Big Change Made To This Year’s Minnesota State Hockey Tournament Game Rules

The unofficial Minnesota holiday is officially underway - The Minnesota State Boys Hockey Tournament (or 'The Tourney' as fans call it) is going on through Saturday evening.

As players hit the ice in games at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul this week, a pretty big rule change is now in effect that pretty significantly changes how teams will approach their gameplay during the tournament.

What is the rule change for the 2025 Minnesota Boys Hockey Tournament?

A new rule that might sound insignificant on the surface could have some pretty significant impacts on teams participating in this year's tournament.

So, what's the change? For the 2025 tournament, the number of media timeouts in each period of play has been trimmed from three down to just one "TV timeout" per period.

READ MORE: What to know about the 2025 Minnesota Boys Hockey State Tournament

At a glance, you might wonder how media timeouts can impact a team. It's just when TV and radio stations are playing commercials, right? Well, there's more to it than that.

How is this change going to impact teams?

In trimming the number of media timeouts down to just one per period, it reduces the number of built-in breaks for players to catch their breath without the team calling a timeout of their own.

This increases game flow with fewer interruptions for spectators compared to state tournaments in years past, though it does test the endurance of teams as well. This could also help a team with some momentum to keep things rolling without a media timeout to pause things.

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When compared to state tournaments of years past, this puts extra pressure on teams to consider how they're managing line changes and ice time for players. This could potentially be a bigger deal to smaller teams with less depth, as the number of pauses for their players during the game is less than it has been in years past during the tournament.

On the flip side, some would argue that this is more like regular season games for players and coaches that they're already used to.

Bringing things closer to regular season play

During regular season high school hockey games, there are no built-in media timeouts. All breaks in the action come as a result of things like penalties or team-called timeouts.

The move to just one media timeout in each period in the state tournament brings things as close to that regular-season time management strategy while still accommodating the need for commercials during statewide broadcasts of the biggest games of the season.

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For teams who have been to the tournament before, it just shifts strategy from the way things used to be. Is that a bad thing, though? That's for you to debate I guess.

Proponents will argue the move brings tournament gameplay closer to the regular season roots teams are used to, while opponents will say this could test smaller teams. Will ultimately be a factor? That's hard to say.

Ultimately, both teams on the ice at any given time get the same opportunities for breaks in gameplay. This rule change also wasn't sprung on teams as a surprise.

No matter what, we're in for a great tourney with a lot of fun matchups!