Patrick WilliamsTheAHL.com Features Writer
Ryan Sandelin can match Minnesota data with anyone.
Sandelin, a 27-year-old who played for the Iowa Wild, had a long Minnesota hockey career before turning pro. Son of Minnesota-Duluth head coach Scott SandelinRyan grew up in Hermantown, Minn., just outside of Duluth. Outdoor ice remains a part of hockey life in Minnesota’s Iron Range. He attended Hermantown High School, one of the storied programs in high school hockey history.
After two state championships, he finally found himself at Minnesota State-Mankato, where he won more. The Mavericks won four conference championships while he was there, and he produced a 21-goal season as a junior.
And now he wears Iowa’s forest green color scheme similar to its parent NHL club, the Minnesota Wild. After parts of two seasons with the Colorado Eagles, Iowa signed Sandelin to an AHL contract in July 2024. Since then he has proven to be a valuable member of the Iowa roster.
His hockey path will now bring him back to Minnesota for Friday’s Iowa Wild Outdoor Classic. Held in Hastings, Minn., the game between Iowa and the Milwaukee Admirals will be an important part of the 20th anniversary of Hockey Day Minnesota. Hockey Day Minnesota kicked off last Saturday and featured a strong schedule of high school hockey, military hockey and alumni games.
Coverage of Friday’s Milwaukee-Iowa game begins at 5:30 ET on AHLTV on FloHockey, and will be streamed free on FloHockey’s social media channels.
It will be outdoor hockey, just as Sandelin remembers it. Iowa’s roster is healthy in Minnesota: There’s a captain Matt Kiersted (Elk River), Jack Peart (Grand Rapids) and Is Zmolek (Rochester) on the Iowa blue line. Front and Sandelin Jackson Nelson (Magnolia). Iowa general manager Matt Hendricks (Blaine) is a Minnesota product as well.
The entire Hockey Day Minnesota program celebrates the game’s grassroots connection to the life of the state.
“It’s something we’ve been looking forward to,” said Sandelin.
Contact with the game began at Sandelin in Hermantown, a Duluth suburb of 10,000 people a little more than two hours northeast of the Twin Cities.
“I was fortunate to grow up in Hermantown, where hockey is,” Sandelin said. “People live and breathe hockey, whether that’s in the Hermantown community, the Duluth community, everything revolves around hockey.”
Every winter day after school, Sandelin went to one of the city’s outdoor rinks. For the next six hours, he and his friends roamed the ice and studied the game in the informal way that only comes with this type of hockey. A spot on the Hermantown High roster served as another motivation for Sandelin and his friends. While growing up a Marian Gaborik fan, some of his idols were from Hermantown High. He and his friends went to team games, skated with the players, and worshiped them.
“You look at those kids all the time,” Sandelin recalled. “You see them out and about, and they’re like celebrities in town.”
He finally got the chance to represent his high school and hometown. His Hermantown High teammates included future professionals Wyatt Aamodt, Blake Biondi, Cole Koepke again Dylan Samberg. A new indoor rink opened this month in town and has had plenty of games and should strengthen Hermantown’s hockey culture.
“I think it just speaks to how big hockey is out there, and how big a driver it is in the community,” Sandelin said. “The whole community came out to see it. The rink is the center of the city. This is the best way to describe hockey.” [there]. There is no city. Downtown is a rink. It’s the main area of the city and it’s where everyone goes in the winter.”
That enthusiasm carries over to a provincial NHL team that is second in the Western Conference and has a chance to make a strong run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs when the ice and snow melts and melts. The team has an extensive radio network that covers the country well and extends into North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Since Sandelin signed with Iowa, he has had the opportunity to attend training camp with a group of parents. It was one more chance to connect with his home state and its NHL team.
“The chaos in St. Paul right now is through the roof,” Sandelin said. “People love to talk about the Wild. They’re very excited about the talent that team has.”
Hastings, about 25 miles southeast of the Twin Cities and surrounded by the Mississippi River, will be very similar to Hermantown. And the weather forecast — temperatures below zero Fahrenheit with a wind chill of around minus-20 — is sure to remind Sandelin of his skating days back home.
But weather permitting, Sandelin hopes her daughter will be at the stops when she picks up the snow on Friday.
“That’s something I know when 10, 20 years down the line, and I’m done playing hockey, I’ll be able to look back on a day like this and really appreciate it and how special it was. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Every summer he comes home and trains with friends, and it takes him back.
“It started at the outdoor rink,” Sandelin said of his love of hockey. “That’s where it really started.
In the American Hockey League for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams and currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor to SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for the league’s top scorer in 2016.
