World's Largest Free-Standing Hockey Stick

Eveleth, Minnesota

Give Eveleth credit for persistence. In 1995 it unveiled what it called the World's Largest Hockey Stick in a downtown vacant lot. Weighing over three tons, 107 feet long, it was a source of civic pride -- until it was learned that a town in British Columbia had a hockey stick 205 feet long. To make matters worse, Eveleth's stick began to crack and had to be taken down in 2001, a dark year for "Hockeytown USA."

But the town didn't give up. It learned that Canada's "hockey stick" wasn't a real stick at all, just a wooden sculpture bolted to the side of a building. Then, in 2002, Eveleth transformed the vacant lot into "Hockey Plaza" and unveiled a new hockey stick, three feet longer and 3,000 pounds heavier than the first one. "Big Stick" stands 110 feet tall, poised as if it's about to slap the world's largest hockey puck, which weighs 700 pounds. Eveleth politely calls it the World's Largest Free-Standing Hockey Stick, but in its heart believes that it's the largest stick, period.