The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Museum, long a roadside attraction in the heart of Minnesota’s hockey country, might not call Eveleth’s Hat Trick Avenue home for much longer.
What’s best for the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame? Its home on the Range or a move to St. Paul?
The nonprofit’s board members are split: Some favor Iron Range tradition; others want more foot traffic.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
March 13, 2025 at 5:30PM
The Minnesota Wild have proposed moving the museum to the much higher profile Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, a relocation that it says would draw more foot traffic to the attraction.
The move to the Wild’s 25-year-old home — scheduled with the surrounding area for a massive renovation — was presented at a recent meeting of the museum board of directors.
The board’s response was split.
Opponents said tradition should come before ticket sales.
“The location in Eveleth is as much a part of the history as the memorabilia in it,” said Dante Tomassoni, a member of the museum’s executive committee.
Tomassoni joined the board after the death of his father, David Tomassoni, a former pro hockey player who served nearly 30 years in the Legislature.
State Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, chair of the nonprofit’s board of directors, told Duluth TV news station Northern News Now that growing the sport of hockey means bringing more exposure to Eveleth — and Minnesota’s — hockey legends. St. Paul offers that exposure.
In an email to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Housley confirmed that the board is exploring a potential move. She said discussions have included the city of Eveleth and the Wild, but future talks will need more stakeholders.
“We anticipate that the process will take several months,” she said. “Any change would require a majority vote of the [U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Museum board of directors].”
“We acknowledge how important the Eveleth community is to the sport,” she wrote. “Any potential move would need to honor that legacy and identify a project for Eveleth that would provide even greater benefits to the community.”
The distinctive three-story brick museum with its thick white overhanging roof, USA hockey logo on the side and trio of flags, is just off Hwy. 53 about an hour north of Duluth. The tribute to hockey in the United States was conceived of in the late 1960s by D. Kelly Campbell, a local mining executive who never played the sport. The city’s civic association made an appeal to an early iteration of USA Hockey, the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States, and it was approved.
Seven years later, the $1 million building was completed.
The history of hockey unfolds inside: storied jerseys, a dangling antique scoreboard, written recollections of Eveleth High School’s on-ice dominance, tributes to the Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s men’s and women’s teams, and photos of John Mariucci who played for Eveleth, the Gophers and the Chicago Blackhawks. There is a space for coach Herb Brooks and the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” squad and a retro Zamboni.
Every year, a new class of inductees is added.
Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown, is determined to keep the Hall of Fame in Eveleth, which he described as a “proud hockey community.”
The mining money has left the area, he said. “Now we have people tying to take culture and history,” he said. “People need to stay out of our business.”
Hauschild wrote a letter to the hall of fame’s board, posted on social media and has written an editorial in the Mesabi Tribune. He’s working on a resolution opposing the move and said he would like to pass a bill restricting capital investment bonding dollars from being used for relocation.
In an email to lawmakers obtained by the Star Tribune, board member Mitchell Brunfelt, highlighted the museum’s funding sources: a $100,000 annual grant from the state through the Minnesota Historical Society, $70,000 from taconite production taxes, and in recent years, a $50,000 grant for capital improvements.
He called the facility a “barely functioning enterprise.”
Eveleth board members have discussed how the museum is financially solvent, he wrote.
“The reason it is financially solvent is that there are virtually no activities taking place there,” Brunfelt said. “The persona that has been created that there is a significant, functioning, and major sports hall of fame located in Eveleth, Minnesota is a bit of fiction.”
The museum draws about 9,000 visitors a year, including hockey teams playing in tournaments on the Iron Range. At times in its history, the venue has briefly closed because of its sparse attendance.
Opponents of the relocation and its supporters agree that the current building needs tending — structurally and in beefing up its displays.
Tomassoni pointed to other sports museums that are staples of smaller towns. The National Baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, N.Y., not Manhattan, he said, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio, not Cleveland.
“Part of the history of Minnesota hockey were these blue-collar families whose lives were changed when their kids got hockey scholarships,” he said.
This isn’t the first time there has been talk of uprooting the museum. In the 1980s, Gov. Rudy Perpich, the North Stars and the Hall of Fame’s directors batted around plans to move it to the Met Center in Bloomington.
“Locating the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth was never conditioned on the town being able to attract massive migrations of tourists,” Star Tribune columnist Jim Klobuchar wrote at the time. “The choice of Eveleth had no merit other than one: It was right.”
Though when it was built, an official from the NHL, which contributed $100,000 to the project, said “the shrine” was only accessible by dog sled.
Jesse Terry was the only Anishinaabe man in the 40th running of the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon this month. In this race, named for an Anishinaabe man, Terry knows he’s representing his culture.
