Every youth player in town had an opportunity to skate on the ice at Blakeslee Stadium.
Mankato East and West, boys and girls, varsity and junior varsity hockey teams have played games on it. The Minnesota State men's and women's teams will have played games on it too.
It was a remarkable celebration of the sport in a part of the State of Hockey that doesn't get much love when it comes to the quality of the hockey played in this part of the state.
But believe me when I say this, the people who live in this community have an immense amount of confidence in the past, the present and the bright future for the sport in South Central Minnesota.
Any questions about that were put to bed on Saturday when the MSU men packed upwards of 8,000 fans into Blakeslee for a game against St. Thomas.
Hockey in Mankato is thriving, and bringing Hockey Day Minnesota to the southern part of the state to celebrate that was a stroke of genius.
For those of us that think of this part of the state as home, being a small part of it was something we'll remember for the rest of our lives.
I don't live in Mankato, but I was born here. I went to college here. I met my wife and my best friends in life here. I don't live here, but I still think of this part of the state as home because it means so much to me.
And to see this community rally around this cause leaves me feeling tremendously proud as the celebration of hockey wraps up. Catching up with old friends and colleagues in town who remain such a vital piece of the hockey puzzle in Mankato was the highlight of my weekend.
The local organizing committee here spent hundreds of hours plotting and planning on making #HDM2022 the best one yet. They oversaw an army of volunteers who were a boots-on-the-ground force all week long and in really challenging conditions.
That's why the gamut of emotions on a Saturday night after Hockey Day is difficult to put into words.
Of course there is joy after an event as successful and incredible as the one the folks in Mankato put on.
There's sadness, because this is an event that has been front and center here for years ... and now it's over.
There's satisfaction, mostly in the fact that so many doubted such an event would work in the southern part of the state. Many questioned whether there would be any interest. Others thought the weather wouldn't cooperate.
But at every turn, Mankato proved it is just as "big time" as any "traditional" hockey community.
There's also excitement for the next community that will be on display; in this case, it will be White Bear that gets a chance to showcase its own unique hockey.
Mankato really started taking note of previous Hockey Days when it was in St. Cloud in 2019 and had a strong contingent of folks in Minneapolis, which was the last time this event was held in full because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mankato took stock of the great things those communities did at their events, and built on it.
I was able to meet several leaders of the White Bear local organizing committee on Saturday and they're focused on making their event better than Mankato's in 2023. There are other groups ready to get in line after that, and come up with the next great concept, like Mankato did with it's "Stadium Series" concept on the campus of MSU.
But before the torch is passed to White Bear, hockey fans in Minnesota should salute the team in Mankato did that an amazing job of setting an awfully high bar to match.
Fortunately for those same hockey fans, it's a bar that our communities continue to clear every year. And we're all the beneficiaries of that.
