Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Many professional athletes were standouts in multiple sports before deciding to focus on a single discipline. Mason West seems to have a promising future as a hockey player, but he can also more than hold his own on the football field when you consider he helped his high school team win a state championship after he insisted on returning for his senior year after being drafted by the Blackhawks.
Hockey is to high schools in Minnesota what football is to those learning institutions in Texas. The Land of 10,000 Lakes has produced hundreds of players who have ended up playing in the NHL, including notable names like Blake Wheeler, Zach Parise, and Anders Lee.
The last man on that list is one of a handful of players who graduated from Edina High School, which saw its list of guys who’ve been selected in the first round of the NHL Draft grow by one after Mason West was scooped up by the Blackhawks with the 29th overall pick earlier this year.
The 18-year-old center has primarily made a name for himself on the rink, but he’s also no slouch on the gridiron as a quarterback who racked up 2,592 passing yards and threw 37 touchdowns during his junior season in 2024.
That campaign ended with a loss to the eventual state champions in the Class AAAAAA playoffs last year, and West made the bold decision to come back for one last ride before capping his high school career off with a bang.
Mason West led his high school football team to a state championship after refusing to stop playing despite being drafted by the Blackhawks
West fielded scholarhship offers to play football at Marshall, Kent State, and Miami (Ohio) before seeing his NHL Draft stock spike toward the start of 2025 when he joined the Fargo Force of the USHL for a 10-game stint after Edina capped off the hockey season with a win over Chanhassen in the Class AA state championship.
He subsequently decided to turn the bulk of his attention to hockey before committing to play at Michigan State. However, he made it clear he intended to keep playing football as a senior ahead of the NHL Draft, which may have scared away some teams before the Blackhawks got him while giving that plan their seal of approval.
As the Chicago Sun-Times notes, the Hornets posted a 4-4 record during the regular season but staged an unlikely playoff run that ended with West and Co. getting the chance to avenge a 51-44 loss to a Moorhead squad in October in the title game on November 21st.
They did exactly that in a game where Chase Bjogaard, who serves as the goaltender for Edina’s hockey team, ran for 320 yards and had four rushing touchdowns while catching two more from West in the team’s 42-35 win.
West will be heading back to Fargo to join the Force for the remainder of the USHL season at the start of December, and he’s slated to debut as a freshman at Michigan State next year.