Logan Hensler was 5 years old when his dad, Joe, built their first backyard rink.
Joe Hensler never played hockey growing up in Appleton, Wis.; he was into football, basketball and track. But after he moved to Minnesota in 2000, he began dating his future wife Alicia, and she took Joe to a Wild game with her parents’ season tickets.
Years later, at a family gathering during the holidays, Joe noticed the outdoor rink Logan’s uncle and cousins had and thought, “That’s pretty cool. I wonder if I can do that.”
He could, and he did — for 13 years and counting.
“[Logan] wanted to be out there all the time, and he wanted somebody to be out there with him,” Joe Hensler recalled. “So, it was me, and that’s where I learned a lot in terms of skating and shooting pucks and such that he taught me from what he learned.
“Very Minnesota thing to do, right, to be on the backyard rink and the lights on and the kind of peaceful nights in winter. I really enjoyed that a lot.”
Logan stuck with hockey and not just at home in Woodbury.
The defenseman played for the Minnesota Blades and was a freshman at Hill-Murray before leaving for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program in Michigan. Next season, he will be a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin, and the NHL is a possibility: Logan Hensler, 18, is projected to be picked in the first round of the draft on Friday in Los Angeles.