• Led by the goaltending of Tony Ciro, senior defensemen Matt Czech, Tyler Buckley, Tom Morrow, and Pat Daly, and the top line of Brian Kaufman, Garrett Regan, and Jay Cascalenda, Hill-Murray returned to the state championship game.  A clear underdog against Holy Angels, the Pioneers lost 4-2 and finished second, the highest finish for the school since 1993.
• Due to increasing enrollment disparity among member schools, the Twin Cities Suburban East and St. Paul Suburban conferences disbanded prior to the school year.  (The old TCS West had become the Northwest Suburban a year earlier.) Hill-Murray joined the new Classic Suburban Conference and went 14-0-2, coming back twice to tie Mahtomedi in two tense games.
• This was also the first year that a holiday tournament (the Capital City Classic) was played at the Xcel Energy Center, which had opened in the fall of 2000.  Periods were 18 minutes long.
• In the Dec. 1 game against Duluth East, Brian Kaufman scored the tying goal in the final minute and Tom Morrow got the winner off a faceoff as time expired.  Both went on to play D1 hockey; Kaufman at Miami (Ohio) and Morrow at Boston University.
• Hill-Murray knocked out top-seeded White Bear Lake in the section final for the second time in three years.  Tied 1-1 entering the third, the Pioneers scored three goals in the first five minutes, two finished with drives to the net by Garrett Regan.

Classic Suburban Conference Standings

Section 3AA Playoff Bracket

State Tournament Bracket

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