Mason West will be the big man on campus at
Edina (Minn.) this fall in more ways than one. The Class of 2026 two-sport star was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the NHL Draft last week but will be back at the suburban Minneapolis school to play
football as a senior.
West, a 6-foot-6, 215-pound left-winger on the ice, is 17 and eligible for this year's NHL Draft because he turns 18 before the cut-off date on Sept. 15.
As a junior, West led the Hornets to the state quarterfinals in football and semifinals in hockey.
On the ice, West scored 27 goals with 22 assists in 31 games. As a quarterback, he threw for 2,592 yards with 37 touchdowns against just four interceptions.
West made it clear to NHL teams ahead of the draft that he will focus on hockey after this football season.
"It's super important for me to play this season just because I want to stay loyal to my teammates," West said. "I made it really clear that my only goal is to win a state championship and be loyal to my teammates and my community and then head to Fargo and get going with hockey."
West said his goals coming into high school were to win both a hockey and football state title in his career. He got the job done with his skates during his sophomore season when he had 15 goals and 23 assists for the state champion Hornets.
That same year he nearly won a state title in football. Down 28-21 with less than 30 seconds left, West threw a touchdown pass to cut the deficit to 1-point at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Hornets went for a 2-point conversion and were stopped on a play so close, it had to go to video review. Edina fell 28-27.
West has been the starting quarterback the past two seasons and has racked up 5,217 yards and 65 touchdowns. Rated a three-star quarterback prospect by
247Sports, he has earned offers from Kent State, Marshall, Miami (Ohio) and South Dakota. He is committed to Michigan State to play hockey.
Edina is a prestigious hockey school with at least 13 players drafted since 2009, including New York Islanders left wing Anders Lee.
Like West, Lee was also a prolific quarterback who won state player of the year in Minnesota during a 2008 season in which he passed for over 2,000 yards and ran for another 1,000. Lee had a bright future in both sports and was selected in the fourth round of the NHL Draft. He stuck with hockey and has 289 career goals in his Islanders career including four straight 20-plus goal seasons.
West said that Lee reached out to him earlier this year and that the two have stayed in contact.
"He is a really great guy, it was nice to really get advice from someone who kinda went through it," West said at the press conference. "Obviously you can talk to your parents or people from the community, but it's kind of hard to find a guy that went through the same thing."
West has played on elite hockey teams since he was young. Three players from his Minnesota Blades 14U team from the 2021-22 season were selected in this year's draft with nearly a dozen more committed to play at elite hockey colleges like North Dakota or Wisconsin.
Chicago's first-round pick was a freshman at Edina in 2022-23 and immediately made an impact under head coach Curt Giles, who has won five state championships in his tenure and is a 14-year NHL veteran.
Giles played on two teams that reached the Stanley Cup Finals and has an Olympic silver medal. Playing for Canada in the 1992 Winter games, Giles scored the go-ahead goal in the third period of Canada's semifinal win over Czechoslovakia.
West made an impact immediately for Giles. As a freshman he scored nine goals with 18 assists as Edina lost in the state championship game. As a sophomore he scored 38 points and the Hornets won the state crown. Last season he tallied 1.6 points per game and became one of the top NHL Draft prospects in the nation.
Now, he is at the Chicago Blackhawks Development Camp with his fellow draft picks before heading back to Minnesota to get ready for the football season.
