Why Bloomington Kennedy, St. Paul Johnson won’t be the last Minnesota high school hockey teams to expire

Editor’s note: This story is part of a three-story package from the Star Tribune on how cultural change is reshaping Minnesota high school sports. Please also read our report across all sports and a deeper look at boys volleyball.

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The Bloomington Ice Garden buzzed with the kind of nervous energy that accompanies a big game. Fans crammed into bleachers. A pep band played the hits. Men with gray in their beards wore their high school letterman jackets.

It felt like a lively Saturday night in the city. Bloomington Kennedy vs. Bloomington Jefferson in boys hockey for bragging rights.

“John F. Kennedy put a man on the moon,” a Kennedy player told teammates in the locker room moments before puck drop. “We can win a hockey game.”

Dave Dillon, who played for Kennedy in the 1970s and later served as its head coach, sounded wistful as he soaked in the scene of the venerable hockey barn.

“To see this building alive again ...” he said, his voice trailing off.

“When we were playing, they were literally hanging up there,” he continued, pointing to beams spanning the arena roof. “There are pictures in our yearbooks. You see the kids sitting up there. The fire marshal was probably in the crowd.”

That was then. So much has changed inside the city, the state, the sport.

The Kennedy-Jefferson contest on Jan. 11 marked the final meeting between the rivals. Starting next season, they will join forces as one team, presumably playing under the Jefferson Jaguars name and logo.

Kennedy Eagles boys hockey is no more. In 60 years, the program made seven state tournament appearances, won one state championship (1987) and delivered an abundance of east side pride.

The East Side of St. Paul learned on Thursday morning that it is skating the same path. The historic Johnson High program, Herb Brooks’ alma mater, will fold into Highland Park next season, school district leaders announced, forming a co-op arrangement that will be the lone St. Paul public school team.

These programs no longer have enough players to stand on their own, a situation happening around the state with regularity, sparking a steady increase in co-ops in both boys and girls hockey.

In 2009, the state featured 160 varsity boys teams. That number dropped again this season to 143, meaning Minnesota is losing teams at a pace of about one per season.

The boys hockey state tournament, which opens Wednesday in St. Paul, remains a crown jewel and source of pride. Minnesota continues to produce more players who advance to play in college, the NHL and now the PWHL and more players 18 and under overall than any other state. Thriving programs and their fans will soon fill every seat in Xcel Energy Center.

While two cities celebrate championships Saturday, other schools will continue wrestling with their participation challenges. There are several overlapping factors that necessitate co-op agreements, those who have been involved say: hockey’s high cost; sports specialization; suburban sprawl; open enrollment and gravitation to private schools thinning rosters, and changing cultures within cities leading to changing preferences of sports.

Like at many other schools, Kennedy’s student population has undergone a massive transformation as immigrants from around the globe settled into the Twin Cities during the last quarter-century. Kennedy’s enrollment was 25% students of color in 2000. That figure has flipped: 76% last year, with Hispanic or Latino accounting for the largest population.

Minnesota state demographer Susan Brower said one in five Minnesota children now have at least one foreign-born parent. In 20 school districts across the state, more than one-third of the student population has a native language other than English. Some high schools in these districts — from Eden Prairie to Austin to South St. Paul to St. Cloud — were more than 90% white a generation ago.

As the population of Minnesota changes, the rosters of its celebrated sport do not. Hockey remains a predominantly white sport.

Student-athletes from families new to Minnesota are bringing competitive jolts to many high school teams, from volleyball courts to soccer fields. Hockey programs, though, can be deeply challenged by demographic shifts, even as leaders look for ways to make it more accessible for all.

Last school year, 5,045 boys participated in high school hockey in Minnesota, a 13% drop from a recent high-water mark (5,792) in 2015-16, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In that same time frame, girls hockey participation dropped 12%, from 3,761 players to 3,320.

Consolidating teams has become necessary, and the trend has created strange unions. Traditional boys powers Apple Valley and Burnsville formed a co-op a few years ago. Rivals in several sports, Armstrong and Cooper skate together as the Wings. Seven public high schools in the city feed into the single Minneapolis boys hockey team; St. Paul is now following suit. Richfield dropped hockey in 2015. Now Kennedy.

“Juggernauts of the ’90s,” Kennedy athletic director Jon Anderson said, “and now they can’t field their own team.”

Chris Sikich coached the Apple Valley girls team this season after 22 years in the boys program as an assistant and head coach. Sikich played on Apple Valley’s 1996 state championship team that survived an epic five-overtime marathon against Duluth East in the semifinals.

He was flooded with messages from former teammates and friends after the co-op with Burnsville was announced expressing disbelief and wondering why Apple Valley would take that measure.

“I’m like, we don’t have a choice,” Sikich said.

That same explanation is being offered at other programs. South St. Paul boys hockey is synonymous with success, with 28 state tournament appearances and distinguished alums such as Phil Housley and Doug Woog. The Packers just completed their first season in a co-op with New Life Academy in Woodbury.

Coach Zach Palmquist, a Packers player from 2006 to '09, remembers strong participation numbers meant cuts at tryouts when he played. A few parents asked him about potential roster cuts last summer.

“I said, ‘Hey, we’re not in position to cut anybody,’ ” Palmquist said. “We need all the players we can get.”

Kennedy had only 18 players total (including three goalies) in its program this season. Barely enough for varsity, and no JV. The Eagles finished with a 1-24 record. More teams will face their predicament.

“We are the State of Hockey that is seeing less hockey schools,” Anderson said. “We’re seeing more and more schools losing hockey and power being concentrated into a few schools.”

One of the first conversations Anderson had as Kennedy’s new athletic director in 2018 was about hockey and declining participation. Anderson had been the school’s football coach and his roster numbers were still stable, so he wasn’t fully aware of hockey’s predicament.

In May 2020, Anderson was invited to a Kennedy youth hockey association meeting on Zoom. The conversation focused on forming a co-op with Jefferson at the youth level. Anderson cautioned the group that if the plan proceeded, he believed Kennedy hockey would cease to exist within five years.

“I said we’re going to do everything we can to keep it,” Anderson said. “But at some point, without a dedicated youth program, it’s not going to happen.”

He wasn’t alone in that fear. Kennedy varsity coach Brandon Tveitbakk recalled: “The day that our youth program got absorbed by Jefferson, I went home and told my wife, ‘That’s it. It’s going away at some point.’ ”

Tveitbakk and his staff gathered in a meeting room at the Bloomington Ice Garden in early January for a discussion about the program, to share stories from their playing days and to provide context on changes happening within high school hockey. The group highlighted several interconnected factors that altered the landscape for so many programs.

First- and second-ring communities such as Bloomington became older and more diverse as families with multiple kids migrated to newer, larger homes in the suburbs. High schools formerly on the edge of the metro benefited as they ballooned.

Hockey is an expensive sport that typically is passed down from one family generation to the next. The higher the level, the higher the costs, especially for the offseason training that has become the norm at all ages.

More and more kids are specializing in their favorite or best sport with a year-round commitment that keeps them from playing multiple sports.

If a youth association’s competitiveness slides, families will look elsewhere for better opportunities. The allure of playing varsity at a school that offers stronger competition and more avenues for success becomes a major selling point, whether that’s a public school or private.

“Hockey families figure it out early,” said Kennedy assistant Shane Keaveny, a member of the Eagles program during the ’87 state championship season.

Over time, these factors siphon away participation numbers and talent, leaving programs vulnerable to either co-op or closure.

“We don’t want to lose opportunities,” Kennedy’s Anderson said. “We want kids to have fun and play. Yes, winning is fun. I won’t deny that. We don’t want to give up opportunities because for many of these students, this is the last time that they’re really going to play that sport competitively.”

Born and raised in Bloomington, Anderson didn’t grow up in a hockey family. He has been on skates three times in his life, and it was “quite comical.”

“Kids just can’t pick up hockey if they don’t skate,” he said.

Leaders in Minnesota hockey circles are mindful of that unique aspect of their game and how it can impede introduction for kids and families from other parts of the world where hockey isn’t part of the culture.

Students with some measure of athletic ability can show up to middle school without any training in football, track, soccer, basketball or other sports and likely find a spot on a team. That’s not the case in hockey if they never learned to skate.

Anthony Walsh is determined to make hockey more accessible by teaching the game to kids from all communities and cultural backgrounds. Walsh, who is Black and played on Edina’s 2013 state championship team, works as a skills instructor for a youth program in Richfield that is funded by the Fortis Academy. He also works with another program in Brooklyn Park and has coached youth hockey in Minneapolis.

Walsh called the Richfield program a success as participation numbers multiply and include a blend of ages and nationalities. Some of his players speak English; some don’t. Kids are forming teams. Parents are getting involved.

The program’s location is notable because of Richfield’s rich history. The hope is to rekindle hockey where it once thrived and “keep the spirit alive,” Walsh said.

“It’s a really cool crowd that we have on the ice,” he said.

The Wild announced a new initiative in January called Skate It Forward that will pay fees for the first year of hockey for kids in mites. The team is starting out with eight to 10 youth associations initially with a future goal of being able to pay for every kid in Minnesota in 8U to play their first year of hockey for free.

“The biggest hurdle with hockey is getting a kid to try it,” said Mike Snee, vice president of the Minnesota Wild Foundation. “If you come from a family where neither parent played hockey, it is intimidating.”

Snee said about one-quarter of the state’s youth associations contacted the team about the program within the first two weeks. The vision, he said, is to remove as many barriers as possible in getting young kids involved in the sport.

“One thing hockey does have more so than other sports is retention,” Snee said. “Our research says if we can get you playing, we’re confident we’re going to keep you playing.”

The payoff for those programs won’t be felt for some time at the varsity level. Reversing trends doesn’t happen overnight.

Forming co-ops is a painful step because every community has pride in its history and school uniform. Co-ops mean fewer teams, though a partnership at least preserves the opportunity. Burnsville athletic director Kevin Kleiner offers that reminder when he hears complaints about having a co-op with a one-time rival.

“The kids that are in the program, they don’t care,” he said. “They’re just happy to be on a team. They have new friendships that have come from being with students from another school.”

South St. Paul’s Palmquist noted that his team’s co-op with New Life Academy is a standard two-year contract. The Packers had enough players this season, but Palmquist examined participation at younger levels and wanted to ensure his program continues to maintain a JV team.

“It’s something in the next few years, we just need it,” he said. “Hopefully, we get those numbers back up, and who knows what’s going to happen in the future.”

An unknown number of schools across Minnesota will face the same decisions this offseason and before next school year. Osseo’s boys team finished the season 7-19-1. Coach David Prokop said the idea of finding a co-op has come up because he has 18 seniors on a roster of 40, and their participation numbers are low for a Class 2A school. But for now, the program wants to try to “weather the storm” and remain on its own.

“If you form a co-op, you’re obviously probably going to strengthen your product,” Prokop said. “But you’re going to lose opportunities for a lot of kids in the district.”

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion in sports, and something uniquely personal at the high school level, and it was on display at the final Kennedy-Jefferson game. Alumni who live throughout the metro returned to watch the final chapter, a 6-0 Jefferson victory.

“Just you mentioning the atmosphere at Bloomington Ice Garden got the hair on the back of my neck standing up,” former Jefferson standout Mark Parrish said. “It’s timely to have that Bob Dylan movie out. The times they are a-changing. It’s sad honestly for me to sit and think about it and think about all my memories of just playing against Kennedy. Those games were highlights every single year.”

Kennedy players experienced a parade of final moments this season. Final Jefferson game. Final home game. Final practice. The team wore vintage throwback jerseys to honor its tradition.

The roster included 12 seniors. The coaches are hopeful that a few returning players will join Jefferson’s team next season.

“It will be kind of fun,” freshman defenseman Micah Feldman said. “I’ll reunite with all these guys I played peewees with.”

The final home game Feb. 8 had an air of melancholy. Tveitbakk focused his pregame speech on history.

“Tonight is an important night,” he said. “It’s the last Kennedy home game ever. Ever.”

Players then went around the room offering a few words about what the game meant to them.

Before opening faceoff, each Kennedy player skated to center ice holding a vial of water. Standing in a semicircle, they poured out their water in a show of respect for the program’s past.

School Principal Molly Hollenbeck addressed the crowd using a microphone. She thanked Tveitbakk for his leadership and the players for staying at Kennedy and being loyal to the program.

Tveitbakk stood on the bench, tears welling in his eyes.

The game against Minneapolis went like so many others. The Eagles battled hard but simply were outmanned, losing 10-2.

Afterward, Kennedy’s players skated a ceremonial lap with the school flag and posed for pictures on the ice.

“It’s really surreal,” senior captain Isaac Syrjamaki said. “It’s very sad, but also we have to take in the last moments. Especially when I was putting on my equipment for the last time. It’s crazy that we’re the last group of guys after all these years.”

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MaryJo Webster of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.