As thousands of hockey players, fans, scouts, press and vendors from around the world descend on downtown St. Paul this month for the 11-day World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, how will the capital city greet them?
Visit St. Paul, the city’s official convention and tourism bureau, has skated out a plan to assemble the world’s largest hockey puck — a 5,000-pound testament to the excitement around the international round-robin style tournament.
The puck will anchor Rice Park’s outdoor “Fan Fest” activity zone for all 11 days, serving as a photo opportunity throughout the World Juniors, which are bringing together the best hockey players ages 17-19 from 10 countries.
Made in St. Paul, Oakdale
The puck, which is being made at the Wonder Studio fabrication shop on St. Paul’s old Hamm’s Brewery campus and at TC Rigging/Allied Productions in Oakdale, will be displayed as part of the Bold North Breakaway Fan Fest from Dec. 26 to Jan 5.
Visit St. Paul is asking sponsors, including everyday residents and small businessowners, to donate between $25 and $5,000 to help roll out the giant puck, which will be, in a word, large. Donations of any amount will be accepted, and sponsors will be recognized on a webpage “Hall of Fame,” which is coming soon. The webpage will include an option to donate $25 on behalf of a youth hockey player, which earns the player a commemorative vinyl sticker.
“The puck does not already exist,” said Jaimee Lucke Hendrikson, president and chief executive officer of Visit St. Paul, in an email on Tuesday. “It’s being built right here in St. Paul! … This is a community pride project and we welcome support at any level.”
For now, donations are being accepted at TinyUrl.com/StpPuck.
When completed, the 5,000 lb.-puck composed of aluminum, wood, steel and vinyl will measure 22.2 feet across and 7.5 feet in height.
For reference, the typical hockey puck is 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick and weighs about 5 1/2 ounces. This one will be a lot bigger.
Previous title holders
That’s a hip check to the current record-holder, a hockey puck with a 20-foot diameter, weighing more than 1,000 pounds, that was created in December 2022 for the New Year’s Eve celebration in Allentown, Penn., the home of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms hockey team, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers.
Prior to that, the puck attached to the world’s largest hockey stick — which was measured at 205 feet long, according to the Guinness World Record — held the title in Duncan, British Columbia. Composed of steel-reinforced Douglas Fir wood beams, the combined structure of stick and puck weighed about 62,000 lbs., but Cowichan Valley Regional District announced last year that the poorly-aging installation would be transferred to a sports memorabilia company, which planned to cut it up and convert the pieces into keychains.
Eveleth, Minn., claims to be home to the world’s largest free-standing hockey stick, known as “The Big Stick,” which is 110 feet long and weighs 10,000 lbs., according to Eveleth.gov. It stands next to a puck that is 5 feet in diameter and weighs 700 pounds.
What happens to the St. Paul puck once the World Juniors skate to a close?
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Hendrikson said there’s no plans “at this time” to make the puck a permanent part of the downtown landscape, but she didn’t say that Visit St. Paul couldn’t be lobbied to change its mind.
From Dec. 26 through Jan. 5, the round robin-style World Juniors tournament will feature 29 games, showcasing the best players ages under age 20 from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Latvia and Slovakia. Practices will not be open to the public.
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