Looking For A Pickup Hockey Game? There's An App For That

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- When it comes to the State of Hockey, there's arguably nothing more Minnesotan than playing outside.

There are 47 outdoor rinks just in Minneapolis alone. But finding someone to play with can sometimes be easier said than done. As David McCoy tells us, now there's an app for that.

"So it's just been a passion project to actually, kind of solve this," Morgan Putnam said.

Sometimes the best ideas are born out of frustration. For Morgan Putnam, growing up playing hockey in Edina, few things were more frustrating than this.

"You drive around rink to rink and no games, no games, no games, and you get to the fourth rink, and a game's just ending. And you're like, aw, if I'd only known, like, to come here first," Putnam said. :I kind of was like, oh, I know how to build this."

What Putnam has built is called "Co-Motion," a website to coordinate pick-up hockey games at the outdoor rinks. It just launched in January. It allows players, when they go to Co-Motion.us, the option of finding a game or creating one.

"Select today's date, then you go to the various rinks that you might be going to, so here we are in Edina, Countryside Park," Putnam said.

"So then basically what I'd do is I'd throw your email address and a couple other friends into the game, and so these people will all get a note saying, hey, come join this game," Putnam said.

So anybody that has a Co-Motion account, you can post a game, and anybody can see that? Or you can go on here and you can find a game anybody has posted? Is that right?

"Yeah, correct," Putnam said.

"Mostly what the website does is it helps people to find a game that meets their schedule, at a location that's near them," he said.

"You know, we're kind of approaching the end of winter, but definitely just trying to get the word out and get people using it," Putnam said.