Jayden Kurtz watched through a pane of plexiglass as his high school hockey career came to an end on a Saturday night in late February at Bloomington Ice Garden.
“We knew we had the team to do it but unfortunately it doesn’t always go your way,” the Rogers senior defenseman said. On Feb. 21, Kurtz was in the penalty box for the end of the Class 2A, Section 6 semifinal game against Wayzata. His Royals, Minnesota’s No. 1-ranked team at the time, saw their chances of reaching the state tournament shrivel with a 5-2 score blinking overhead.
Kurtz hoped to go further than last year’s first-round state tournament loss, but his hockey career is far from over. Kurtz, regarded as one of the top 100 hockey players in North America by NHL scouts, was already feeling reflective and itching to move on after the immediate sting of losing lowered to a simmer a couple of days later.
He finished his season as assistant captain with 13 goals, 25 assists and a one-way plane ticket to Chicago. Kurtz was already packing a suitcase to help the USHL’s Chicago Steel in a playoff push.
The Mr. Hockey finalist’s senior season may have ended prematurely, but his hockey career was only getting started.
In Jayden Kurtz’s high school hockey career, he recorded 22 goals, 51 assists and 73 total points. (Rogers High School hockey)Born with hockey sense
“I was pushing that little chair around,” Kurtz recalls, laughing lightly at the childhood memory.
He was 3 years old the day his dad bought him his first pair of hockey skates. Even gripping the plastic skating aid, wobbly, at the Andover Community Rink, he was hooked.
“Hockey’s been my whole life,” Kurtz said. “I played baseball and football growing up, but I’ve been playing hockey my whole life.”