Each weekend, Hermantown Hawks captain Blake Biondi would lace up his skates and take the ice to a packed crowd from his small Minnesota hometown.
The thrills of performing and scoring top shelf in front of everyone he knows was a “larger than life” experience — games are broadcast on local radio stations and draw packed houses — in rural towns not all that removed from the Canadian border.
“For people who don’t understand highschool hockey in Minnesota, that’s what you need to do growing up,” Biondi told The Post. “You idolized the high schoolers as a child.”
But there have been also unfamiliar faces within the stands every time Biondi played — scouts in search of the subsequent star within the National Hockey League.
“Hockeyland,” a latest documentary streaming on Apple TV Tuesday, captures the unprecedented dedication, pressure and highs and lows on the ice facing young athletes within the high-stakes world of Minnesota highschool hockey as two very different teams face off within the 2020 state finals.
Most of all, it captures a lifestyle like no other.
“It’s bonkers. It’s 15 to 18,000 people coming out every 12 months watching a bunch of highschool kids play within the state championship. It’s a tremendous culture,” director Tommy Haines, who bills his film because the “Friday Night Lights” of the north, told The Post.
“Specifically in Minnesota, you have got these teams that also have this community-based model where it’s like football in Texas… parents flooding the rinks, they’re doing the concession stands, they usually’re coming out and packing these stadiums in these small towns with 3 to 4,000 people.”
Within the uninterrupted 2020 season, Haines followed a handful of players — looking candidly into their personal lives — from two schools across northern Minnesota, where there’s been a wealthy history of hockey players happening to the Olympics and NHL careers, he said.
There’s the Eveleth Golden Bears — a small program whose glory days of hockey are a thing of the past — that’s preparing to consolidate with a rival highschool.
For those boys growing up in Eveleth — home to the US Hockey Hall of Fame — it was the ultimate season of Golden Bears hockey as they comprehend it.
“You’re fidgeting with the identical kids every 12 months, from six to seven until the age of 18. And also you’re on the market, your last 12 months of fidgeting with your brothers,” standout forward Elliot Van Orsdel told The Post.
“It’s greater than only a game. It truly is. You’re playing on your family. It’s greater than just you on the market along with your buddies. That is your loved ones that you simply grew up with.”
On the opposite side of center ice are the Hermantown Hawks, a powerhouse program that routinely produces pro-caliber talent.
“We just had Cole Koepke make his NHL debut last Tuesday with the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers,” Hermantown coach Pat Andrews, who trained much of the 2020 squad while they were kids, told The Post. “That’s our fourth NHL player within the last nine years.”
Senior standout and 2020 Montreal Canadiens draft pick Biondi — who currently plays NCAA puck for Minnesota Duluth — had to administer the pressures of getting scouts at each Hermantown game and becoming a task model for his entire hometown.
But the previous Hawks captain took his admiration and devotion for Hermantown to a completely latest level.
Biondi — crowned “Mr. Hockey” — passed up opportunities to play in higher caliber development leagues that will have streamlined his possibilities to play within the NHL, his former coach Andrews explained.
“It’s just the loyalty to especially Hermantown but even just throughout in Minnesota, the several towns,” Biondi said. “You need to stay in play [with] the people who raised you, your best friends.”
The thrills, gut-punch losses and raw emotions are throughout as Biondi, his Hawks and the ultimate Eveleth squad all vie for a state title in “Hockeyland.”
But these boys of winter aim to prove their hockey careers don’t need to end in highschool.
“These kids have realistic dreams of playing not only in college, but then even the professionals,” Haines said.
Each weekend, Hermantown Hawks captain Blake Biondi would lace up his skates and take the ice to a packed crowd from his small Minnesota hometown.
The thrills of performing and scoring top shelf in front of everyone he knows was a “larger than life” experience — games are broadcast on local radio stations and draw packed houses — in rural towns not all that removed from the Canadian border.
“For people who don’t understand highschool hockey in Minnesota, that’s what you need to do growing up,” Biondi told The Post. “You idolized the high schoolers as a child.”
But there have been also unfamiliar faces within the stands every time Biondi played — scouts in search of the subsequent star within the National Hockey League.
“Hockeyland,” a latest documentary streaming on Apple TV Tuesday, captures the unprecedented dedication, pressure and highs and lows on the ice facing young athletes within the high-stakes world of Minnesota highschool hockey as two very different teams face off within the 2020 state finals.
Most of all, it captures a lifestyle like no other.
“It’s bonkers. It’s 15 to 18,000 people coming out every 12 months watching a bunch of highschool kids play within the state championship. It’s a tremendous culture,” director Tommy Haines, who bills his film because the “Friday Night Lights” of the north, told The Post.
“Specifically in Minnesota, you have got these teams that also have this community-based model where it’s like football in Texas… parents flooding the rinks, they’re doing the concession stands, they usually’re coming out and packing these stadiums in these small towns with 3 to 4,000 people.”
Within the uninterrupted 2020 season, Haines followed a handful of players — looking candidly into their personal lives — from two schools across northern Minnesota, where there’s been a wealthy history of hockey players happening to the Olympics and NHL careers, he said.
There’s the Eveleth Golden Bears — a small program whose glory days of hockey are a thing of the past — that’s preparing to consolidate with a rival highschool.
For those boys growing up in Eveleth — home to the US Hockey Hall of Fame — it was the ultimate season of Golden Bears hockey as they comprehend it.
“You’re fidgeting with the identical kids every 12 months, from six to seven until the age of 18. And also you’re on the market, your last 12 months of fidgeting with your brothers,” standout forward Elliot Van Orsdel told The Post.
“It’s greater than only a game. It truly is. You’re playing on your family. It’s greater than just you on the market along with your buddies. That is your loved ones that you simply grew up with.”
On the opposite side of center ice are the Hermantown Hawks, a powerhouse program that routinely produces pro-caliber talent.
“We just had Cole Koepke make his NHL debut last Tuesday with the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers,” Hermantown coach Pat Andrews, who trained much of the 2020 squad while they were kids, told The Post. “That’s our fourth NHL player within the last nine years.”
Senior standout and 2020 Montreal Canadiens draft pick Biondi — who currently plays NCAA puck for Minnesota Duluth — had to administer the pressures of getting scouts at each Hermantown game and becoming a task model for his entire hometown.
But the previous Hawks captain took his admiration and devotion for Hermantown to a completely latest level.
Biondi — crowned “Mr. Hockey” — passed up opportunities to play in higher caliber development leagues that will have streamlined his possibilities to play within the NHL, his former coach Andrews explained.
“It’s just the loyalty to especially Hermantown but even just throughout in Minnesota, the several towns,” Biondi said. “You need to stay in play [with] the people who raised you, your best friends.”
The thrills, gut-punch losses and raw emotions are throughout as Biondi, his Hawks and the ultimate Eveleth squad all vie for a state title in “Hockeyland.”
But these boys of winter aim to prove their hockey careers don’t need to end in highschool.
“These kids have realistic dreams of playing not only in college, but then even the professionals,” Haines said.
