For the Moorhead boys hockey team, a state championship comes after a season of challenge.

“This isn’t just hockey for us; it’s honoring Ethan,” declares Jenna Askvig. “The team supporting my son; it means everything to me.”

At each game this year, the Spuds have hung Ethan Monshaugen’s jersey.

A remembrance of their friend and team manager, who was taken too soon.

“We honor this whole season to him,” says Jake Franklin, the current hockey manager. “I think with thousands of fans watching, we thought it would be pretty cool to tribute him.”

In March 2024, Ethan, just 16, passed away in his sleep due to a heart condition.

“Ethan died of a spontaneous aortic dissection,” Askvig, his mother, explains. “He was a perfectly healthy 16-year-old boy, that he went to bed one night and it happened, and we did not know.”
 
Askvig has followed the team all season but just recently decided to attend the tournament at Xcel Energy Center, bringing along two of Ethan’s siblings, 13-year-old Cam and 15-year-old Nolan.

She says she’s grateful for the Spuds players’ care and concern.  

“Having the team still honor and love Ethan, and it’s like, it’s a way to keep him alive still,” Askvig exclaims. “You see them grow up together and you see like Ethan’s friends from a very young age still like loving him and still carrying on with him.”

At Xcel Saturday night, plenty of Spuds fans were rallying around the team and thinking about Ethan and his family.

“I know he definitely inspired his team,” declares Jackson Lundbohm, a Moorhead High School classmate who played on the golf team with Ethan. “It’s one of the reasons they’re playing so hard out there for him.”

“Very emotional,” adds Cheryl Evenstead, who’s had two of her sons playing hockey for Moorhead. “Because they’ve played with the kids all the way through school, all the way, so they’re doing it for him, too.”  

The team keeps Ethan’s name on their warm-up jerseys, and his name remains on his locker.

Ethan’s family has also started a foundation called ‘Ethan’s Heart’ to support golf events and contribute to organizations benefitting people with aortic diseases and bleeding disorders.

Askvig says she sees a little bit of her son in every Spuds player on the ice.

“We’re playing for so much more than a state championship,” she says. “We’re playing not just for first place, but they’re playing for Ethan.”