The Minnesota Star Tribune
The Minnesota Star Tribune
Hockey Across Minnesota: Delano players provide sneak peeks of their new hairdos before the state tourney.
By Olivia Hicks
The Minnesota Star Tribune
Brody Geislinger ran his fingers through the blond hair trailing down his neck.
The Delano hockey captain and his linemate and co-captain Jacob Perlich sat in neighboring salon chairs inside Fantastic Sams Cut & Color off Hwy. 12 on Monday, March 2, before the boys hockey state tournament begins Wednesday.
The two were still buzzing from winning the section championship that sent the Tigers to the state tournament when Geislinger’s reflection greeted him in the salon mirror with tightly trimmed sides, disrupted by racing stripes slicing through to his scalp.
“How does the back look? Does it look like it’s just really flat down here?” he asked, hyperaware of what the mullet will look like flowing from a helmet in front of a crowd of 20,000.
The Delano boys hockey team is playing in the state tournament for the first time in five years after winning the Class 1A, Section 2 championship game Thursday, Feb. 26, beating Blake 6-2.
Second-seeded Delano will face seventh-seeded Mankato West at 6 p.m. Wednesday in a Class 1A quarterfinal.
“It hasn’t really hit yet,” Perlich said about his first time on Grand Casino Arena’s sheet of NHL ice.
“Last year, we had way more skill. This year, we just had more chemistry. … Brods, are you getting the stripe?” Perlich asked, cutting off his own analysis of the team’s state title chances this year.
Aside from 3:30 p.m. practice sessions this week, the Tigers have been preparing for their state tourney return the only way they know how: good old-fashioned hockey hair.
“It has to have good flow to it,” insisted Elizabeth Scott, the manager of Fantastic Sams Cut & Color. “A couple of years ago, all of them started saying, ‘I need sweet cabbage.’ I remember thinking, what does that mean? But I guess if you look at a head of cabbage, it has a good flow to it.”
Scott wasn’t fazed by Geislinger and Perlich’s request for ‘80s-style mullets. Around state tournament season, players from the west metro start calling in for similar appointments. She buzzes and bleaches hair for wrestling, and occasionally swimmers request something similar.
But for half a century, Minnesotans produce a specific kind of haircut during tournament season: It’s flowy, carefree and so distinct that it’s associated with only one sport.
Geislinger and Perlich are just two of the many teenage hockey players keeping the tradition of hockey hair alive.
That tradition marks a milestone, something you can do only if you’re on one of the top teams in the state.
When the boys hockey state tournament comes around each March, rival rosters skate toward the TV camera with a spray of ice, a hair flip and a message to the audience — more often than not a line ripped from “Miracle.”
Like clockwork, national media outlets become transfixed with the uniquely Minnesotan tradition of luscious locks displayed in a lineup as players from across the state pay homage to the hockey greats who came before them.
Minnesota’s very own “Santa Salad”— also known as John King — has made the annual event viral by documenting, ranking and naming the lengthy lettuce each year in his Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team videos.
“It’s not like I’m an academic on hockey hair, but it’s a different way of carrying yourself,” King explained. “It’s long hair, don’t care. It’s freedom. It’s a different personality. It’s not pleated khakis, right?”
King, 51, didn’t play hockey during his four years at Edina High in the early 1990s, but he does remember the school’s team walking down the hallways with hair flowing behind them.
“The hockey players were the kings,” King recalled. “They always had business in the front, party in the back.”
That kind of cool-guy effect — something King describes as “The ‘All right, all right, all right’ McConaughey” — stuck with him and inspired him to make an All-Minnesota team of his favorite tresses each year.
The first video, produced in 2005, was on VHS and, although it aired on KARE 11 after “Saturday Night Live,” didn’t garner an audience. It wasn’t until YouTube came around that the videos went viral, and he added a donation link to the Hendrickson Foundation, a charity for hockey players with disabilities.
Now that he has made videos for more than a decade, King insists he’s a hockey hair “purist.” He would likely nod approvingly at Geislinger and Perlich’s ode to the mullet. He’s less into the trend of bleaching that started in the early 2000s tournaments: “They all kind of look like Oompa-Loompas.”
But he’s mostly just there for the tradition and a good laugh.
“I just find myself honestly laughing out loud multiple times,” King said.
“You missed a little spot of the bleach back here,” complained Dylan Nelson, reaching a hand to touch the tuft of brown hair sticking out against the junior defender’s buzzed, pale-yellow head.
“Nah, I’ll just put your tiger stripe right there,” said Evan Geyen, Delano’s senior goaltender and Nelson’s barber for the Sunday before state tournament week.
Geislinger and Perlich may have chosen the traditional route, along with the rest of their first line, but teammates Nelson and Geyen, who already had a head of what they call “regular hockey hair,” decided on a modern spin: neon orange buzzcuts adorned with tiger stripes.
The two sat at the Geyen family dining room table, debating whether to use toner and staring hard at the instructions. “What is bond builder?” Nelson asked. “It smells like a Jello-O packet,” Geyen responded.
Nelson, Geyen, Geislinger and Perlich last dyed their hair for the Bantam state tournament: Geyen and Geislinger went for perms, while Perlich sported brassy bleached curls. As eighth-graders, they got a glimpse of playing on the big stage. But nothing has quite prepared them for the spectacle that is the boys hockey state tournament.
“I don’t know about intimidating,” Nelson said. “I feel excited.”
King has noticed smaller Class 1A schools tend to go all out. State tournament regulars, like Edina marking its 44th visit this year, tend to bow out.
“People will ask me, ‘What do you think of the flow this year?’ Like it’s the stock market or something. ‘Is it up or down?’ ” King said. “I think there’ll always be guys that like to have a little out the sides and a little out the back. There’ll always be a few guys on every team that that’s their real hair, that’s who they really are. It’s not a stunt or a gimmick or ironic.”
A mullet peeking out the back of a helmet is just one part of old-school hockey that the state has been able to hold on to, and King believes it’s better for it: “It’s our superpower in Minnesota.”
Delano hopes to make King’s video this year, something the Tigers coach, Gerrit van Bergen, is no stranger to being nominated for.
“The four times we [reached the state tournament previously], I’ve made the video, which is pretty darn funny,” van Bergen said on the ice after the section final game. “I’ve got a neighbor who still calls me McDreamy, but I’m aging now, so I don’t know if I’ll get that credit anymore.”
His players are more certain: “The amount of times he touches his hair on the bench,” Perlich joked. “It’s too much.”
…
Ryan Poehling is in the prime of his career.
He has fit in with a playoff-contending Anaheim team after getting traded last summer from Philadelphia on the heels of his best offensive season to date in the NHL.
But Poehling, 27, can’t wait until he’s retired … so he can go to the Minnesota high school hockey tournament.
“To get the opportunity to play at the state tournament was such a treat, and obviously winning it was even better,” Poehling said. “But I think those memories are just so important because it’s with your best friends, guys that you grew up with.
“Those are the memories that I think about and realize how blessed I am.”
Poehling was a freshman when Lakeville North finished runner-up to Edina in 2014, but his return to the Class 2A final a year later had the opposite ending.
He and his older twin brothers, Jack and Nick, teamed up for three goals in a 4-1 victory over Duluth East that capped a 31-0 season for Lakeville North.
“It was special,” Poehling said. “As a kid growing up in Minnesota, that’s all you think about. Yeah, to come so close my freshman year and then end up getting over the hump my sophomore year was a ton of fun.”
Nick and Jack are assistants with Lakeville North, and the brothers will talk about the penalty kill, which is one of Poehling’s responsibilities with the Ducks after they acquired him as part of the trade that sent Trevor Zegras to the Flyers.
After playing for St. Cloud State and becoming a first-round draft pick by the Canadiens in 2017, Poehling suited up for Montreal and Pittsburgh before joining the Flyers. Last season, he had 12 goals and 19 assists for 31 points, all career highs.
If Anaheim holds on to a playoff spot, it will be the first time the franchise advances since 2018.
“We got a lot of young guys that are just so fun to watch and so talented,” Poehling said. “I just think watching them grow and realizing where they are and where I was at their age I think is super impressive. So, it’s been a ton of fun so far.”
— Sarah McLellan
In Division I men’s hockey, conference tournaments begin in four leagues this week, including the NCHC and CCHA in the West, while the Big Ten enters its final weekend of regular-season play.
The NCHC first-round matchups in best-of-three series from March 6-8 are No. 1 seed North Dakota vs. No. 8 Nebraska Omaha, No. 2 Denver vs. No. 7 Miami (Ohio), No. 3 Western Michigan vs. No. 6 Colorado College, and No. 4 Minnesota Duluth vs. No. 5 St. Cloud State. First-round winners advance to single-game semifinals at campus sites March 14, and the title game is March 21 at the highest remaining seed. North Dakota, Western Michigan, Denver and Minnesota Duluth are locks to make the NCAA tournament. The remainder would need to win the NCHC tournament to make the NCAA field.
In the CCHA, the first-round, best-of-three series are: No. 1 Minnesota State Mankato vs. No. 8 Ferris State, No. 2 St. Thomas vs. No. 7 Lake Superior State, No. 3 Augustana vs. No. 6 Bemidji State, and No. 4 Michigan Tech vs. No. 5 Bowling Green. According to College Hockey News’ NPI Probability Matrix, Augustana (44%), Minnesota State (34%) and St. Thomas (28%) have the best shots to secure an NCAA bid.
The field for the WCHA Final Faceoff at St. Thomas’ Lee and Penny Anderson Arena is set. The No. 1-seeded Wisconsin women meet No. 5 Minnesota State Mankato at 4 p.m. March 5, followed by the No. 3 Gophers vs. No. 2 Ohio State at 7:30 p.m. The final is 2 p.m. March 7. Based on the women’s NPI, Wisconsin, Ohio State and the Gophers are NCAA tournament locks, while Minnesota State would need to win the Final Faceoff to advance. Minnesota Duluth, which lost in three games to Minnesota State in the first round, is on the bubble for the 11-team NCAA field.
— Randy Johnson
Thank you for joining me this season for Hockey Across Minnesota and thank you to the coaches, players and families who allowed me to share their stories.
Email me at olivia.hicks@startribune.com with story tips or message me on X or Instagram. See you at the rink!
Olivia Hicks
Strib Varsity Reporter
Olivia Hicks is a reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune.
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