St. Cloud revels in Stanley Cup visit, and its hometown NHLer

ST. CLOUD – About two months after he first hoisted the Stanley Cup into the air as a member of the championship-winning Florida Panthers, Nate Schmidt hoisted the trophy again Monday in front of hundreds of fans in central Minnesota.

This time, instead of his jersey and skates, he wore a T-shirt, shorts and a wide grin that showed just how happy he was to be back on his home ice.

“I have so many great memories here‚" Schmidt said Monday afternoon at St. Cloud’s Municipal Athletic Complex. “At the end of the day, it just had to be in St. Cloud. This is where I grew up. This is what shaped me to be the player that I am.”

Schmidt played with the St. Cloud Youth Hockey Association before being called up to the varsity team at St. Cloud Cathedral High School as an eighth-grader.

“I can’t believe this is real,” said Eric Johnson, who coached Schmidt in youth hockey and at Cathedral. “I’ve known Nate since he was 12.

“The scary part is he’s the same guy today that he was when he was 12,” Johnson said to laughs from the crowd. “[He’s] super high-energy, a positive attitude and a fierce competitor.”

From 2006 to 2009, Schmidt helped Cathedral reach the state tournament twice and finished as the second-highest scoring defenseman in the state at the time. During his senior year, he played for the Fargo Force junior hockey team.

“He’s always been kind of goofy, funny, very nice,” Lommel said.

Lommel and his younger brother, Leo, have followed Schmidt’s career over the years and even went to see him play a game in Las Vegas. Leo Lommel wore the defenseman’s No. 88 Vegas Golden Knights jersey to the event Monday.

“I’m just grateful he brought it here,” Lommel said of the trophy. “He could have brought it to Mariucci, but he remembered St. Cloud — his home, where it all started.”

Schmidt played for the University of Minnesota and was signed by the Washington Capitals in 2013. Four years later, he was selected by Las Vegas in the expansion draft and helped the Golden Knights reach the Stanley Cup Finals. He was then traded to the Vancouver Canucks and the Winnipeg Jets before landing with the Florida Panthers in July 2024.

The Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers in June to win the Stanley Cup. Since then, Schmidt has signed a contract with the Utah Mammoth. An NHL tradition allows members of the winning team the chance to spend a day with the Stanley Cup, and many take it to their hometowns.

“Seeing the Stanley Cup is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and to see it in a place you grew up — as a 4-year-old on skates — it’s a cool thing to see," said Jackson Henderson, 22, a former Cathedral hockey player who was among the hundreds of people at Monday’s event.

St. Cloud State University student Collin Hess, another Cathedral hockey alum, said he and his teammates grew up idolizing Schmidt.