By Bruce Karnick

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No one expects to get a call like UHL President Shane Hudella received in early November. The kind of phone call that goes, ‘Hey! Would you like an NHL sized Ice Rink AND a Zamboni to go with it?’ But that is the kind of call Hudella received.

Hudella began with, “Who’s gonna say no to that, right? So a huge thank you! What an opportunity for us to have military kids on the ice during a difficult time. 2020 has been just such a tough time for our nation and this is such a great opportunity to bring people together, and especially military families who have dealt with all of the challenges of this last year, and then on top of that deployments and injuries and the things that military families go through. So huge. Thank you, Josh to you and your family and Log House Foods for making this possible,” Hudella and his crew held a ‘Grand Opening’ Ceremony at their property on Ravenna Trail on the afternoon of Saturday, January 9th. Several NHL Alumni, donors, and military families were on hand to help UHL celebrate the event. Earlier in the morning, Eastridge Hockey brought their JV and Varsity teams down for an outdoor practice. The kids loved the unique experience that combines the feeling of being on a back-yard pond but yet playing on an NHL sized sheet of ice complete with lines, advertisers signs, a warm spot to change and lights for a night game.

There have been late nights and a lot of consternation creeping in at times, but Hudella knew his crew could get it done. “When I told them a week ago, ‘hey, we’re pulling the trigger on this thing next Saturday, we got a lot of work to do,’ they thought I was nuts,” Hudella chuckled.

The result is an awesome resource for military families and the area community located just a few minutes outside of Hastings. A resource that UHL has big plans for. “It’s a huge asset, we’ll be able to use this rink for our mission with military kids and guys like Wes Walz and Mark Parrish to come down and skate with military kids and give them a clinic. But it’s also an asset that we can share with our community and with hockey teams around the metro. This morning. We had the East Ridge junior varsity and the varsity practice out here. This afternoon, we’ll have the Hastings youth 12 girls, as well as the Simley girls’ varsity teams.

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Military Kids, donors and former NHL stars participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony for UHL’s new outdoor ice rink. (L-R) Front cutting the ribbon, Tom Patnode-UHL Board Chair, Josh Kasdan-CEO Log House Foods (rink donor), Holding the Ribbon Jacob Sing and Vinny Taburo, behind the ribbon, Randy Senger-Extreme Sandbox, UHL President Shane Hudella, Mark Parrish-NHL Alumni, Wes Walz-NHL Alumni, Neal Braaten-NHL Alumni, David Maley-NHL Alumni, Steve Payne-NHL Alumni, Tom Chorske-NHL Alumni, Jacob Fick-Enebak Construction, John Thomas-Hunt Electric and Keith Colvard-Hunt Electric.

Final touches are being put on the rink at United Heroes League before their Grand Opening of this years new onsite ice rink donated by Log House Foods. Photo Submitted.

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So, there’s an opportunity with the challenges with COVID right now for school teams to be able to bring their groups out and skate outdoors in a safe environment and make sure that the kids still get the time that they need on the ice,” Hudella explained.

Add this to the list of wonderful things UHL does for military families. In 2020, UHL set a record for distribution of hockey equipment to military families around the United States. Nearly 1.5 million dollars’ worth of equipment was given to kids in military families to help either get them started in, or further their love of sports. “It was one of the big shining lights for us in 2020,” Hudella beamed.

The rink and ice resurfacing machine were donated by Log House Foods. Extreme Sandbox and Enebek construction were key players in flooding the rink and levelling the area for it to be placed. The Minnesota Wild brought rink crew and a bus load of volunteers down to help setup the rink walls and provide guidance to UHL on how to maintain the outdoor rink. Information that has been invaluable. United Rentals is providing the lights for night use. Hunt Electric and IBEW provided the wiring and installs for the warming house. Wes Walz and other folks volunteered countless hours working on the project, and of course, the awesome folks at United Heroes League.

It was a wonderful day to be outdoors watching kids enjoy the rink and parent enjoying their kids having fun. And to think, this all started with a phone call in November. In two months, many hands contributed to the monumental task of moving and building an NHL sized

Several Military Families were invited to the ribbon cutting ceremony, to meet several former NHL stars and to let their kids skate on the newly installed NHL sized rink on the property of United Heroes League in Hastings. Photo by Bruce Karnick