There is no denying that the state of Minnesota is a the hockey Mecca. At the high school level, there’s a large pool of talent that turns over into elite college and even pro level players. Most of these kids would agree that “sty” (style for those old like me) plays a larger factor into how good of a hockey player you can be. As the old saying goes “you look good, you play good”. Most people take great pride wearing a jersey that represents where they are from, and some make you hate your parents for making you move to a shit town.
What are we looking for in a jersey?
First rule we need some originality. If you took another teams logo and have no sense of originality then you are pretty much disqualified. Looking at you, Minnetonka and Mahtomedi. A lot of this list will be based on overall uniform (pants, gloves, and helmet included). Also don’t come crying to me if your school stinks at marketing and I couldn’t find your super dope third jersey that you wear when it’s a full moon on a Tuesday, then too damn bad, take it up with your administrators. I tried to find jerseys from the 2020-2021 season. Secondly, I tried to not have too many of the same color setups in this list, but holy shit everyone in the state is some sort of blue.10. Sartell-St. Stephen
Starts off with a clean color scheme right off the bat. Guarantee you can toss long sauce like Matthew Stafford drops dimes. The circle logo always plays well on a jersey and the “S” logo is slick as shit. The blue inlays on the helmet its the French chef’s kiss on the end of it. The boys have to be buzzing if they look this damn good.
9. Moorhead
I’m sorry, but the fucking Spuds? Nothing more badass than calling yourself a potato and being a Minnesota powerhouse program. The jerseys are as classic as can be, but the simplicity with rocking the absurdity of your mascot across your chest put’s them as an auto lock in the top 10. And yes, if Moorhead’s program sucked ass these jerseys would also suck. That’s the benefit of being good; you can get away with weird shit.
8. Windom
7. Hill-Murray
Nothing sicker than rocking the Kelly Green bucket. One thing Hill-Murray does best (outside of taking every other school’s best players) is make their players flashy as shit. A winning mentality starts with looking like an absolute beauty out there. My favorite part outside of all the bright green is that they keep the jersey simple. Almost as if they are saying “No need for a logo, you already know who the fuck we are.” You can say you hate them all you want, but you have to respect the hell out of the look.
6. Benilde-St. Margaret’s
5. Breck
No surprise here, Adidas with another banger of a jersey. Dark navy and yellow stands out better than just about any other color on the spectrum. Breck is kind of a boring school with a generic mustang mascot, but these add enough flavor to a pretty dull dish.
4. Andover
As much as I would’ve loved to give the black, white, and gold title to East Ridge, nothing comes close to the Huskies on this one. Minnesota and cursive font on the front of hockey jerseys go together like cheetah print and jet skis.
3. St. Thomas Academy
Nobody gets more hate chants tossed at them than the Cadets, but you can’t knock the style. The crest on the shoulder and the “ST” logo on everything including the gloves shows how much they are proud to represent the team. If you had the same amount of state titles as they have, you’d be pretty damn proud to wear this as well.
2. Maple Grove
1. Rogers
Sometimes flash isn’t necessary to be the best in the game. Congratulations to the Royals for having the best setup I’ve seen in 2020-21 Minnesota High School hockey. They don’t wear the stereotypical shoulder colors, instead darkened out the sleeve to highlight that gorgeous blue. They put up a great record in 2021, in arguably one of the toughest conferences, and you have to attribute that to how sharp they truly look.
“Wait. I’m from Edina, how could you forget us?”
There were a lot of jerseys I omitted from this list. I already gave my reasons for teams like Minnetonka, but I imagine the entire town of Edina may come after me. I’ll keep it simple. While I admire your color scheme and will admit that you are the heart of Minnesota Hockey, it’s simply that your jersey kinda sorta is a steaming pile of shit. I get that tradition is a thing, but toss a bright green helmet on like Hill Murray does and your team will stand out even more. The white helmets with the dark uniforms only work if you’re T.J. Oshie carrying team USA to a shootout win against Russia. Plus, don’t you guys win enough shit? So allow me to preemptively ask you to calm your cake eating tits.
Honorable Mentions
I can’t stress enough how difficult it was to make this list. My shortlist of finalists for this list was 34 teams I really liked that were juuuuust on the cusp of cracking this list. A lot of the snubs came down to color schemes and who wore it best, so below are some of my favorites that I need to send an apology letter to / fans who I don’t want to receive “I can’t believe you snubbed us” death threats from.
Woodbury
Farmington
Stillwater
Teams lie Becker-Big Lake, Cretin Derham Hall, and Blaine were just on the edge of cracking this list as well. Now for anyone that is truly upset with me, please direct your hate directly to twitter and Celine Dion for putting me in this mood. In all seriousness, shoot me a tweet and tell me why I’m wrong. Below is a screen grab of my desktop to show you the rest of the teams that I selected.
Ugly by choice. Banned from twitter