Virginia Hockey Club
The biggest news outside of the expansion clubs comes from Virginia where the Queen City Hockey Club has renamed themselves to the Virginia Hockey Club. After the city of Virginia was victim to a massive fire just a few years ago, the town rebuilt itself and in honor of this new era for the city the hockey club decided to officially adopt the city name rather than its nickname. The team keeps its distinct violet color but add gold to their color scheme.



Their jerseys remain violet but a golden chevron is added to the front, forming a V for Virginia. They also adopted a new number font and changed the color of players' numbers from white to gold.



Old Jersey

White Bear Lake Hockey Club
Our final identity change of the year comes from the Twin Cities with White Bear Lake simply adding some thin navy striping to their white uniforms.



Old Jersey

1903 Standings



Arrowhead Hockey Association
Make that three straight Miners Memorial Cups for the Eveleth Hockey Club with the Reds just edging out two very good Two Harbors and Duluth squads. The North Shore was struck with a disaster early in the season when the SS Robert Wallace took off from Superior before springing a leak and sinking near Two Harbors. Meanwhile just 5 months earlier the Thomas Wilson, a whaleback freighter, collided with the George Hadley, causing it to sink just outside of the Duluth Harbor & killing 9. Thankfully there were no fatalities in the sinking of the Robert Wallace, but the whole North Shore was still shaken from the back to back sinkings. The AHA was a very deep league this year with Cloquet, Ely, & Virginia rounding out the top half of the table with winning records. Superior had a solid team as well but ended the year at .500 plus four ties. Zenith City, Grand Rapids, & Soudan Mine had mediocre teams that were capable of getting some upsets here and there but overall tended to wind up on the losing side at the end of the day. The basement dwellers this year were once again Chisholm and Hibbing, swapping places at the bottom of the table with just 9 wins combined.



Central Minnesota Hockey League
The St. Cloud Hockey Club has become the first team to win multiple Lake Bowls, getting back on top of the CMHL for the second time in the last three years. It wasn’t a given though with last years champs, Brainerd, finishing just one win away from repeating as champs and Park Rapids & Aitkin both in the hunt as well. Outside the top four there was a bit of a drop to the next group of teams best described as middle of the road. Alexandria, Wadena, Detroit, Bemidji, & Little Falls all finished around .500 on the season, winning against one team but losing to another with anyone able to win in any given game. There was a distinct bottom four this year as well with Fergus Falls having a year to forget. They were joined by the expansion clubs from Blackduck, Pelican Rapids, & Sauk Rapids at the bottom of the table.



Red River Hockey League
The Red River Cup is heading back to Thief River Falls with the Thieves running through the rest of the league, losing just thrice all season on their way to their third RRHL title (1899 & 1900). Grand Forks tied their record for the best season in club history, ending the year 11-6-1 and finishing in second. Warren and Kittson County both had strong teams and ended the season as winners. Pembina County finished at .500 on the year but finished ahead of Crookston despite the Crooks actually having a winning season due to ties. There was a noticeable falloff to the bottom four in the league with Fargo, East Grand Forks, Red Lake Falls, & Moorhead all struggling considerably against the rest of the league, being the only teams with losing records, and being nowhere near the next closest team by season's end.



Twin Cities Hockey Association
The Mill City Hockey Club continues to show that they are the premier hockey team in the Twin Cities, clinching their third straight Washburn Cup and 5th TCHA title in the past 7 years. Anoka came out of nowhere late in the season to make a push for the cup, falling just short in the end despite winning 14 of their last 16 games. The Minneapolis Hockey Club had their best season to date, finishing podium with a 19 win campaign. The St. Paul Athletic Club, East Side Hockey Club, & White Bear Lake all ended the season with 15 wins, separated only by the number of ties each team had. Como Park was the only other team to finish with a winning record with South St. Paul at .500 on the year. Powderhorn, Lake Shore, & Stillwater were the best of the losers, each getting into the double digits for wins by season's end. West St. Paul & Hudson were capable of getting some wins every few games, and Rose was able to get a handful of wins, but it was a long, long season for the Phoenix Athletic Club who only managed to get two wins all year, once against Rose & once against WSP.

man that poster is class. shoutout to scratch, that's an absolute banger

speaking of absolute bangers, all these teams look really good. I haven't picked out a rooting interest yet (and I don't think I really did in the old league either) but I might have to start flying behind blackduck. green and yellow is always an elite color scheme and I already have history with ducks (iykyk) so yeah. I do also love virginia breaking out the flying v (sorta). but really it's hard not to like everything, it's all such incredible work and feels so grounded this time around. great work!

Last edited by ItDoesntMatter (Yesterday 6:09 pm)

1903/04

As we approach the end of the first decade of Minnesota hockey the game continues to grow. In just ten years we have gone from 5 clubs to 52 and from thrown together scrimmages to organized leagues, and things are only going to get crazier with the sport still primarily isolated to pockets in the North & Twin Cities.

There were three clubs that built new rinks for their home matches. Cloquet moves off Pinehurst Pond and into Athletic Park which has bleachers for 500 spectators. The Anoka Hockey Club is also moving off of a frozen body of water, theirs being the Rum River, and will instead play at the Anoka County Fairgrounds which can seat about 250. Anderson Rink was falling into disrepair so the community got together to build the 500 seat Rose Rink for the Rose Hockey Club to call home going forward.

We had two new clubs form in the Twin Cities and with the TCHA growing to a whopping 17 teams, things were too crowded for it to last any longer, leading to the league to split. Two new leagues were founded, the Minneapolis Hockey League & the St. Paul Hockey Association. The SPHA kept every team from the old TCHA outside of Ramsey & Anoka Counties while the MHL consists of the Minneapolis based teams, Anoka, & the expansion clubs. The Minneapolis Hockey League gets to keep the Washburn Cup while the SPHA winner will be awarded a new trophy called the Capital Cup. Teams in the MHL will play four games against the rest of the league, 2 at home and 2 on the road, while the TCHA will play 3 games against every other team with the extra home game being alternated year to year.