OgieOgilthorpe

Nope, the overall average age of men’s hockey SRs is 24. That covers all players from all routes

The only top team that is worse this year is central. South is better, RR is better, WF is better, FN is better, and Davies is Flat. Out west I’d say 4 of the top 5 teams are down and Jamestown is up. Year over year MN teams vs ND teams record shows to be pretty similar. ND held the upper hand 4 seasons in a row until this year when MN won the series 23-22.

The average age for a NCAA college hockey SR is 24 years old.

Many many ND kids within the past 10 years have went D1 while staying through their SR year of HS. So obviously the talent level worked out just fine for them, No? Or doesn’t that count for your candy cock opinion? Are the top 8 teams in MN at a higher skill level than the top 8 in ND? Absolutely, no question. But If you averaged out the skill Level of the 250-300 MN teams into one and compared that to the averaged out skill of the 19 ND teams I know they’d be pretty dang similar. And every year the top 2 ND teams would fall within the top ten MN A teams no problem.

You’re a complete idiot who obviously knows nothing about NDHS hockey and hasn’t followed along at any point this season. Everyone knew this was coming in the first round (other than you) but everyone also knows that these are going to be some of the best semi finals we’ve seen in a decade. Any of these 4 teams could take the title and they’ve proven that by exchanging blows all year long. I can’t remember the last time there have been 4 legitimate teams in the mix like this. It’s exciting and is good for ND hockey. And not only that, there are another two teams at home right now (WF and FN) that probably had a decent shot at pulling off some upsets if they could’ve made the tournament. Unfortunately The majority of the time we know who the heavy favorite is or maybe have 2 teams with a good shot. So this change is welcomed. The East and West are typically a little unbalanced but this year is worse than ever before. I think the top 6 teams in the state are all from the East this season. Thankfully it should level off a little again next year. And within the last 10 years the west has faired quite well with 2 titles and 7 championship appearances. This year’s tournament is also exciting because it’s clear any of these 4 teams would hold their own in any state hockey tournament in the country. Even the lower class tournaments of MN and WI. None of them are at the elite level like central has been the past 2-3 years, but I also think central would’ve been a legitimate top 5 AA MN team the last few seasons which is arguably the best HS hockey in the nation. ND gets compared to MN all too often, and it makes people forget that MN towers over any other state’s numbers as well. ND actually fairs quite well, especially per capita for numbers, skill level and D1 production. And another thing— people often get blinded by the MNHS hockey tournaments and look down on NDHS hockey. But they forget that for every team in that MN tournament there are 20 teams at home and 15 of them are complete garbage who’d get run out of the EDC. Hence Wahp/breck going winless for many years and moving to MN and finding pretty decent success because there are 15 garbage teams in MN for every 1 elite. As for kids leaving, MN has problems of their own. They run into a lot of issues of the high skilled kids transferring to other elite HS teams. It creates a tradition for 85% of the teams of being bottom dwellers. For instance, Crookston has NEVER in their history made it to the state tournament.

Nelson from Williston even had a decent tenure with Mankato.

Oh wow, I didn’t realize it was so recent. What about before that? Haha

When’s the last time Jamestown made it to state?

Miller kid from grafton ditched his buddies to drive to GF everyday to play for central. I’d never recruit a kid like that.

Yeah it sucks. Many have proven that you can play through your SR year and still get a D1 scholarship and yet it still happens constantly. I’d be willing to bet that more D1 players from ND finished their SR than not. And yes that even includes kids from the West.

Exact same thing for 8th grader from DL to South in Boren. Freshman now and doing really well

We could play that game all night. Not all D1 caliber players, but every single team is missing guys to JRs or transferring

Blow out, major blow out, semi blow out and blow out. Tough year for the west

They’ve won the hockey town USA award like 5 years in a row

He was for several years as far as I know. Is that not correct?

Brown was the president of Altru for how many years and left it falling apart, holding on by a thread. He was also the mayor of Grand Forks for how many years and drove the community into the ground... Common theme here is that Brown was a obvious mistake to be holding the helm at the 2 most important positions of the community for so many years. Blows me away that he won in 2016, and I’ll be flabbergasted if he wins again in 2020. Wake up Grand Forks

Oh, but hey, Davies is no good...currently taking central down the the wire just like EGF did. But ND hockey sucks.

Thank god panzer switched to EGF to play against the highly touted Crookston team...because those RR and Central games weren’t competitive enough.

Maybe bubba will have them punt on 1st down this drive

I’m 100% with you on this and share your frustration. It’s getting worse every single year. Even when there are examples of kids who stayed through their SR in both the east AND west and made it D1. Then the large majority of these kids who leave early to sit on the bench of a crap jr team and kill their careers. Hard to comprehend what these parents are thinking by pushing their kids out early to ruin their development. Why not stick around and learn how to be a leader of a team, score a ton of points and finish out high school with your lifetime friends. There’s plenty of time to go play hockey after that. I too often see kids leave too early get beat down and ruin their development. if you’re good enough, they’ll find you anywhere.

Any score updates from opening night? Sounds like central game is close?

Debatable. Even if they have a blow out win today their chances are still sub 25% to get a playoff spot. Look at all the other teams in the mix and tell me the committee won’t have a bias away from UND

How do they consistently crumble In tight games like this. It’s so predictable

That’s Honestly more likely than UND scoring again.

Letting 2-8 UNC put 40 on you is enough to keep you out of the playoffs. And it will, even if they win next weekend. Just watch