” Florell said. “We figure it out.”

The Starwhals are prepared for whatever comes next, whether that’s needing to cancel practice or delivering groceries. Hopefully, what’s next will sound like a loud rink and a full team finding the back of the net.

“If you want to be uplifted in times of trouble, go watch 8-year-old hockey practices,” Larson said with a laugh. “It’s entertaining.”

...

Hockey Across Minnesota

Minnesotans in the NHL

After arriving in Minnesota to play his first NHL regular-season game in his home state, Oliver Moore didn’t reunite with his mom, Shawna.

He brought her with him from Chicago.

Shawna and the other moms of Blackhawks players accompanied the team on its road trip to play the Wild and Pittsburgh.

“She deserves it all,” said Moore, a Mounds View native. “My whole family deserves it all. I put in the work, but they gave me the resources. They gave me every opportunity to be who I am today. Obviously, the support is just as important.”

Moore’s dad, Brian, bought 50 tickets for the Tuesday, Jan. 27, game against the Wild at Grand Casino Arena, which came only days after Moore played on his 21st birthday on Jan. 22, a game in which the forward had an assist and got in his first career fight before scoring in the sixth round of the shootout to help Chicago defeat Carolina 4-3.

“I got six happy birthday texts,” Moore said, “and then after the game it was like a clump of happy birthday texts and also the ‘Good job getting in there’ kind of thing. So, yeah, that was a special day.”

After starting the season in the minors, Moore was called up by the Blackhawks in November, and he has gotten used to the schedule since leaving the Gophers to turn pro last March.

“The guys here are unbelievable,” said Moore, who went to Totino-Grace before moving on to USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program in Plymouth, Mich. “The leadership we have here, the coaching staff, just the whole organization has helped it to be a really easy transition into [the pros]. It feels like I’m just one of the guys, and I’m just on another hockey team. But obviously, you’re playing in the NHL, and it’s special. It’s pretty awesome.”

— Sarah McLellan

College Spotlight

It’s nearly February, and that means there are six weeks left in the men’s college hockey regular season. It’s not too early to look at what the NCAA tournament field might look like.

There’s a change in how the NCAA chooses and seeds its 16-team tournament field. The PairWise Ratings are out as the computer formula used to rank teams, and the NCAA Percentage Index (NPI) is in. The NCAA field will consist of the six conference tournament champions plus 10 at-large teams based on the highest NPI rating. The tournament’s regionals will be in Albany, N.Y.; Worcester, Mass.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; and Loveland, Colo., from March 26-29, and the Frozen Four will be at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on April 9-11.

I’m using the current conference leaders as projected conference tournament champions, and entering this week, the leaders were: Bentley (Atlantic Hockey), Michigan (Big Ten), St. Thomas (CCHA), Quinnipiac (ECAC), Providence (Hockey East) and North Dakota (NCHC).

When creating the matchups, the NCAA first puts any regional hosts in their respective region. In this case, Denver is the host in Loveland, so the Pioneers will be placed there.

Here’s my projected tournament bracket based on the current NPI:

Albany Regional

1. Michigan vs. 16. Bentley

8. Quinnipiac vs. 10. Wisconsin

Worcester Regional

2. Michigan State vs. 15. Connecticut

7. Providence vs. 9. Cornell

Note: To avoid a first-round intraconference matchup between Quinnipiac and Cornell, No. 8 Cornell is swapped with No. 10 Wisconsin.

Sioux Falls Regional

3. North Dakota vs. 14 Boston College

6. Minnesota Duluth vs. 11. St. Thomas

Loveland Regional

4. Penn State vs. 13. Denver

5. Western Michigan vs. 12 Dartmouth

Last team in: No. 15 Connecticut

First team out: No. 16 Augustana (bumped by AHA leader Bentley).

— Randy Johnson

Top 25

Boys: Minnetonka reclaims its No. 1 spot this week over Moorhead.

Girls: Hill-Murray’s 5-3 win over Holy Family put it back in second place this week.

This Week’s Apple

Dave Osberg, a reader from Eagan, wrote in this week to share about his fifth annual “Pucks and Pubs” tradition in St. Cloud. For the last five years, a group of St. John’s grads reunite, travel around Minnesota for a weekend and watch high school hockey. This year included watching St. Cloud Cathedral play East Grand Forks, but the first year stands out in his memory with a trip to the Eveleth Hippodrome and former Gopher and Olympian John Mayasich joining them at the rink.

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!