You Should Take Your Kids To The Hendrickson Foundation Festival Next Year.
If you’re the proud parent of a hockey player that may have had his or her tires pumped a few too many times, demands a new $300 stick every time they break one (even with a backup), that is currently putting a Google Slides presentation together for the booster club making the case to switch all team merch to Alo or lululemon next season . . . we have just the reality check your kid needs.
You need to take them to the Hendrickson Foundation Festival next year.
I’ve attended the Hendrickson festival for years, and it never ceases to amaze me. The Hendrickson Foundation is a charity that supports sled, special, military, blind, deaf & hard-of-hearing hockey in the state of Minnesota. Each Spring, Hendrickson Foundation hosts their National Hockey Festival (a.k.a Hendy Fest . . .a.k.a. The Hendy) at the Super Rink in Blaine.
The tournament is different because all 5 disciplines are at the tournament together. I was talking with a Minnesota Warrior player this weekend, and he explained how unique this is because USA Hockey typically keeps each division in their respective swim lanes, the thinking being that with the mix of ages and divisions – you might not want a group of young sled hockey players rubbing elbows with military veterans drinking parking lot beers before the game, or, god forbid, using colorful language.
Well, I’m happy to report, there are no swim lanes at the Hendy Fest. It’s one beautiful melting pot. It feels like family at the Hendy Fest each year, a testament to the volunteers as well as the charity itself for making it all work seamlessly together.
The reason the Hendy Fest is so unique is rooted in the simple belief of the charity’s luminary founder, the late Larry Hendrickson. Larry believed the best way to treat hockey players with different challenges was to treat them like hockey players. If the Peewee kid down the block gets a cool jacket each season, well, then the sled players should have jackets too. If the U8 girls have to do a fundraiser to raise money, then the Warriors should have to do the same. If the thing Squirt players look forward to the most each year is the vaunted out-of-town tournament, then the Hendrickson Foundation should have its own tournament (complete with smoke machines year one).
Over the past 9 years, the Hendrickson Foundation tournament has truly evolved into a festival atmosphere. Board member Jay Faber, the proud parent of special hockey star Paige (and her little brother Brock), put it best, “For these kids, this is their Super Bowl. Hockey is just something they do for one hour each day, and the rest of the time, they’re hanging out with their buddies, having the time of their lives.”
This year’s Hendy Fest had 84 teams across all five of the disciplines, and they played 148 games on the weekend. At face value, the Hendy Fest is worth attending just for its scale. I went for the day on Saturday, and these are just a few of the things your kids would experience: great hockey (obviously) in formats they’ve likely never seen, food trucks, the Wild’s mascot Nordy running around, current Wild players coaching teams and mingling with guests, adult libations (if so inclined), a merch stand that rivals an Aviator Nation store, a celeb game featuring current Gopher and Wild players, Zach Parise, and Neal Broten as an honorary coach, karaoke, a DJ, an outdoor field filled with games, as well as a newly shaved headed Jake Middleton winning a sled hockey race before the celeb game.
But the spectacle of the festival isn’t why you should take your kids. It’s for the quieter moments, like seeing the entire crowd move away from the doors of the rink so the sweat soaked sled players can literally crawl their way to the locker rooms post-game. The reason to take your kids to the Hendy Fest is for what they will see, hear, and experience. It will give them a new perspective on the game and on life. They will see that the hockey community is a family that first and foremost takes care of each other, and it will be a beautiful reminder of the “we” versus “me” dogma that built our great game.
Simply put, they’ll see the Hendrickson Foundation’s tagline in its living and breathing form: HOCKEY CHANGES LIVES.
I was there for about 8 hours on Saturday, here are just a few of the bowls of chicken soup for the soul I was able to encounter:
I met a Cottage Grove parent whose autistic son was adopted by his home town’s local beer league skate comprised of mostly guys 60+ years old. As the story goes, his son was hanging around the rink, and the old dudes decided to make him an honorary Mud Duck, and now he has his bag packed every morning at 8:15am to skate with his new buddies – most of them old enough to be his grandparents.
I watched a blind hockey game where the players wear color coded helmets based on how much they can see. Oh, and did I mention the goalies are completely blind, and navigate the crease based on the ringing sound of the unique metal puck they use? My parents used to tell me to eat my dinner because “kids are starving in China,” and I can’t think of a better message to an entitled young hockey player than “well, you could be playing goalie completely blind.”
I watched a rare charity where you can see and feel where every dollar goes, all run by a loyal group of loyal and dedicated volunteers who probably sleep 7 hours in total the entire weekend.
I watched a tournament that had the presence of mind to treat people in wheelchairs as the real VIPs, giving them an amazing seating area right on the glass for the celebrity game.
I watched a group of hockey players across 5 distinct disciplines all mixing together no matter what they were dealing with. While they might call it a festival, it looked more like a family on Saturday. Which is why no one was surprised when this year’s Hendy Fest included a slapshot gender revel and an impromptu late-night wedding complete with hockey tape rings. Of course it did.
I watched a special hockey game announced by Kendall (who also has autism), who was more entertaining and knowledgeable than anyone I’ve seen on ESPN or TNT. She owned the entire rink as she gave players nicknames like “the Golden Knight” while frequently asking the crowd, “Can I get a Whoop Whoop?!” Kendall had as many soundbites on the mic as the late Pittsburgh Penguins announcer Mike Lange. My favorite, “He rang the dinner bell on that shot! Speaking of dinner, I’m having spaghetti!”
You couldn’t help but smile the entire special game watching the different levels of skill on each line matched with the other teams. Based on the skill levels of the players, sometimes the goalies would even let the little kids score. And sometimes they absolutely wouldn’t let them score. And both choices were beautiful.
I got to hold some hand carved wooden axe trophies that rival the Stanley Cup itself.
I watched a sled hockey game that had more speed and violence than a first round NHL playoff series between rivals.
And I guess that’s really it. In this age of instant gratification, a phone in every hand, and an iPad at every dinner table—the Hendy Fest is a rare opportunity for your kids, or anyone really, to look up and listen. To see why we love hockey. And to see that hockey loves us back, no matter what we’re dealing with.
The lasting image that will stick with me is of a young special hockey player. When the special teams play, they match skill levels and skate shifts for a certain period of time before a buzzer goes off. This little kid, I think he was #5, scored early in his shift. And he immediately raised his arm up with his stick high in the air. And he kept it in the air like that the rest of his shift which included multiple faceoffs, and more scoring. He just skated around with his hand in the air for a couple minutes, eventually making it to the bench after bumping everyone’s fist at the end of his shift.
Yes, Larry, hockey does change lives. If your kids have forgotten that, take them to the Hendy Fest next year.
Don’t believe me? Well, watch this video and you will.
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