Edina's oh-so-close call among many in a boys' hockey tournament to remember

It wasn't a double-doink, but a double-dinger.

Edina, with its goalie pulled, made one last rush at the Minnetonka goal. Matt Vander Vort, with 30 seconds left, was sitting off the right post when the puck bounced to him. And he fired.

The way this tournament has played out all week, it was expected to find the back of the net. Edina fans yelped with anticipation. Instead, the puck struck the inside of the right post, slid across the goal, then caught the left post before bouncing away and taking Edina's hopes of sending another game into overtime with it.

The Skippers held on the rest of the way. Minnetonka 2, Edina 1 in a 2A title game that, shockingly, ended in regulation but ended a memorable week of hockey during which 111,607 fans attended games.

The most overtime games played during the boys hockey state championships is six in 1990, a record noteworthy because it came during the Battle Royale era of single-class hockey.

But the events of the past week at the Xcel Energy Center challenged that. Five games went into overtime. Some were close battles. Some were shootouts. Most left viewers breathless.

This year's tournament has included comebacks, hat tricks, big stops, slobber-knocking checks and quality entertainment. All in front of largel audiences at Xcel Energy Center - and with the boys, girls, men and women of the State of Hockey watching on television.

It made one wonder where how this tournament compared to recent ones.

"The beauty of the tournament is that you can make a case for any of the past 10 tournaments," Andover coach Mark Manny said. "Certainly Andover people are partial to 2022, when we beat archrival Maple Grove in two overtimes. Others will say 2017 when Monticello/Annandale/Maple Lake — The MOOSE — took Hermantown to two overtimes."

BLVD Tavern and Grill in West St. Paul has 37 televisions. All but three were tuned on to the Mahtomedi-Warroad Class A title game on Saturday. And the bar buzzed as the Zephyrs rallied from a two-goal deficit in the second period to win 6-5 in double overtime and hand Warroad its first loss of the season.

As visitors to the bar waited for the Class 2A final to begin, one patron was asked where this week's tournament matched up with past ones.

"It's one of the better tournaments," said Bryan Nelson of Inver Grove Heights, who played at Chisago Lakes and Hamline before embarking on a career that included him playing professionally in Italy. "Definitely in this current (two-class) format. All my buddies have been texting me after the first game, how great it was."

The 1A title was the warmup act for the main event, in which Edina attempted to avoid losing three times to Minnetonka in the same season.

Both teams nearly botched their trip to the final. Edina blew a 6-3 lead to Moorhead in the quarterfinals before winning in two overtimes. Minnetonka looked flat in its opening game against Hill-Murray, scoring in the final minute of regulation to tie the game before winning in overtime.

The Hornets and the Skippers are big and fast, and neither team wanted to yield any operating space. There was carnage in the neutral zone in the first period as attempts to generate offense were thwarted. It was going to take a mistake for someone to score.

And Minnetonka got that chance when Edina's Bobby Cowan was called for tripping eight minutes in. Gavin Garry's shot off a Jovan Moore pass missed the mark, but Hagen Burrows got the puck between the left circle and goal line and scored from a nearly impossible angle. It made Minnetonka a ridiculous 5-for-5 on the power play during the tournament.

Edina surged in the third period, with Cowan's goal of atonement. But Aston Schultz scored with 8 minutes, 35 seconds remaining. The Skippers navigated through some late Edina pressure and ended the week with their second state title.

Was this one of the best weeks of state tournament hockey?

"For some, this will be the greatest tournament ever,": Manney said. "And you will never convince them they are wrong."