Brim006

I get the point and like the idea of shaking things up a bit, but I'll poke some holes in it right off the bat. NDHSH already has a common complaint or even "problem" of not getting enough games in a season with a max of 27. Auto-bid to state is great other than losing 11% of your games and having to lose any momentum by not playing during tournament time. So maybe the same idea/premise, but the top 2 from each conf just get a 1st game bye or something max, or just are rewarded by top seed and home ice 1st round and bump the bottom 2 out. Your setup would likely fulfill the long questioned East vs West setup bottlenecking 4 east teams to state in years when 6-7 of them are top 8 in the state. The way you have it set above, it looks like this year's state tournament would end up being 5 east teams and 3 west teams most likely.

Hehe. The comment right before his was referencing the seeding and cross bracketing for elimination games at the conference tournaments. The setup definitely has it's cons, but overall it seems to work fine. I do think the WDA should follow the EDC and give the higher seed home ice advantage for the 1st game which gives a little extra boost in reward for placing top 4. Plus having 2 days break before the final 2 games seems to elevate the speed of the games.

Yeah let's do that! Lose and you're out! So then the WDA would only bring 1 team to state and EDC would only bring 1 team to state. Seems like a phenomenal idea, let's try it

It appears that #5 vs #6 spot didn't really make much of a difference, as both DL and FN have to beat WF or Davies one way or another to make it to state anyways. DL maybe peaked a tiny bit early and WF seems to be on fire. As of today, it appears that the #6 seed has a slightly more favorable route than #5 does. Mayport should be a little more beatable than GPR and FD should be more beatable than WF.

Mattern is sitting at 79 points with 2 guaranteed games remaining, with the possibility of up to 6. If he continues his average of 3.76 points per game and is able to get his team to all 6 games, it looks like he could beat the all-time single season scoring record by 2 points. Although that would be cool, I just don't forsee him being able to maintain that pace through the postseason even if WF does make state and plays all 3 games there. Morelli is also technically on pace to have the most points from a Minot player in about 20 years. Currently at 61 and needs 76 to beat Wilert from 2005. He will likely end up around 8th or 9th highest points in a single season since 2000.

This is funny to me. Youth hockey numbers are higher than ever across ND. AA is just a new optional label for some A teams and A is a mix of A and B and B is the new C. GF bantam AA prove to be one of the best in the nation by being top 5 year after year in Bantam AA. And they lose to some of the other ND AA teams as often as the MN teams.

Sounds like Legacy isn't messing around and are bringing their full normal varsity roster for this 6-point game.

And the Cenex in Westby is actually on the ND side of the border

Another example was Wahp/Brek who played in the EDC for many many years and half their team was MN kids. Now they play in MN A West Central, and do FARRRRRR better than they ever did in the EDC, but half their team is still ND kids.

Step 1 - ignore all community input and popular opinion to instead just check with big dog business owner buddies in the good ole boys club Step 2 - Conspire ideas with that good ole boys club to best squash the casino plans Step 3 - if that fails, force public works to schedule 4-5 year road construction all around the casino Step 4 - if that also fails, funnel money to Fargo/Moorhead to help them build their own larger version in hopes Canadians and others bypass GF for Fargo Step 5 - if that also fails, increase GF city taxes by 550% to build another crappier casino in the Columbia mall, and to build several more banks, car washes and mattress stores. Step 6 - disband any/all road safety restrictions to ensure potato and beet farmers no longer have to have top cages on their hauling trailers to further litter the road ways with beets and potatoes in hope to deter any outside traffic anywhere in the community all together.

Gotcha thanks. For DL, beating FSS to continue momentum will alone be important, but the boost of facing Davies instead of hot WF in the 1st round of EDC could make a huge difference for state tournament chances too. That last second goal for DL against FN could turn out to be their biggest goal of the season if they win tomorrow. EDC 1-3 should all be pretty safe bets for state but that 4th spot will be up for grabs for anyone 4-8.

for the 5-6 spots, it looks like if DL beats FSS, they will be tied with FN for 5th place both with 21 points. And it looks like DL and FN split their games and both won by the same margin. Anyone know what the 3rd tie breaker metric is?

Another shut out for Forsberg. 28 save shut out this time. He's running a .945 save percentage in their last 5 games. I'd imagine there are some coaches calling him at this point.

Not often are we missing a clear favorite in mid Feb. I think RR and WF are just as likely to win the ship as GFC or Minot are at this point. And even with that said, RR, WF and GFC will all have to bring their A game at EDC to even make it to the state tournament. This might be the tightest EDC tournament in quite some time. I wouldn't consider FN or Davies making it to state a fluke by any means. WFS, FSS or DL squeaking in would call for some decent upsets, but not miracles. This should make for a fun home stretch!

I ran the box of a consolation round Squirt C game a few weekends ago and I thought I was going to get shanked for accidentally making the score 3-1 instead of 2-1 for probably a full 15 seconds. I instantly realized I added 2 goals instead of 1 and was working on fixing it and about got bull rushed by the coaches and fans . I'm doing a few 10U girls game this weekend, and I might wear kevlar. People are friggin nuts.

Did Asheim play for Bott or play for BHS that season? I always recall hearing Peluso's linemate had 98 points and he had 99 which is why I ask. How many points did Phillion have that year, and was he a SR?

I was trying to figure this out manually, thanks for posting. Happen to have one for the EDC?

Judging by youth numbers , it looks like Bismarck will be in a similar boat to today for at least another 3-4 years before there is some potential for major improvements. Bantams have 6 teams which will get bottlenecked into 3 varsity teams, but assuming the natural loss of a chunk of those kids they will probably field pretty similar to current between varsity and JV numbers. Peewees are sitting at 7 teams with full rosters, which will naturally tapper down to pretty similar to today as well. Consistent and steady but no real signs of vast improvement numbers wise. But man oh man, Squirts have 22 teams...Granted they are smaller teams, but still well over double of Peewees numbers. Roughly 275 skaters. There will likely be a pretty large drop off of kids that young all the way to high school but even if they lose half, they'll have about double of current Peewees and Bantams. That's still a long way down the road, but it's at least a good sign of the youth hockey growth with the additional sheet of ice and additional varsity team not bottlenecking numbers as bad anymore.

Well that isn't a very good comparison, because that would assume there were the same amount of people in Bismarck in 1990 as there are today, but now having to split that population of kids into 3 varsity teams instead of just 2 back then. But in reality, the Bismarck MSA population has grown by 50,000 people in that span, and only added 1 varsity program. So technically there's actually far more people and far more kids per varsity team today with 3, than there was per varsity team in 1990 even with only 2. I think the overall popularity of hockey booming has just made it so much harder for kids to get to the D1 level. In fact, just since 2000 the USA hockey numbers have grown by nearly 250%, yet the number of D1 hockey teams has only grown by a handful. That has drastically reduced the chances for kids to make it to that level today versus 25-35 years ago. Yet, we still see 2-3 ex WDA players playing D1 level hockey each season, which shows despite the massive increase of competition and reduced chances, Bismarck and ND hockey in general has still kept pretty good pace on producing those level of players, but just not as likely to have 3 on the same line and 4-5 on the ice at the same time anymore. It's just the reality of the sheer numbers of hockey players today versus early 90s.

Because of the trend of kids leaving early?

crap...those suck. SOO easy to re-tweak. They commonly nag for many many months.

Mattern is currently sitting at 71 points in 19 games, with 2 reg season games left to go. At his current pace (3.74 pts per game) he will end the regular season with around 78+. He's guaranteed 2 games at EDC, likely 3, so assuming 3 games...that puts him around 90 points. If WF makes state and plays all 3 games, then he'd roughly finish with around 101 points which would beat the all-time record...and doing it in the EDC versus WDA to boot. Lots of ifs there, but technically he has a chance. 1. Needs to continue his pace every game 2. They need to make state, and win at least 1 of their first 2 games at state to ensure playing 3 games If WF makes state, I think that alone makes the trip to watch state worthwhile.

No clue on the all-time EDC record. The online stats only go back to 2004. But I believe the 99 point season by Peluso in his Jr season still stands as the most in a season in the state history, granted that was WDA and I'm just speaking EDC here for the Mattern stats. Historically the rough rule of thumb has been a 25% points adder for playing in the west. For instance, that historic season of Peluso getting 99 points would have been more like 74 points had he played it in the East.

I know DL does some goalie specialized training sessions for all ages , but there must be a lot more of it than I realize. It seems like the boys have an all-state goalie every 2-3 years and have the top goalie in the state every 5-6.

Looks like Mattern is well on his way to shatter the highest goal total in the EDC in the past 20 years (45) and the total points in the EDC in the past 20 years (85).