
The History of SCSU’s Hockey Center; Huskies To Host Gophers
The St. Cloud State men's hockey team is set to begin the season with an exhibition game against the Gophers Saturday night at 6 p.m. The game will be played at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center. Division I hockey was made possible in part by the efforts of Herb Brooks.

In May of 1986 Herb Brooks was hired as SCSU's men's hockey coach of a then, Division III program. At the time Brooks was hired he already had been the head coach of the Gophers, coached in the NHL with the New York Rangers and coached the United States to an improbable golf medal in the 1980s Olympics.
SCSU had a desire to move the program from Division III to Division I and a big part of achieving that was to have a bigger building on campus to play in. According to St. Cloud State Archivist Tom Steman, In 1986, a proposal was submitted to the Minnesota state legislature for a hockey arena, football stadium, and a track. Eventually, the hockey arena part of the proposal was split off from the other athletic needs for legislators to consider separately. In Brooks' lone season coaching the Huskies they went 25-10 and finished 3rd in the Division III national tournament.
Those that were instrumental in pushing the process for the new arena and the move from Division III to Division I included Herb Brooks, President Brendan McDonald, Administrator William Radovich and Athletic Director Morris Kurtz. Steman says the arena was thought dead many times over the 1987 legislative session, the proposed arena was eventually billed as a possible training site for Olympic athletes. In May 1987, that possibility swayed state legislators to fund an arena at St. Cloud State with a $9.5 million appropriation.
Ground was broken on the construction of the new National Hockey Center in September of 1988. The building was completed in 1989. The first game was played there in December of 1989.
Steman says the building was renamed the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in the spring of 2013, a grand reopening celebration was held on September 28, 2013. Brooks’ son, Dan, spoke at the celebration.
If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Tom Steman, it is available below.