Mankato Area Hockey Association

 On a winter’s evening, there isn’t much to see out in the barren, snow-covered farmland just east of this small town.

The faint glow of Mankato hovers over the western horizon, while scattered yard lights dot the black landscape like bright stars in the other direction.

Teenagers Trevor Morales and Zach Westerlund drove through the darkness in a car loaded with hockey skates, sticks and other gear recently on their way to a game.

“Zach told me to take a left down this gravel road, and I said, ‘Are you sure there’s a hockey rink out here?’ Morales said. “You could not convince me, a hundred dollars, that there was a rink out here.”

Morales would have lost the bet with his Mankato East/Loyola hockey teammate. They headed toward a distant light, turned in beside a grain elevator and rolled up to one of several buildings on the Schulz farm.

Inside, they would find a rink of dreams.

If you build it ...

Like Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella in the movie “Field of Dreams,” Paul Schulz was a farmer with a vision.

A little more than two years ago, Schulz decided to build a hockey rink on his property. But this wasn’t going to be a little circle of ice in a flooded backyard.

Mankato’s All Seasons Arena was undergoing some renovations, and Schulz acquired that building’s old dasher boards. He built a shed large enough to hold the 200-foot-by-85-foot rink and hung lights from the rafters. He bought an old Zamboni from the city of Fairmont to help make and maintain the natural ice. Then he added benches, a warming room, a locker room and even an observation deck.

“The ‘wow’ factor is exceptional,” friend Jerry Billiar said. “You would not believe this is sitting out here in a barn out in the middle of the boondocks in Madison Lake.”

Schulz’s wife sounded a lot like Costner’s movie spouse when the project began. 

“I thought he was crazy,” Stacey Schulz said.

But this wasn’t just going to be for Schulz and his five children. This was going to be for hockey players throughout the area, extra ice for youth players and high school kids, men’s and women’s senior teams and families who just wanted to skate around.

“Just like the movie, ‘Field of Dreams,’” said Jason Westerlund, a friend and men’s league teammate of Schulz’s. “It’s been built and people are coming.”

... they will come

The first winter Schulz’s rink was open, 2005-06, was a success. Schulz, a coach for the Mankato Area Hockey Association, invited teams squeezed by the jampacked schedules for All Seasons Arena’s two ice sheets to use his rink for extra practices.

He charged no fees and wanted no publicity.

“He’d say, ‘Just bring the kids out. Just have fun. ... Throw a puck out there and let them go,’” Billiar said.

The natural ice, especially after cold snaps like this week, was the best around, skaters said, and hockey practices were “more like a big game of pond hockey,” according to Billiar.

“When you say you’re going to have practices out at the Schulzes,” Billiar said, “it’s like, ‘Yeah! Let’s go!’”

But in the spring, after that first rink had melted and the building was converted to storage for the planting season, Paul Schulz died of a heart attack while working in his fields. He was 51 and left behind Stacey, five children — Alek, Tatum, Judd, Sam and Emmy Ann — and the family farm.

“Nobody asked (Stacey) the question,” Jason Westerlund said, “But she made a point of telling us — actually, the day of Paul’s funeral — she just looked at us and said, ‘We’ll keep the rink going. It just kind of shocked me that that was on her mind at the time, that it was that important of a thing.”

Said Stacey: “There was no question that we wouldn’t keep it going. ... It’s not going away.”

The dream’s alive

Two years later, the Schulz rink is going strong, thanks to several volunteers like Billiar, Westerlund and other people who played and coached with Schulz and his kids. A group of guys from Le Center play a weekly game at the farm and also help with the upkeep.

Boards need to be tightened, light bulbs need to be changed. This summer, the plan is to hang and wire an old scoreboard that used to reside at the arena in Le Sueur.

“As sad as it was when (Schulz) passed away, this is what he would have wanted for it,” Westerlund said, “to keep it rolling. ... It’s a collaborative effort It takes everybody.”

Billiar has learned to drive the Zamboni and makes ice several times a week. He and Westerlund take the squirt team they coach out there regularly and also play a Wednesday night men’s game at the rink. Billiar also helps out a group of “hockey moms” who are learning to play their kids’ favorite game there.

Stacey Schulz and daughter Tatum, 11, are part of the women’s group, which can include more than 20 skaters at times.

“The biggest thing is: This was Paul’s dream,” Billiar said, “for people to come out and do exactly this, to just have fun.”

But it’s not just Paul Schulz’s friends who love the rink.

Riley Kieffer didn’t know Paul and didn’t skate at the farm until this winter. Like Morales, he didn’t believe it until he saw it.

“Look at this place,” Kieffer said. “Why wouldn’t you want to keep it going? It’s something special. You don’t see something like this every day.”