Kevin Kurtt
From college to the NHL
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- Last Updated on Monday, 13 May 2013 14:49
By Kevin Kurtt
Let’s Play Hockey Editor
If you’ve watched nearly any NCAA sporting event on television in the past several years, you’ve seen the ad. You may even be able to recite the tagline: “There are 380,000 NCAA student-athletes, and just about all of them will be going pro in something other than sports.”
It’s a noble campaign directed at educating the masses that most athletes in college will see their athletic careers come to an end at graduation.
In the world of NCAA hockey, the vast majority of players on the 59 Division I and 78 Division II/III men’s teams will not make the jump to the NHL, AHL, ECHL or any other of the various professional hockey leagues around the world. But for a select few, college hockey is merely a steppingstone to the bright lights of the National Hockey League.
The State of Hockey Players
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 31 January 2013 18:59
Beyond the thousands of youth and high school players in the state, nearly 1,500 Minnesota natives are playing hockey in the juniors, college and pros
By Kevin Kurtt
Let’s Play Hockey Editor
Pick up nearly any issue of Let’s Play Hockey and you’ll see various lists of Minnesotans in various levels of hockey.
Upon compiling those lists, it became incredibly clear the sheer volume of hockey players that Minnesota produces on an annual basis to numerous hockey leagues is staggering.
Without taking into account the thousands upon thousands of youth, high school, club and recreational hockey players that exist throughout the state, Minnesota develops an amazing number of elite hockey players.
You might be a hockey fan in Minnesota if ...
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 29 November 2012 17:18
There are plenty of ways to tell if you are a hockey fan from the great state of Minnesota
By Kevin Kurtt
Let’s Play Hockey Editor
We’ve all seen the ‘You know you’re a Minnesotan’ lists that give us such truisms as ‘You thought Grumpy Old Men was a documentary,’ ‘Your local Dairy Queen is closed from December through February, ‘You know how to say Wayzata, Mahtomedi and Shakopee,’ and ‘You know all four seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter and Construction.’ We get these in our inbox, actually “get” the jokes and immediately forward them to our Minnesota friends and coworkers.
Now it’s time to dive deeper into one of the aspects of what it’s like to be Minnesotan – hockey. Whether you played the game, cheered from the stands or learned the sport from your kids, there are a multitude of ways you can tell if you’re a hockey fan from the great state of Minnesota.
They’re Baaaaaaaack!
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 17 January 2013 18:00
The four-month lockout is over and NHL players are returning to the ice this week. Will disgruntled and casual fans return as well?
By Kevin Kurtt
Let’s Play Hockey Editor
Let’s Play Hockey! It’s those three words that have started every Minnesota Wild home game since the franchise’s inception in 2000. And it’s those three words that the NHL owners and players consistently ignored since the collective bargaining agreement expired and the lockout began at 11:59 p.m., on Sept. 15, 2012.
For nearly four months, a bunch of billionaires argued with a bunch of millionaires over how much money each side was owed from a game that most of us pay to play.
And now, hockey’s back. Or more accurately, NHL hockey is back. Hockey, especially in Minnesota, never went anywhere. Only the version with the billionaire owners and millionaire players went away for a few months.
150 Reasons to Love Hockey (2012)
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 25 October 2012 16:26
With the season just getting started, it's time for a reminder of all the reasons we have such a love affair with hockey
By Kevin Kurtt
Let’s Play Hockey Editor
Here in Minnesota, hockey is strongly woven into our fabric of life. Our state high school tournament regularly sells out. College hockey gets higher television ratings than some college or pro basketball broadcasts. The Minnesota Wild rode an epic 409-game sellout streak. Indoor and outdoor rinks dot the landscape of the North Star State. Learning to skate, shoot and stickhandle is a rite of passage for countless Minnesota kids every winter. The Let’s Play Hockey Expo in St. Paul during the state tournament is the largest consumer hockey show in the world (shameless plug).
But why does this sport have such a stranglehold in Minnesota? I don’t have a clue, but I do know what has drawn me to the sport of blue lines, power plays, saucer passes and Zambonis.
