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20 M H J O N L I N E . C O M | N O V / D E C 2 0 2 4 BOB MOTZKO'S GOPHERS ARE PROJECTED TO BE A TOP-10 TEAM, year in and year out. The Austin native doesn't look too far to fill out his roster. This season, 22 out of the 26 players on the Gopher men's team hail from Minnesota. Motzko's program reaps the rewards of community-based hockey. "The greatest strength of Minnesota hockey has always been our youth programs and that we continue to stay com- munity-based in our youth hockey associations throughout our state," Motzko said. "We have a number of rinks and we try to keep them full with young kids playing." High school hockey gets a lot of the notoriety, and right- fully so. But high school hockey doesn't thrive without its youth hockey associations. "I know a lot of times we want to talk about our high school hockey, but if we didn't have the strong youth asso- ciations, we would never have that," Motzko added. "Our numbers are all attributed to this and the great job they do to keep hockey affordable, our numbers big, our rinks full, and we all benefit from it." Gopher State "The greatest strength of Minnesota hockey has always been our youth programs and that we continue to stay community- based in our youth hockey associations throughout our state." —Bob Motzko, Gophers Head Coach OF THE 22 26 players on the Gopher men's team hail from Minnesota. COMMUNITY-BASED PROGRAMMING, WITH THE SUPPORT OF PUBLICLY FUNDED RINKS, HELPS ASSOCIATION HOCKEY THRIVE THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE STATE. Division I players come from every corner, says Minnesota State head coach Shari Dickerman. "It is great to have so many players developing in their home communities in the State of Hockey. The community-based model allows young players to develop at their own pace. All kids mature at different times and the model used in Minnesota allows the kids who maybe hit puberty a little later to continue to develop and not get left behind as they would in a AAA market," said Dickerman, a Richmond native. "Minnesota State has benefited as a program by this model as we are able to recruit players from all over the state. We have hockey players on our current roster from the bigger programs like Edina, Minnetonka and Andover, along with smaller programs like River Lakes, Grand Rapids and Luverne." Hockey in Every Corner Brody Lamb Byron "It is great to have so many players developing in their home communities in the State of Hockey. The community-based model allows young players to develop at their own pace." —Shari Dickerman, Mavericks Head Coach Jada Habisch Buffalo Photos / UConn Athletics, Bjorn Franke, Brent Cizek Photography, St. Thomas