MOORHEAD — Moorhead head boys hockey coach Jon Ammerman knows there are question marks surrounding his 2025-26 Spuds team.
But for now, he has to be enjoying the fact that for once, after nine championship game appearances, Moorhead can be prefaced by the words defending state champions.
“It’ll obviously be a unique position for us to be in,” Ammerman said on the phone between games of pickleball last week.
The Spuds showed off their championship rings last week, a result of winning the Minnesota Class 2A title last March in St. Paul. Now the question is, how can the Spuds not only replace 143 combined points from a Mr. Hockey winner (Mason Kraft) and a do-it-all forward from the city’s most well-known hockey family (Brooks Cullen), but 173 points from a trio of underclassmen who were in line to help the Spuds reload?
Senior defenseman Brandon Mickelson, senior forward Tyden Bergeson and junior forward Zac Zimmerman have all opted to play juniors this season. Mickelson will play for Wenatchee of the Western Hockey League, Bergeson for Madison of the USHL and Zimmerman for the Fargo Force.
It’s an instant Moorhead class reunion over at Scheels Arena. The Force already have Cullen and Aaron Reierson while adding Garrett Lindberg and Zimmerman. Former Moorhead bantam player Sam Laurila, who had a 41-point campaign for the Force last season and was
138th pick of New York Islanders
in June, is now off to the University of North Dakota.
“It will be super cool,” said Cullen, a Minnesota commit with his brother Wyatt, about playing with more Spuds. “It will be awesome to have all those guys, especially because they’re good friends of mine and growing up and playing with a lot of them.”
Lindberg, a North Dakota commit, spent the last two seasons with the U.S. National Team Development Program. His last stint with the Spuds program was for the 2022-23 season.
Defenseman Garrett Lindberg of the U.S. National Team Development Program eyes the action in a Sept. 15, 2023 game against El Paso of the North American Hockey League in Blaine, Minn.
Rob Beer / The Forum
“You’re friends with them growing up and you’re playing with them,” said Lindberg, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound defenseman. “So it’s kind of fun to do it again at a higher level.”
Zimmerman played one game with the Force last April, a 5-2 loss at Sioux Falls. He tied for the team-high with four shots on goal in that game.
“I’m obviously from Fargo so it’ll be fun to play in my hometown in front of a lot of people and hopefully win,” said Zimmerman, who is considering Arizona, Ohio State, St. Cloud State, Minnesota State Mankato and Quinnipiac as college options.
Reierson is the veteran Spud now with his 34 games with the Force a season ago, “so with all of us out there on the ice, we kind of already know what we can all do.”
Fargo’s Aaron Reierson shoots on Lincoln goalie Yan Shostak on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, at Scheels Arena.
David Samson/The Forum
For Ammerman, it’ll be easy to keep track of the Moorhead guys now only 15 minutes away.
“Fargo has done a really good job in the last five to 10 years of continually pushing what the USHL has to offer in terms of facilities,” Ammerman said. “Obviously they have our program right in their backyard too, so they have a good understanding about who the kids are.”
Before these recent Spuds, the only other native Moorhead players to play for Fargo were Ethan Frisch, Aaron Herdt, Carter Randklev and Harper Bentz since the team’s inception in 2008, per hockeydb.com.
“We’re not going out of our way to add kids just because they’re from here,” Force head coach and general manager Brett Skinner said. “Every one of these kids has earned it. They’re all good players, but obviously nice for us when you can have those local ties kind of built in.”
Ammerman understands that and realizes every player has to carve their own path.
“In Minnesota hockey, we have a system where guys, I don’t know if sheltered is the right word, but obviously it’s very competitive and skill-based, but we’re kind of isolated as well,” Ammerman said. “The USHL provides kids an opportunity to see what’s out there. They not only have the best players from around the country, but around the world.”
Moorhead boys head hockey coach Jon Ammerman receives his medal after the win over Stillwater in the Minnesota boys hockey state 2A tournament championship game on Saturday, March 8, 2025, at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
David Samson / The Forum
While Zimmerman, Mickelson and Bergeson are gone, Ammerman said junior forward Evan Wanner, who had 10 goals and 22 points for the Spuds last season, will return to the team after playing in the high school elite league this fall.
Last fall Kraft played eight USHL games between Cedar Rapids and Sioux Falls before re-joining the Spuds for their magical season.
“He got exposure to it and he was able to see what he had in terms of his skill set,” Ammerman said of the high-flying Kraft, who scored 46 goals last season. “Then he was able to come back and have quite a bit of success last year too.”
The connection between the Spuds and the Force is apparent and transparent. Hometown three-time Stanley Cup winner Matt Cullen has a minority stake in the USHL team and last year served on Ammerman’s coaching staff.
Ammerman and Skinner both say it goes deeper than that. The Cullen family has invested heavily into hockey on both sides of the Red River and Force players being able to stay home is just a byproduct of that.
“You look at what Matt Cullen is doing in the area, it’s probably not a coincidence that once he retired, all these kids now are coming up and have that opportunity,” Skinner said. “But then you look at the resources he’s also invested into the community, and especially the Fargo Force, where these kids get a chance to train all summer in the area … I think there’s definitely a component of that that’s built into it as well.”
With all the movement, a coach is lucky these days to get two good seasons out of high school, junior or college player anyway.
Meanwhile, Ammerman will be contemplating his winter squad — like who will be his go-to goaltender — once practices begin. The graduated and now ring-wearing Charlie Stenehjem played every game last season, much like Kai Weigel did the season before. Stenehjem’s backup Nolan Cook, a 6-foot-6 senior this year, hasn’t seen game action since the 2022-23 season and is expected to challenged for the starting role.
“We’re still going to bring plenty of skill. There are a lot of question marks, but year to year there always is,” Ammerman said. “I don’t know that the expectations change. We still expect to be a state tournament-caliber team, but time will tell right?”
This article has been updated to correct Evan Wanner’s fall team.