The hockey news sites were all abuzz this spring when yet another grad of Shattuck-St. Mary’s won the Stanley Cup. That makes two consecutive years that boys from the Faribault, Minnesota high school were not only winning hockey’s biggest prize but capyaining their teams to glory.

If you’ve not heard of Shattuck-St. Mary’s then one quote from Sports Illustrated sums it up pretty well, “Shattuck-St. Mary’s School is to high school hockey what Harvard is to law schools”. And if we want to name drop, Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Zach Parise and Jack Johnson all doned the maroon and white of this prestigeuos school. Here’s another stat that will shock you, 7 Shattuck students played in the 2010 Winter Olympics and 3 of its students were drafted in 2009. Keep in mind we are not talking about a metropolitan school of thousands of students, the entire student body in a given year is 480 kids.

The school goes way back to 1864 and owes a huge debt of thanks to its early patrons for they are responsible for the grandeur of the beautiful campus buildings. Dr. Gearge Shattuck started Shattuck Hall which evolved into Shattuck school while Henry Whipple started the girls school St. Mary’s. They merged in 1972. The excellent hockey program is a direct result of ex-NHLer Jean-Paul Parise. Always a tough, hard working player he immediately instilled these qualities in his players. He ran the program for ten years and his philosophy towards both athletic and scholarly excellence still permeates the school.

The hockey program is now run by Tom Ward who had this to say about what it takes for a young man to make his program, – A candidate for the program must be a person of good character, have a passion for the game and understand that the environment here is unique…Mr. Ward along with Nick Stoneman, Head of School has built the place to go for an aspiring leader – be it in hockey, the arts of just about any field the youngster has his eye on.