ST. PAUL — Hockey is a big deal in Moorhead. The folks in the Red River Valley town, hard against the North Dakota border, have been waiting decades for their beloved Spuds to lay their mitts on a state championship.

So it’s only right to assume that Mason Kraft and Co. are going to be living the high life when they return home.

Are you guys ready to be celebrities in Moorhead when you get back?

“I would argue they already are,” Moorhead coach Jon Ammerman said with a grin after the Spuds exorcised a lifetime’s worth of demons by beating Stillwater 7-6 in Saturday’s state Class 2A championship game at the Xcel Energy Center.

“I would agree with that,” said Kraft, the senior forward who scored four goals, all in the first period, against the Ponies.

Kraft had myriad options on where he could have spent his senior season. Junior league teams were drooling over the thought of adding him to their lineup. Triple-A programs, private schools, boarding schools … what team wouldn’t want the Mr. Hockey candidate who finished second in the state with 94 points?

Not that he was ever going anywhere.

“It’s really cool,” Kraft said about living in Moorhead. “People come up to you in the grocery store all the time, wherever you are eating, whenever you are out and about. They are like, ‘We are rooting for you.’ 

“I would say that’s what makes Moorhead so special. There’s no other place in the state where I would have rather spent my senior year.”

Kraft led all players in the state tournament with nine goals. His four-goal outburst in the first period against Stillwater put him in some legendary company. The only other player to score four goals in a single period is John Mayasich, the Eveleth superstar who accomplished the feat in the first period of a 1951 game against Williams.

Moorhead scored three goals in the game’s first 2:24 and led 5-1 after the first. Stillwater scored five of the next seven goals and pulled to within 7-6 on Matthew Volkman’s goal with 3:20 remaining. The Ponies had numerous quality scoring chances in the frantic final minutes.

“Relief,” is how Spuds coach Jon Ammerman described his emotions after the victory that ended the program’s 0-for-8 run of state championship game losses.

Kraft had an altogether different feeling.

“It was just … like a sensation that I’ve honestly never felt,” he said. “You feel like, you just feel like you are on top of the world. You kind of black out for a minute or two. It’s the greatest feeling ever.”

One of 10 Mr. Hockey finalists, Kraft got an unsolicited vote for the award from teammate Brandon Mickelson during the postgame media session.

“I hope he wins Mr. Hockey (Sunday),” Mickelson said. “He just makes everybody else so much better. I hope an NHL team takes a choice on him.”

“Thanks Mick, you’re a great guy,” Kraft said, eliciting laughter from the room.

Kraft is a walking, talking billboard for high school hockey in the State of Hockey.

“f you ever have the option to stay or leave, I think you should always come back and play high school hockey,” he said. “Play one more year with your buddies. You never get this time back, ever. 

“There’s no better place in the country to play than Minnesota.”