Two years ago, the Minnesota Wild paid a special visit to Hastings High School on Thursday, July 28 with their Wild Street Team. The fantastic, interactive presentation for residents returned to Hastings, this time at Cub Foods on July 23. The parking lot at Cub was filled with games to be played along with food and a KFAN merchandise booth. HYAA was in attendance discussing hockey options for area youth and United Heroes League was there to help get information out about Hockey Day Minnesota 2026.

“We are here with our inaugural summer street hockey series. The whole point of this is to get out into the community and bring the Wild Hockey brand to people where they live, as opposed to them normally having to come down to St. Paul to see us at our home at Xcel Energy Center,” Senior Manager of Brand Activation and Events with the Wild told The Journal. “The summertime obviously is a great opportunity for us because we aren't playing games, so we get the opportunity to get out and try to be in the community. We wanted to make sure that we were keeping hockey in the forefront of people's minds. Not that that's ever far from their minds here in Minnesota. But you know, there's become more and more competition in the sports world. As time has gone on, we have every major league in the United States is represented here in this market. So, want to make sure that we're not falling off the radar with people in the summer months. And we know that there are folks that are willing to come out and celebrate the game and the sport. We want to do that but also celebrate the communities themselves. Hastings being one that has a rich hockey history. We know there's a lot of fans here. And that's why we wanted to make sure that we got them on our list for the tour this summer as a way to celebrate them and celebrate the game.”

“The community engagements been really good. We love having the Youth Hockey Association's presence at all the stops that we've been at thus far, they've had a really great opportunity to get out and just reconnect with people that they maybe haven't seen since last hockey season. It gives them an opportunity to promote upcoming fundraisers or even just registration for the fall to make sure that folks are aware of what's going on. And I think also the things that we've liked is just the gaming atmosphere here. I think having street hockey, we've got an interactive hockey net over there. That's kind of like target practice. We've got video games, we've got yard games, I think all of those things have just proven to be really great, we hit it on the head in terms of what people are looking to do in a summer evening. People always want the players to be here, of course. And we will certainly continue to always advocate for that. With our hockey ops department and PR staff. The truth is a lot of the guys just aren't around this time of year. But when we have the opportunity to get them, we'll certainly get them off the fence when we can.”

The event featured an inflatable street hockey rink, always a huge hit with the crowd, a nine square shot target, a stick handling station, video game station and other booths to interact with Wild staff.

The wild had a ton of success with this free event and the return to Hastings was partially to help get the word out for Hockey Day Minnesota 2026 which will be held at United Heroes League. The Hockey Day Minnesota 2026 Committee will be holding a logo unveiling event on August 22 from 6-9 p.m. at the Confluence. The public is welcome to attend the event at 6:30 p.m. with the logo being unveiled to the public around 7:45 p.m.