The Minnesota Star Tribune
The Minnesota Star Tribune
Mileage, “Miracle on Ice” and a small-town mentality: Luverne’s hockey program has built a reputation as a contender.
By Olivia Hicks
The Minnesota Star Tribune
Surrounded by the Blue Mounds prairie reserve and a sea of corn and soybeans, Luverne is a peculiar pocket for a growing hockey hotbed.
Four hundred and eighty miles south of Northern Minnesota’s hockey player-producing landscape, Luverne is known for hearty hoopers and cornfed offensive linemen.
That is, until recently.
The Luverne boys hockey team now boasts one of the state’s leaders in goals (40) and points (79) in senior forward Maddux Domagala and sits at 20-3-1 on the season. Over the past decade, it has produced players like Easton Johnson and Jaxon Nelson, alums now pursuing pro hockey dreams in the U.S. National Development Team and the American Hockey League.
The Cardinals, No. 21 in Strib Varsity’s latest ranking of the state’s best 25 teams, are the second-highest scoring boys team in Minnesota this season, averaging 7.5 goal per game (180 goals in 24 games).
On Tuesday, Feb. 10, the girls hockey team (19-9-0) secured its seventh state appearance since 2016, either as an independent team or as a cooperative, with five consecutive trips from 2020 to 2024.
Neither program has won a state title.
But Luverne’s confidence, and new identity as a hockey town, is repeated from one mouth to another: “This could be the year.”
When Ricky Rogers and his family packed up his pads and moved from Warroad to a tiny southwestern Minnesota city known for basketball for his junior year of high school, he had no qualms about fitting in.
“There’ve been some good players here,” the junior forward said after practice on a Thursday afternoon in early February, nearly three months into the season with his new teammates.
Luverne, after all, made it to the Class 1A state boys hockey tournament for the fourth time last year, with its first appearance coming in 2014. Warroad, known as “Hockeytown USA” for its storied hockey program and 25 state tournament appearances, didn’t make state last year.
Rogers didn’t move to Luverne just for hockey. His dad’s work as a contractor brought the family from the border of Canada to the small stretch of 3.6 miles that hug Minnesota’s shared state lines with Iowa and South Dakota. But his teammates still see his arrival as indicative of a shift.
“He just moved from one of the best schools in Minnesota history with one of the best programs to a small town in the southwest corner,” Luverne senior captain Landyn Lais said. “It just gives you a perspective of where our program has come from.”
Upon arrival, Rogers found a different, but good, hockey product.
“Up north, it’s a little bit more physical,” explained Rogers, who has nine goals and 26 assists this season. “Down south, it’s a little bit more skillful.”
But Rogers, the newbie in town, knew Luverne’s reputation. It was a school with a soft conference schedule that resulted in never winning a game at state.
“You’re playing one or two top-10 teams versus, in Warroad, you play almost every top-10 team,” Rogers said.
Perhaps a victory at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul would convince the rest of the state of Luverne’s legitimacy as a hockey town. But the town knows what it has built: “We’re a hockey school now,” Domagala said matter-of-factly.
If you ask the team’s roster of 25 what caused Luverne hockey’s rise, you’re sure to hear several answers: the youth program, the team’s mileage, the influence of “the Miracle on Ice” — inspiring generations to pick up a stick — or a certain hockey coach. Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out what sticks out.
Rogers saw it clearly upon arrival: that small-town special something.
“Everyone here was welcoming and supportive,” Rogers said.
“I’m probably not the best historian,” Tony Sandbulte said with a huff of laughter. “But I am from Luverne.”
The current boys and former girls hockey coach was a pee-wee player when Luverne’s hockey association decided on an unorthodox path for rural youth hockey. The town’s hockey program officially started during the 1977-78 season when former Luverne coach Dan Smeins came back from Bemidji State raving about hockey. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that Sandbulte, now 42, remembers the association invested in a more competitive hockey model.
“A lot of teams around us typically play B hockey going up through the youth ranks,” he said. “Luverne has always made it a point to play A hockey.”
It means double the travel time to play teams up north that won’t make the trek down south. But it has paid off: “We’ve stuck with that ever since, and we develop better players out of that,” Sandbulte said.
Luverne’s boys varsity team is only 27 years old — a teenager in Minnesota high school hockey years. The rink, built in 1991, was once subject to scoffs in a town still riding the high of a 1964 basketball state title.
“My wife decided that my oldest boy needed something to do in the winter,” recalled Tim Connell, a former youth coach who helped build Luverne’s first indoor rink. “I told her, ‘This is a basketball town, not a hockey town.’ She went and signed him up anyway. We’ve been involved with it ever since.”
Connell and his wife, Connie, raised the money for a rink with gravel floors and chain-linked fences instead of glass. Former Minnesota governor and Yale goalie Mark Dayton pitched in to fund the project.
The team’s gradual success has stifled any naysayers.
“We are a very traditional basketball school,” Sandbulte said. “But recently, hockey’s been the headline.”
By the 2013-14 season, the team recorded its best season record with 28 wins. That same year, the Cardinals made their maiden state tournament trip and welcomed their first future Division I and NHL-signed player in school history in Nelson. The Gophers captain scored 42 goals and racked up 89 points during his five years at the University of Minnesota.
Before he slapped the “C” on his maroon jersey, Nelson’s righthanded shot was developed in an ice rink on the prairie. During his last year at Luverne, he led the state in goals (70) and points (113). His then-teammate and now-ECHL player Chaz Smedsrud led the state in assists (56).
The conviction instilled in Nelson on long car rides up north to play Thief River Falls and Fergus Falls in youth tournaments still informs his performance today when he steps on the ice at Casey’s Center in Des Moines.
“In my youth years, my dad was a coach, and he wanted us to venture out and play in bigger tournaments that are farther away from home, so we’re just getting better competition,” Nelson said. “I think everyone has more confidence and knows that they can play against anyone.”
When Luverne made the state tournament last year, the town crammed into the school’s performing arts center to wish the team good luck at state. A crimson firetruck, matching the hockey team’s bright red jerseys, made its rounds in traditional small-town fashion.
The team hopes practice translates to a first-ever state win come March and sees Sandbulte, who returned to coach the boys team in 2024, as the ticket to Grand Casino Arena.
“He definitely brought a different perspective towards the game,” Domagala said. “Going from our old coach to our new coach, he brought new characteristics that we all needed. He’s definitely a lot more hard-nosed.”
But arriving at state is one thing. Winning there is another beast the Cardinals have yet to conquer.
When Sandbulte was a kid playing junior gold, state was a far off, laughable goal.
“That was more of a dream that, at that time, would never come true,” he said.
He still finds himself in awe of what the tiny town has built.
“You just kind of pinch yourself a little bit,” Sandbulte said. “This is actually happening down here.”
…
Alex Lyon’s first season with Buffalo is already one for the record book.
The Baudette, Minn., native won a 10th straight game Jan. 29 vs. Los Angeles to break Gerry Desjardins’ nine-game streak from 1976 as the longest by a Sabres goaltender.
Lyon, 33, went three weeks in between his seventh and eighth consecutive victories because he was sidelined due to injury, but he kept Buffalo’s jaw-dropping turnaround going upon his return with a 31-save win at Nashville on Jan. 20. Since Dec. 9, the Sabres are 21-5-2, picking up a whopping 44 points to go from last place in the Eastern Conference to the first wild-card seed at the Olympic break.
A big key in that surge has been Lyon, who joined Buffalo in the offseason on a two-year, $3 million contract.
After playing at Lake of the Woods, where he received the Frank Brimsek Award as Minnesota’s top high school goalie and becoming a Hobey Baker Award Finalist at Yale, Lyon broke into the NHL as an undrafted free agent with Philadelphia, splitting five seasons with the Flyers and their minor league affiliate in the American Hockey League. He memorably made 94 saves in a five-overtime victory with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in 2018 during the longest game in AHL history. Lyon later had stints with Carolina, Florida and Detroit and won a Calder Cup with Chicago in 2022 after a 9-3 run in the playoffs, but Lyon has clicked with the Sabres.
He’s on pace to play his second-most games in a season, and Lyon’s .913 save percentage is just shy of the career-high .914 he set in 2022-23 with the Panthers; his 2.72 goals-against average is Lyon’s best as an NHLer.
— Sarah McLellan
The St. Thomas men’s hockey team didn’t lose a game from Dec. 6 to Jan. 30. Granted, that span included the winter break, but it also included an 11-game winning streak that helped establish the Tommies as serious postseason contenders. The Tommies have settled for splits the past two weekends — against Michigan Tech and Bowling Green — but St. Thomas still sits at No. 13 in the National Collegiate Percentage Index (NPI) that the NCAA will use to determine the 16-team tournament field. Third-year captain Lucas Wahlin continues to show the way for St. Thomas. The Woodbury native and former Hill-Murray standout leads the team with 18 goals and also has 15 assists. The Tommies are off this week before playing host to Augustana on Feb. 20-21.
— Joe Christensen
Girls: Section finals have begun, and Hill-Murray keeps hold of its crown this week. Watch sections here.
Boys: Rogers moves up to No. 2 after a 5-3 win over Moorhead.
Meet the Minnesota athletes competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Thank you for reading Hockey Across Minnesota (HAM). 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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