This year the hockey state tournament is once again taking place at the Xcel Energy center. This tournament began on Wednesday March 5th, starting out with the single A quarterfinal games. Two seed Cathedral won over Mahtomedi 3-0 and six seed Orono upset Northfield dominating the match 8-2. Later Wednesday night one seed Hibbing shutout Luverne winning 7-0, and lastly East Grand Forks beat northern lakes 3-0. The first day ended with mostly dominant matchups, and the closest score was a difference of three goals.

The second day of the tournament started Thursday March 6th, with the double A quarter final games. Two seed Stillwater Area shutout Andover 5-0, and three seed St. Thomas Academy beat Shakopee 2-1 in a close matchup. Later that night one seed Moorhead won over Lakeville south winning the lively 7-4 matchup, and lastly Edina took the 2-1 OT win over Rogers. The second day ended with some closer matchups and impressive performances.

The semi finals began Friday March 7th, with the single A games coming first. In the first game the second seed Cathederal played six seed Orono. Cathedral came out on top winning the game  4-1. Next the four seed East Grand Forks upset the one seed Hibbing/Chisholm winning 7-5. East Grand Forks was losing 2-5 when they started the comeback and scored five unanswered goals to head to the championship.

Later Friday night the AA semi finals final games began with the second seed Stillwater taking on third seed St. Thomas. Stillwater came out on top shutting out St. Thomas and winning the game 4-0. At 8:00 the last semifinal was started and it was an anticipated match between the first seed Moorhead and the fifth seed Edina. This game was intense all the way through and in the 3rd period they were tied up 3-3. In the final minute of the game with 58.1 seconds remaining Zac Zimmerman scored on a power play. This goal sent the first seed moorhead to the championship for the 9th time.

On Saturday March 8th it was time for the championship games. At 12:00 PM, the Cathedral and East Grand Forks game began, starting with a 0-0 first period. In the second period East Grand Forks, Cooper Hills put in a loose puck assisted by Jace Panzer and Tucker Lovejoy to take the lead. In the third period cathedral was down 0-1, and the time was coming down to the last few minutes. Then freshman Bo Schmidt tied the game up 1-1 with 47 seconds remaining and sent the crusaders to overtime. In overtime Jace Van Eps scored a goal bouncing off the Crusaders’ goalie, Keaton LeGrande, from behind the left goal line. East Grand Forks won the championship 2-1, and It was their third time celebrating this victory. 

At 7 PM the AA championship game between one seed Moorhead spuds and two seed Stillwater ponies was started. Moorhead gave Stillwater no time to prepare scoring three within the first three minutes of the game. Two goals came from senior Mason Kraft and one from senior Brooks Cullen. With just under five minutes to go in the first period Mason Kraft put his third in achieving the hattrick, assisted by Brooks Cullen and Brandon Mickelson. Three minutes later Stillwater answered back with a goal scored by Luca Jarvis Assisted by Matthew Volkman and Fredenberg. With 40 seconds remaining Kraft scored his fourth cleaning up a loose puck from the crease. The period ended Moorhead up 5-1 over Stillwater. Senior Mason Kraft tied the record for most goals scored in a period in the state final at four. This record was set in 1951 by John Mayasich and had yet to be tied. 

Then the second period began, and the first to score was Stillwater with 10 minutes remaining in the period. Shortly after, the ponies scored again moving the score to 3-5 with a comeback looking possible. The spuds quickly crushed their spirits scoring just 20 seconds later. The second period came to an end with Moorhead leading Stillwater 6-3.

As the last period was coming to a start, things didn’t look great for Stillwater. Most fans thought the game was over, but Stillwater wasn’t going to give up yet. Stillwater was the first to act scoring four minutes in lowering the lead to two. The next to score was Moorhead moving the score to 7-4 with just nine minutes remaining. At 6:23 left in the period the ponies put in a goal; once again lowering the lead to two. Then with 3:20 left in the third period Stillwater put in their sixth goal of the game moving the lead to just one goal. The last few minutes of the game were intense with the ponies coming close to scoring, but in the end it wasn’t enough. The spuds held out and won for their first time in school history. The spuds had finally broken their state championship curse won their ninth championship appearance.