this is gonna he- be his life's work?

Wow.

Not until I was an adult.

When I was a kid, I was just a kid fortunate to grow up in Duluth.

Um, fortunate to grow up in the '70s and '80s when, um, sports was played by everybody, and we played every sport, whatever the season was.

And in Duluth, um, and I think throughout North Amer- or North, Northern Minnesota, but especially in Duluth, there were rinks everywhere.

And so in the wintertime we played, um, we played hockey every chance we could at the outdoor rink.

Yeah.

So how did you get into this and why is it so near and dear to your heart?

Well, as we're seeing this week and all year long, there's a lot to like about hockey in Minnesota, all levels of it, girls, boys, whatever.

So it's in a good spot, but it's not something that we should take for granted.

The business of youth hockey is a growing business, and So we need to make sure that just hockey remains as affordable and accessible as possible.

So it feels like if we can just always get more five-year-old kids to play hockey, that most of our issues and most of any kind of threats are addressed if we just keep growing the sport and getting more families involved.

So I credit the Wild for supporting this and being part of it and creating it.

and letting us create a philanthropic initiative, which is community hockey.

What are the key ingredients in community-based hockey?