Had Brock Nelson been invited to play for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program when he was 16 years old, he would have had the chance to play for current Minnesota Wild coach John Hynes.
That wasn’t part of Nelson’s development path, and he’s certainly OK with that. Labeling himself a bit of a late bloomer, staying home for Nelson allowed him to take part in one of hockey’s greatest events — the Minnesota state high school tournament at then-Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
“The small school tourney — at the time that was the coolest thing as a high school, getting down there to play at The X,” Nelson said. “It wasn’t a sellout for the smaller schools like it was for the (Class) AA schools, but it was still a great rink for that.”
Nelson and Sam Malinski are both proud Minnesotans. They will both get the chance to play at home in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this series as the Colorado Avalanche take on the Wild. Game 1 is Sunday night at Ball Arena. The rest of the series remains TBD, but Games 3 and 4 at the recently renamed Grand Casino Arena should be special for the “State of Hockey” kids.
Malinski played at Class AA Lakeville South, which is a touch under 30 miles south of St. Paul. His team finished third in the state tournament in 2017. That included a consolation game overtime loss to Eden Prairie, which had one of the great players in Minnesota high school hockey history on its roster … ex-Avalanche center Casey Mittelstadt.
“It’s going to be really fun,” Malinski said. “Just kind of like any other game against Minnesota, I’ve sort of grown out of those nerves about playing at home.”
Nelson went to Warrod High School, which is about a six-hour drive from the Twin Cities and just south of the border with Canada. Warroad is a town of fewer than 2,000 people, but it has a storied hockey history. Nelson’s family is a big part of that, and he joined his uncle, grandfather and great-uncle as U.S. Olympic gold medalists in February.
He got to play in the state tournament twice, finishing third in his junior year and as the runners-up his senior season. Malinski went to Cornell, but Nelson spent two years at North Dakota, which meant more postseason hockey in St. Paul.
Nelson won the old WCHA conference tournament in 2011 and 2012, defeating the University of Denver in the final both years. Both of his college seasons also ended at The X, with a Frozen Four semifinal loss to Michigan in 2010 and a regional final loss to Minnesota in 2011.
“It will be a little bit different,” Nelson said of finally playing Stanley Cup Playoffs games in that building in his 13th NHL season. “I’m trying not to think too much of it like that, just business as usual and a work trip. It’s a little bit different than in season, when you’re trying to think about seeing some family and friends you haven’t seen in a while.
“Now is not the time for that. We’ll put that on pause and see them in the summer.”
The Avs found out they will be playing Minnesota late Thursday night, when the Wild finished off the Dallas Stars in Game 6 with a raucous Grand Casino crowd celebrating the franchise’s first series victory since 2015. The text messages from friends and family back home started pouring in that night.
Malinski said the ticket requests haven’t been too bad, so far. Nelson said an old neighbor reached out almost immediately after the game with what might have been a rhetorical question about him getting to play at home in the next round.
Nelson was born five months to the day after the only Game 1 in Stanley Cup Final history involving a team from Minnesota, when the old North Stars faced the Pittsburgh Penguins for the 1991 championship. Malinski was nearing his fifth birthday when the Wild made their greatest run in franchise history, reaching the Western Conference Final in 2003.
The core guys from that team were definitely part of Malinski’s childhood.
“I don’t know if it was my first game, but I definitely remember going to one game with grandfather and my two brothers,” Malinski said. “That was back when like Mikko Koivu and Marian Gaborik were on the team. It was a good memory for me.”
Both of the Minnesota boys on Colorado’s roster are ready to create new lifetime memories in St. Paul during this playoff series.
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