Summer workouts for the new, consolidated St. Paul boys high school hockey team were underway earlier this year when coach Pat Ryan issued his first edict — the clashing helmet stickers had to go.
No more Highland Park Scots or Johnson Governors decals on the players’ lids. New ones were on order, but until then, their headgear would be unadorned.
St. Paul boys hockey coach Paul Ryan speaks to Max Karvonen (right) and Ian Wallace (left) at a practice during the 2025 season. (Tris Wykes / Special to the Pioneer Press)
“I thought it might be a little hard to get the two teams to come together, but I knew it would be good for the program to have more depth,” said Charlie Rust, a Highland Park sophomore. “We started the summer as two groups apart.”
Six months later, the Capital City’s representatives take the ice in snappy, royal blue and white uniforms, STP helmet stickers included. Victories haven’t come easily during a 1-6 start, but unity seems prevalent, nonetheless.
The idea of Johnson and Highland Park players as teammates would have seemed preposterous when the Governors made the most recent of their 22 trips to the state tournament in 1995. The Scots’ program had folded eight years earlier and changing East Side demographics that would eventually choke the feed of players to Johnson hadn’t yet come to be.
Highland Park brought its team back in 2010 and welcomed Central players into the fold. Johnson which won four state titles from 1947-63, couldn’t hold on, despite a co-op with Como Park.
Minority and lower-income students made up an increasingly large portion of Johnson’s enrollment. They’re less likely to play hockey because of its expense, time and travel requirements as well as the sport’s lack of tradition in their communities.
The best players continue to flock to private-school hockey, leaving the St. Paul co-op’s varsity with 12 Central High students, six from Highland Park, three from Johnson and one each from Humboldt and Como Park.
Pat Auran, Highland Park’s athletic director and the Scots’ onetime coach, said an attempt to field one St. Paul team roughly five years ago was halted because of the number of players who would have been cut. After last season, when it became apparent Johnson wouldn’t have enough players for a 2025-26 team, the move made more sense.
Over the summer, the players slowly bonded on the rink and in the weight room, during dryland sprints and on-ice skating drills. Sweat equity built mutual respect. Nine freshmen were returned to their bantam teams in the fall, allowing the youngsters time for physical and tactical development.
“I was apprehensive,” said Emory Batt, a goaltender from Central. “But that summer work brought us together. At one point, the leaders on the team shuffled up the seating the in the locker room to promote bonding.
“The Johnson guys bring grit to our game. We get some of that physicality that it sucks to play against.”
Said Central senior forward Ian Wallace: “It’s two correct puzzle pieces fitting together.”
Batt points out that most high school players get to know each other in class and during other sports seasons. The St. Paul hockey members see each other only at team practices and games, with the occasion bus ride thrown in.
“Even with that, we’ve grown a lot closer than I would have thought possible in this amount of time,” Batt said.
St. Paul lost last week to Minneapolis’ co-op team, which has existed since 2010. Wearing white jerseys with “Capital City” across the front in script lettering, the hosts hung tough until a five-minute span of the second period and lost, 6-2.
Minneapolis was faster in all aspects of the game against a foe down four players because of injury or illness, including Batt, who’s had to relinquish his starting spot in net because of shoulder woes.
St. Paul was without another player because of his commitment to play in Central’s orchestra, which is reflective of the program’s willingness to work around academic and activity conflicts.
Ryan, a former Cretin-Derham Hall assistant who led Highland Park for the past three seasons, said he must reconcile the desire to win with an understanding of his players’ broader objectives.
“Some schools have hockey players and we have kids who play hockey,” Ryan said. “We have an Eagle Scout and young men who have interviewed at Stanford and Cal Tech and Macalester. A young man who played for us two years ago is at the Naval Academy.
“It’s challenging to the competitor in me, but as long as we’re improving a little bit at a time, I’m fine with it.”
A carton company sales representative with a stern countenance, Ryan is a 1979 Cretin High graduate. He played for the Raiders and coached at various youth hockey levels before a six-year stint as his alma mater’s JV coach and three years as one of its varsity assistants.
His coaching style harkens back to the no-nonsense days of Herb Brooks, who famously led the Gophers to NCAA championships and the 1980 U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal.
“Coach is a little old fashioned,” Batt said with a chuckle. “He not afraid to skate you. And he won’t cuss, but he’ll give you an earful. He can be pretty hard on us, but he’s mostly reasonable when he yells at you.”
Auran is also old fashioned, but bullish on the co-op’s future. He proudly showed off the program’s refinished varsity and JV locker rooms and a shooting room with slick floor boards and nets for players to refine their firepower.
“I thought we’d just absorb the kids from other schools and keep it the Scots, but the parents group said now was the time to rebrand,” Auran said. “The youth programs that feed us, the St. Paul Capitals, Edgcumbe and Langford Park, have good numbers coming up.”
Batt lives near Como Park High and transferred from there to Central as a sophomore in part to play hockey for its co-op with Highland Park. The senior said he recently had a rare interaction when an adult stopped him in a school hallway to discuss the new co-op team, which doesn’t enjoy the pep bands and large student sections some squads enjoy.
“We don’t have the most fans, but we’re representing St. Paul, and that’s a big deal,” Batt said. “It doesn’t really matter who’s in the stands watching. What matters is this team and the logo on the front of our jerseys.”
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