Advancing to the boys' hockey state tournament has its perks. Then again, sometimes it's all in who you know.
Case in point: the stories Grant Opperman and Joey Hanowski will cherish for years to come.
Hanowski and his Little Falls teammates heard the sound of skates, sticks and pucks hitting the ice when they arrived Wednesday morning for their Class 1A quarterfinal game at Xcel Energy Center. Imagine the surprise when they found injured Minnesota Wild players Mike Lundin, Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Mikko Koivu going through light rehabilitation drills.
The three pros chatted cordially and gave Flyers players fist-bumps before exiting to the locker room.
"I mean, we're at the Taj Mahal of any rink around and then we see that," Hanowski said. "The game didn't go like we wanted [a 7-0 loss to St. Thomas Academy], but you couldn't ask for a better start."
Opperman, who plays for Breck, had his brush with fame last fall at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh. Penguins President and CEO David Morehouse, Opperman's brother-in-law, has an office there.
"He took me into the locker room and my jaw dropped," Opperman said.
Morehouse later directed the Oppermans to an off-ice practice shooting area where they met up with NHL superstar Sidney Crosby.