It’s exciting. A lot of hard work’s gone into it from a lot of different people.”

Hastings Hockey Association representative Jason Stoffel

Treasure Island Resort & Casino
5734 Sturgeon Lake Rd
Welch, MN 55089
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Treasure Island Resort and Casino had the warm hum of a midseason celebration on Thursday, November 20, as the Hockey Day Minnesota (HDM) 2026 Committee and the Prairie Island Indian Community hosted a jersey reveal party that mixed community pride with a sense of history. The high school teams set to skate on Saturday of Hockey Day finally saw their special sweaters, the ones fans had been waiting months to see, even if no one except the players will wear them.
The event drew families, players, volunteers, and supporters who wandered through the Event Center with HDM cookies and Spiral Brewery’s Hockey Day Haze-Tings. Kids rotated between the games set up along the walls while parents chatted under banners and lights. Fans were easy to spot in their familiar gear, many of them wearing the current line of Hockey Day Minnesota Hastings merchandise that has been on sale through the past year.
Local media lined up cameras as the Minnesota Wild prepared to help present the full set of six jerseys for Saturday’s high school games. As players walked out wearing them, Mayor Mary Fasbender stood off to the side, watching the kids pull at their sleeves and families raise their phones. She summed up the moment with a smile. “How proud this community is, how excited these children are to see them walk in here with their jerseys on,” she said, adding that the reveal “is truly the start of Hockey Day” for Hastings. She called the emotion and excitement in the room “wonderful.”
With less than two months until Hockey Day Minnesota arrives, Fasbender acknowledged that the planning is entering its frantic final stretch. She praised the volunteer committee, saying “this committee has done such amazing work,” and described the next few weeks as the time when all the individual efforts finally merge. “We all come together for the same vision, and we make it the best it can be,” she said, confident that the community is ready to “knock it out of the park.”
Still, the event cannot run on excitement alone. Fasbender said organizers will need 80 to 90 volunteers on single weekend days. She encouraged anyone willing to help to reach out through the hockey website, the committee’s social media pages, or directly to organizers. She also asked residents and visitors to stay patient during the busiest days of January, noting that the crowds and traffic will stretch from downtown to South Town and West Town. There will be lines and long walks, she said, but also the kind of energy that turns a winter week into something unforgettable.
Sponsors such as Treasure Island, Twin Cities Orthopedics, Pella Windows, and Cub continue to play crucial roles. The event will also benefit all of Hastings Hockey and United Heroes League, causes Fasbender said will be among “the true winners of all this.” The economic impact throughout Hastings will be significant, and the pride of hosting the 20th anniversary of Hockey Day Minnesota will stay with the community long after the rink boards come down.
For Hastings Hockey Association representative Jason Stoffel, the reveal marked the end of a long and meaningful design process.
“It’s exciting. A lot of hard work’s gone into it from a lot of different people,” he said. Treasure Island, he added, has been “an excellent host, excellent benefactor” and helped guide the look of the Hastings jersey.
Stoffel described the sweater as a layered piece of storytelling.
“Every time you look at it, I think there’s more and more things in there that I think basically kind of show the true meaning behind it,” he said.
Two of his favorite details are the Dakota word featured on the jersey and the bear placed behind the H, both nods to the meaning of the land and the connection to Prairie Island.
For Treasure Island PR manager Aaron Seehusen, the project was a careful and collaborative process. The team worked closely with the tribal preservation office to honor Dakota culture and the historical relationship between Prairie Island and the area now known as Hastings. The group moved through several versions of the design, some of which were rejected by the State High School League for straying too far from current Hastings branding. The finished product balances meaning, tradition, and compliance. His favorite feature is the subtle Duran map pattern woven into the fabric, an old Dakota-language representation of the region. Including that pattern, he said, is “super meaningful” for both players and the broader community.
Boys head coach Matt Klein joined the celebration and needed only a moment to share his reaction. “It’s a good-looking jersey,” he said, highlighting “the bear behind the H” and the full sweep of heritage built from “head to toe.”
Though his team still has 17 games before their Hockey Day appearance, he wants them to enjoy the excitement while staying grounded. Klein has known for more than two years that Hastings would host the event and said every Hockey Day held in other cities since then only heightened the anticipation.
A separate story in this edition breaks down the Hastings jersey design and its symbolism for readers who want a closer look. What the reveal party showed most clearly, though, is that Hockey Day Minnesota in Hastings is as much about community as competition.
The high school slate for Saturday, January 24 features the Hastings Raiders girls opening at 9:30 a.m. against Park Cottage Grove, followed by the Raiders boys at 1 p.m. versus East Ridge. Rock Ridge and St. Thomas Academy will close the high school schedule at 4:30 p.m.
By then, the cookies, the music, and the preview night at Treasure Island will be memories. The jerseys unveiled on this November evening will carry far more than numbers when they finally hit the ice. They will carry the story of how a city and a tribal nation worked together to make Hockey Day Minnesota their own.