OgieOgilthorpe

I smell 15 undefeated state championship seasons for Grafton playing in that A level.

Between the very tough times at UND, the downfall of Altru, the undeniable closure of the mall and other failed businesses in Grand Forks, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Minot community might be looking stronger than GF for the first time in a LONG time. UND and Altru are pillars of that community, and when they're failing everything else in the community eventually feels the burn as well, and it's showing. The mess at the Herald and the closure of WDAZ are smaller issues but just add to the pile. Is it true the Alerus Center is also a large financial burden? I've heard it's constantly upside down financially.

I would love for this to happen, and I agree that more Jr. Gold teams would finally switch over to HS hockey if it did happen. That Jr. Gold league has been broken for a while now. Plus maybe even Whap would come back? Unfortunately I think there are still quite a few kinks in the plan that makes it more complicated than it seems. But I also see a lot of positives to it as well! -If the Jr. Gold league did fold due to the 2 tier HS league, then GF and Fargo would lose their teams and a lot of kids would miss out on being able to play hockey after 9th grade. Although, Fargo Shanley+OG and South might be able to split back up eventually due to the higher numbers. -In 1A the travel distances would get pretty extensive, especially if some of the Jr. Gold teams did join. 2A travel would actually get better, outside of extra trips to MNPLS to play possibly - I see a lot of AA teams and A teams ending up scheduling each other a lot anyway. But with this new setup, the more elite teams could have the freedom to schedule more out of state games. Keeping the league game number low would keep the freedom of scheduling high. -Would the A/AA split be by enrollment or skill level or? Teams like Mandan, Dickinson, Williston, WFS, and Jamestown+VC will fit the bill for AA but will fit in much better competitively in A. Same goes for some of the weaker Fargo/WF teams that seem to rotate. Then teams like Grafton and Devils Lake will often fit in much better AA but will have enrollment numbers for A. This is a common problem everywhere for every sport, but it's just something to think about. - Any time there is a top tier player from any of the A teams, they're surely going to transfer to a AA school or even out of state while they're at it. Which would really hurt the morale and tradition at some of these schools bound to be put in the A pool. If 1A has an enrollment maximum and AA has no minimum, then quite a few schools are going to push to be AA. Who would want to drive their program downward by losing their best players to AA schools and by having to play less competitive teams? MN has the luxury of having enough schools in each league to help minimize some of this, but in ND it would end up being a pretty big swing between the 2 leagues eventually. In MN both A and AA teams are able to hold onto players and traditions just because of the sheer numbers in each level...ND would not have that luxury, and would eventually be turning 1A into a JV league essentially.

LAWLZ, Brazil

Oh boy, here we go (no pun intended)!

If Central can start getting more 6 point games scheduled and maybe drop the Christmas tournament, that would free up 4-5 more games for them to play some 2A MN teams. This year would've been the year to do that though.

When you have more total teams in Minnesota than ND has players I would hope they would have more depth. Central is pretty special this year and would be right up there with Hermantown, St Cloud Cath and Minnetonka, but we'll never know. One thing I do know is that for every elite team MN HS hockey has, it has 6 REALLY poor programs.

Did he move just for hockey?

Better yet, they had to cancel 2 games due to repetitive bad weather, otherwise they'd most likely be into the 200+ range by now.

Just a reminder of my predictions First Round: This might be the best First round I have seen in awhile. The E1 vs W4 will always be ugly, and probably wouldnt have been AS bad if it would've been J-town but somehow Mandan squeaked in. Central 12 vs Mandan 0 ------ Central will be trying hard not to make it worse than this Bismarck 2 vs South-Shanley 4 --------This should be a tight one but SS has improved a lot in the last 2 months, I just don't see High getting past them. RR 3 vs Century 4 ---------This should be another great game, but Century is proving to be a top 3 team in the state and RR has only shown flashes. Davies 7 vs Minot 2 ------- Minot has played strong as of late, but their scoring abilities have limited their potential. It's also hard to ignore the lonnnnnng history of Minot blowing up at State.

My guess was 12. And you're really using a game against Mandan as proof that GF plays well outside of GF. Nice

What a slaughter bin. You’re just loving this aren’t you gfhockey

Fargo-wanna-be-metro Fargo-wanna-be-mnpls One of those right?

Not to Mention Minot and BHS winning back to back titles before Central went on this run. That was only the West's 2nd and 3rd title, so that proves recent strength. Century being in the ship last year was also a first. If Minot and Bismarck can convince their kids to stick around longer, the west will get even better.

I hear this all the time and I completely disagree that the quality of ND HS hockey has declined. 100% You're simple minded if you see Central's domination and just chalk it up to everyone else sucking instead of actually paying attention to the HS hockey world. Central playing at such an elite level has masked the overall skill of ND high school hockey the past few seasons and especially this year which has caused people to just think the rest of ND is just down. Central would be a top tier 2A MN team this season no doubt and I think the next top 3 teams in ND would be top tier in MN 1A this season. Orono and EGF have both been ranked in the top 10 for 1A all season long, both cracking the top 5 at one point in the season. Central pummeled them by a combined score of 23-3. Any other season outside of the last 3, I think Davies and Century would have been state champion teams but the unprecedented elite Central teams have, and will again this year, keep that from happening. Hopefully things shift next year. ND has never produced as many D1 hockey players as consistently as they have in the last 5 years and it's increasing every single year judging by all the young commits and so many underclassman leading these varsity squads. Even outside of Grand Forks, kids from Bismarck(multiple), Williston, Minot (multiple), Devils Lake, Grafton(multiple) , Fargo (multiple) have all been playing d1 hockey at the same time recently. That has NEVER happened before. 10-15 years ago ND would produce 1 or maybe 2 d1 hockey players (sometimes 3-4 max) that would be playing at the same time and were rarely top 10 players on their teams. Yes there were some outlier years here and there, but generally, ND was barely producing d1 players, especially legitimate d1 players, and even went years having zero d1 players. Today ND is seeing 8-12 kids playing d1 hockey at the same time and quite a few of them have been and are key players. I only see this increasing judging by how many young ND kids who are already committed to d1 schools. Not to mention the AA bantam league picking up momentum, which I'd argue is going to be a collegiate player factory. Of the entire 101 year existence of the NHL, ND (born in) has only produced 15 players to play in at least 1 career game. Just this season 2 of them have seen time and scored points while two others are right on the fringe by playing in preseason NHL games and being in the AHL . I see the total NHL number rising to 20 ND born players within the next 5 years.

Although this GFC team is unreal and probably the best ever in ND history, I highly doubt they will match the feat of the 04 Central team (02, 03 or 04?) that went the entire tournament without getting scored on. They lost a few games that season, but that's a pretty impressive feat

Pretty reasonable conversation considering this GFC team is one of the overall best, if not THE best team ND has ever seen... playing against one of the worst teams to make the State Tournament for as long as I can remember. U.G.L.Y. GF aviators would beat this Mandan team 5-0

Under 75 but I'll take the over on 12 goals.

And then it will move it's way up from level to level after that. It's only a matter of time

Second Round: Not even sure why I'm doing this when we all know what's going to happen no matter what anyhow. Central 6 vs South-Shanley 1 Century 3 vs Davies 5 Final Round: Again... 5th place: Red River 3 vs BHS 2 3rd place: Century 6 vs South-Shanley 3 Championship: Central 5 vs Davies 3

First Round: This might be the best First round I have seen in awhile. The E1 vs W4 will always be ugly, and probably wouldnt have been AS bad if it would've been J-town but somehow Mandan squeaked in. Central 12 vs Mandan 0 ------ Central will be trying hard not to make it worse than this Bismarck 2 vs South-Shanley 4 --------This should be a tight one but SS has improved a lot in the last 2 months, I just don't see High getting past them. RR 3 vs Century 4 ---------This should be another great game, but Century is proving to be a top 3 team in the state and RR has only shown flashes. Davies 7 vs Minot 2 ------- Minot has played strong as of late, but their scoring abilities have limited their potential. It's also hard to ignore the lonnnnnng history of Minot blowing up at State.

Miracle on Ice wouldnt even cut it. GFC's JV team would pump Mandan 5 or 6-0.

I’m seeing this as a blessing In disguise. Now with no goalie they’ll get skull f’d the rest of the season so there will be heavy pressure for change. I was worried they might bleed this along and just barely miss the playoffs which would lead to another season of this next year.

Not only do the skaters consistently score on Thome and Scheel they now also hurt them.

I’m not sure he does.