Hockey Rinks Are the Heart of Many Communities

"There's the crispness of the air…the smells…you can hear the hum of the lights. It just kind of brings you back."

The shutter of photographer Matthew Jasper's camera echoes through 3M Arena at Mariucci at the University of Minnesota as he captures the Olympic-sized hockey arena in complete stillness. Today, Jasper is in one of the largest arenas in the state, but tomorrow he may wander around a community rink in Bemidji.

"I'm always looking for lines and for symmetry and unique characteristics of each rink… I'm averaging about two to 300, 400 shots per rink - and how do you really show off all these places? You could do a book on Mariucci alone," he says.

After documenting more than 70 rinks across the state over the last 15 years, Jasper will soon publish this body of work in a coffee table book aptly titled Home Ice. But the path forward for the project took myriad twists and turns. "It's been a little bit of an Iron Range Odyssey," he says affectionately.

Jasper's love of hockey and its variety of homes began when he was young. He grew up playing the sport on the edge of the Iron Range in Grand Rapids, where outdoor rinks were standard features on every elementary playground and the lore of Bill Baker of NHL and Miracle on Ice fame loomed large. A portrait of the now demolished Warroad Memorial Arena hung in his childhood home and intrigued him years before he ever picked up a camera. "It was like an old wooden barn and it was gorgeous. I remember people being like, 'Oh, that's actually pretty cool. It's a pretty cool arena.' It was. It wasn't your typical medium or your typical focus of what you would shoot, but the way that it was shot…the character came out in the photo. Just something that really stood out to me."

Jasper went to college on the West Coast, and the distance from his home turf prompted a lot of reflection on the uniqueness of Minnesota's hockey culture and the state's beautiful arenas. Ultimately, the time he spent away from Minnesota further solidified his interest in capturing rinks back home.

Eventually, he returned to Minnesota to get sober - and though he didn't have a camera at the time, he convinced a photographer he met through the sobriety community to travel the state in search of hockey rinks to capture. The two set out on a six-day tour, gauging interest in the project by talking to as many rink managers and community members as they could.

Out of those conversations, Jasper and his friend discovered rinks that otherwise would have eluded them. "You go to Baudette and you shoot the Baudette rink and you're like, 'Are there any other cool rinks around here?' And they're like, 'Yep, there's a cool rink in Roosevelt.' And I'm like, 'Where's Roosevelt?' And he's like, 'If you blink on the way to Warroad, you'll miss it. So keep your eyes open all the way through Warroad, and it's a tiny little town, and it's a tin barn with square corners, and it's just a community rink where they leave the lights on. And so you gotta go check [it out].'"

In Roseau, they learned of another nearby gem in Grygla. "They have another community rink, and it's just another tin shed with wood trusses, and it's in another barn. And you have no idea that these places exist, but they're like these tiny little pockets and communities that have these community rinks that mean a lot to them. And if you don't ask around, you'll completely miss them."

Special Thanks: Craig Flor, Tom Page

Additional Media: Matthew Jasper

Minnesota Music: Daughters of the Sun, The Jolly Pops, The Small Cities, When We Land

Production Team: Anne Guttridge, Ryan Klabunde, Brittany Shrimpton, Brennan Vance

This story is made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

https://www.tptoriginals.org/in-minnesota-hockey-rinks-are-the-heart-of-many-communities/