Don’t be surprised to spot Chicago Blackhawks players and coaches wandering through a sea of Edina green in Kuhlman Stadium this fall.
On Monday, at the Hornets’ first day of team camp, quarterback Mason West said some of his future hockey teammates may be cooking up a trip to watch him sling passes for the Class 6A football contender.
The Blackhawks selected West, a right-handed center, at No. 29 overall in June’s National Hockey League draft. But West is returning for his senior season of football before he becomes a full-fledged hockey prospect, playing juniors in Fargo this winter, then college hockey at Michigan State.
West and the Hornets hope to settle unfinished business on the gridiron.
In Class 2A hockey’s 2024 state tournament, the All-Minnesota forward and about a dozen of his football teammates — including the football team’s returning leading rusher, senior Chase Bjorgaard, in net — got a taste of lifting a championship trophy. The All-Minnesota quarterback wants to do the same in football.
The Hornets reached the Prep Bowl in 2023, stopping one win away from their first football state title. They went 9-3 and lost to eventual Class 6A champion Maple Grove in the state quarterfinals last fall, with West finishing the season 178-for-244 for 2,592 passing yards and 37 touchdowns.
“We’ve been really close,” West said. “[A hockey title] has always been a goal of mine, but it’s also been a goal to win a football one.”
The default plan, said Edina football head coach Jason Potts, was for West to play one more year of football, unless word came saying otherwise. But as the 6-6, 218-pound West’s draft stock rose in hockey, the debate on whether he should focus fully on hockey couldn’t be ignored. Potts said he met with West and his family and told them, “Mason, I want you to do what’s best for you.”