Teams from all over the country travel to Minneapolis for the US Pond Hockey Championships

MINNEAPOLIS — Friday marked the beginning of the US Pond Hockey Championships in Minneapolis.

About 3,000 players from 300 different teams will be playing at Lake Nokomis over the next two weekends. 

Seeing the ceremonial puck drop and watching teams play in single-digit temperatures, it’s hard to believe this year’s tournament almost didn’t happen.

“We were swimming. We were swimming back then. So yeah, Mother Nature came in and did her job,” said event manager Jesse Delorit. 

Delorit said a mild start to January meant they were basically dealing with open water, earlier this month. Then the ice came.

“The last two weeks obviously picked up. The cold weather came in. We got approval from the city basically Tuesday morning,” said Delorit. 

And that means they had to build all 23 pond hockey rinks within about 48 hours. But organizers and players say this is the best ice they’ve seen in about 8 years.

“It’s the best tournament of the year,” said Mulu Fratkin, pond hockey player. “Usually it’s a little more casual, but out here people like to go hard. We are getting smoked 13-1 but it’s still fun, you know?” 

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“We are the Queen City Squirrels out of Buffalo, New York,” said Mark Kuntz, pond hockey player. 

Kuntz and his team weathered a blizzard in Buffalo just to play in the Minneapolis cold.

“Tuesday, our flights got canceled at 2:00 for the next morning. And we had to figure out how we could leave the families and kids that day so we could beat the storm out. Rented a car and 4 of us drove here. Took us 16 hours,” said Kuntz. 

But they all agreed, it was still worth the trip.

“This is pond hockey mecca of the world, I would say. There is no other tournament like this. We’ve been to a few others but nothing is better than US Pond Hockey Championships,” said Kuntz. 

The tournament also sees teams come from Texas, California, and even Sweden. In the past they even had a team from Venezuela.