A great palace of a store has arisen in Eden Prairie. SCHEELS has just reopened with a quarter million square feet to shop in, 85 specialty departments in all. SCHEELS feels as much like an amusement park as it does a place to shop for sporting goods, clothing, toys, camping gear and virtually everything else an active Minnesotan could wish for. They offer a shopping experience with the zeal of Willy Wonka.
It is heartening to see a SCHEELS from the outside, an aspiring tower in the prairie circled by bronze monuments to sports legends, and know that it all began in Minnesota. Frederick A. Scheel opened the first store that would bear his name in Sabin, Minnesota in 1902. The German immigrant plowed $300 he had made in the potato fields into a little hardware store, and the rest followed. Today SCHEELS has nearly 30 locations, including the largest sporting goods store in the world – in Texas, naturally.
SCHEELS continues to impress before you enter. A 16 thousand gallon saltwater aquarium forms the store’s entryway, replete with bright corals and hundreds of tropical fish. Electric blues and yellows and reds dart up and down columns and around the ceiling itself. One particular fish seemed out of place, but I was informed it was in fact the diver who maintains the tank.
Tropical fish are very nice, but what would a sporting goods store be without a Ferris wheel? The ride rises 45 feet tall in SCHEELS’ airy concourse, glowing with lights as it turns under a plate glass roof. From this vantage point I spotted Fuzziwig's, an old-fashioned candy shop brimming with sweet things. Inside a little girl used tongs to pluck up cellophane-wrapped gems. Her nearby mother eyed fudge.
SCHEELS is full of things for children to adore. A giant Lego statue of Viktor the Viking stands watch over the Lego department, surrounded by a thoughtfully placed barrier against little hands that might try to loosen his bootlaces. A video arcade, an increasingly rare thing, bleeps and bloops beyond Viktor. Here is something remarkable that I hadn’t seen in ages – an animatronic plinking gallery, the kind where you hit the little target under the bear to make him start frantically picking the banjo.
I had not expected to meet Football Hall of Famer John Randle at SCHEELS. Well, his robot proxy at least, set to come to life and dispense a champion’s words of wisdom as you approach. Just next to him stands hockey legend Herb Brooks, Mister Miracle on Ice himself. I will remember what he told me if I ever compete in the Olympics.
Growing up in New England I was always excited to go shopping at Ames with my mother, who I knew would give me a quarter to spend at the plastic egg vending machine. I don’t know if my little heart could have handled a wonderland like SCHEELS. Hands down, this is the best store to take your kids to. But that’s to say nothing about what you can shop for!
SCHEELS’ selection of sporting goods could fill this and the next five issues of Eden Prairie Lifestyle. Whatever sport you play, the store has got every preeminent brand’s best equipment to play it with. In a stroke of brilliance there is a separate entrance for cyclists to bring their bikes through for repair, and even a synthetic ice skating rink to test out new skates on. My tailbone ached just looking at it.
I, an aristocrat, naturally gravitated toward the golf clubs. There a sales rep welcomed me to test out a futuristic driver in an equally futuristic golf simulator. I had my suspicions before, but this feat of technology proved absolutely that I am terrible at golf. The sales rep was gracious and sympathetic.
The outdoor activity departments gave the perfect refuge to nurse my pride in. Here is an extensive collection of animal mounts and trophies, from the majestic elk to the ever so slightly less majestic muskrat. Browsing the camping section I could plan my autumn excursion to the Boundary Waters, and I found a grill by Traeger that should be in my backyard.
SCHEELS carries an extensive selection of products named after men like Remington, Ruger and Browning. I was happy to find ammunition from Federal Premium, who are headquartered just down the road from us in Anoka.
SCHEELS is a destination for the well-dressed Minnesotan as well. They have clothes to train in by brands like Nike, Under Armour, Patagonia and Champion, but also styles to wear when you don’t mean to break a sweat. SCHEELS apparel perfectly nails that style I like to call “lake cabin chic,” and their own Eden Ruth line of professional wear covers the basics from blazers to pants.
By this point I could only gush about SCHEELS when I met Jason Heintz, the Eden Prairie location’s store leader. Most of all I wanted to know why the sales rep I had met earlier seemed so much more invested in my shopping experience than usual.
“We love to hire people with passion,” said Jason. “When you come to SCHEELS for a fishing rod, we want a fellow angler to help you out. The guy who showed you that driver is actually an avid golfer and loves to get out on the course. These are people who know our products inside and out because they use them during their free time.
“We also have a program called SCHEELS University, where our staff joins industry experts to test out new equipment in the field. You might imagine the University is pretty popular with our sales reps, who get to go away for four or five days at a time to try out kayaks, wakeboards, fishing rods, and rifles. And when they get back, they can tell our guests how they’ve used everything in their departments before.
“We are not a typical big box store. Sure, it’s great to have everything you could want all in one place – especially during the pandemic when you might not want to drive to several different stores. But we’re also an employee-owned company with strong ties to the local community. We give back more than ten percent of our profits to local charities and other nonprofit organizations, which lets us make Eden Prairie a better place than we could as a sporting goods store alone.”
Scheels is located within the Eden Prairie Center at 8301 Flying Cloud Dr. You may learn more about them, browse online, and order curbside pickup at scheels.com.