St. Paul Johnson, one of Minnesota’s most storied boys hockey programs, has played its last independent season and will be folded into a St. Paul Public Schools co-op next season.
The district announced the news with a letter, obtained by the Pioneer Press, sent to players and families on Wednesday.
“It has been decided by SPPS administration and the athletic directors to combine (co-op) the hockey teams and create one SPPS starting in the 2025-26 season,” the letter said.
Highland Park will be the host school, and the program will be run by the Scots’ current coaching staff.
The move is the latest of many in the Twin Cities, mostly in St. Paul and Minneapolis, to consolidate ice hockey programs because of declining participation numbers. A 10-year co-op between Central and Como Park dissolved in 2016.
Highland Park, which dropped its program in 1987, then briefly joined Central in a co-op before relaunching its program for the 2010-11 season.
Johnson is a little bit different, though. The Governors were hockey royalty in St. Paul, advancing to 22 state tournaments and winning four. Five other St. Paul public high schools played at state — four of them now defunct — but none of them as many times, and none of them won it all.
Coaching legend Herb Brooks, the architect of the Miracle on Ice and NCAA title-winning coach with at Minnesota, played for the Governors. So did Wendell Anderson, who went on to play in the 1956 Olympic Games and become Minnesota’s 33rd governor from 1971-76.
Their last state tournament appearances was in 1995.
This is a developing story.
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