Brim006

You are correct, and that's the unfortunate reality of the game today.

I'm sorry, I'll admit I just made the assumption that the boys team was the same story as the girls. Which it sounds like it's not! My bad With the girls team, I have seen girls leave for there and asked how that even works. And was told that the girls coaches call around to poach top tier girls to come play for them and they typically offer a MW job that's already lined up to ensure a smooth transition etc. If that is just the girls team doing that, then I spoke out of line. If Warroad boys have been producing such competitive teams year after year with zero imports in that small of a town, that is super impressive.

We can agree to disagree. And I will admit that it's wrong of me to consolidate all cases/scenarios into 1 single opinion on the topic, so I'll do better at that. If someone is moving due to a career move, or other family reasons, that's completely different. Or if the home team and town isn't all warm and fuzzies with lifelong best friends, that's also completely different. I was only referring to the families that move solely for getting their kid onto a better team or league, which is the most common scenario. And unfortunately, more often than not, the kid has no business moving to JRs or moving to a better team since he/she hasn't even mastered their own league let alone team yet. Even then, I would never advocate for bullying them to stay or when they arrive somewhere new. I just think it's a gross culture, and I know it's a parent culture not a kid culture, because it's typically the parent's ego making the decision, not the kid's. In the certain instances where the family moves solely to get onto a better team or better league, we have all seen that the majority of the time it does little to nothing to benefit the kid's experience or development. Forcing them to quit on their lifelong friends to play with a new group sends a bad example on and off the ice character wise IMO. Why not stay, push yourself to be a leader, gut it out and get better, rather than bail and join a gravy train playing 3rd line. Moorhead's Mason Kraft made a point to speak on the importance of this exact topic during his championship speech. If the parents are delusional enough to truly think altering their entire life by moving away while their kid is in his prime high school fun years just to be on a better team of strangers, and that's really going to get them D1 offers they normally wouldn't have gotten, or will be their ticket to the NHL, so be it I guess. I must just be more of a realist I guess, so it all seems so bizarre to me. You couldn't have paid me to leave my friends even when I knew we would be mediocre. I would have looked back at that as a failure and it would have bugged me forever. Now if a kid leaves for a USHL offer, NTDP offer, or obviously has nothing left to gain from high school hockey, then again those are a different story. If I was a recruiter, I'd pick the kid who stuck it out and got better and made his teammates and friends better, over the kid who quit when the going got tough and took the easy route of just joining a better team. The NBA superstar teams and the transfer portal are extremely unpopular, and the same culture ramping up in high school sports is concerning to me. That's why I'm surprised I get so much flack on this board for this opinion. We have seen what all these moves do to high school hockey overall. Some of the smaller towns and smaller teams can't recover from losing 2-3 of their best players. Some of the bigger teams backfill with slight downgrades no problem, which isnt as big of a deal. But overall it has hurt the parity everywhere, but especially in ND. GPR, DL, BOTT, Bismarck etc etc. They have all lost dozens of players to transfers or early departures over the recent years and havent been competitive because of it. Some years they are just 1-2 players short of having 2 solid lines and d pairs to be a competitive program. And then it snowballs.

It's not just the crown jewel of MN, it is the crown jewel of HS state tournaments in the country, and that includes state football in Texas which is insane. That's why the negative comments, jabs and comparisons to the ND hockey state tournament seem silly to me. ND is 1/8th the population for 1, and 2, we're comparing it to the largest and most watched HS tournament in the entire nation.

Neither are they for Warroad but they have MW to lean on to bring in imports. Their girls team alone had what 3-4 ND girls this season? 4-5 last year?

You've never even HEARD of it? Rhame is epic Side note, I think all North Dakotans should travel to every corner of the state at one point in their lives. There is a lot more variety and uniqueness across the state that most don't realize. I'm looking at your Fargoians...the road does in fact continue west past Mapleton

Kind of a chicken before the egg scenario. Do Langdon, WC, NW, and Crosby need to create hockey as high school sports to make the 2 classes a feasible option, or do the 2 classes need to happen first and the teams would switch over then? It seems to make sense, and would definitely grow the sport in the state, but I'm worried doing it with only 20 teams might be a stretch, and also wondering how hard it is for those smaller schools to start hockey as school sports? Or do we just need Minot North and Horace to start 2 classes? And how many teams can ND junior gold lose before the league folds and GF, Minot and Fargo lose overflow teams for hockey kids.

From what I can find, it appears Edina only has about 6 kids playing D1 currently. I thought it would be far more. But I'd imagine there are some other schools that have more, but so far I cannot find any schools that have more than GFC+RR who combine for 12 current. Minot currently has 5, but only 3 of those played at least 1 year at MHS. Still more than I would've guessed.

No one in their right mind would argue against it being an unbelievable tournament or atmosphere. It's the biggest and best tournament in the country by a long shot. I just think it's silly when people float the idea of ditching their communities to move across the river based on the idea of a single tournament. 1- because it's not a given, and most MN high school hockey players will never experience it 2. I dislike the importing and transferring school's culture that we see today.

Hmmm, I’d have to disagree there. “Grand Forks very rarely produces D1 talent like Moorhead”. I think grand forks kids just fly under the radar more for whatever reason. I think you’ll be surprised to hear there are CURRENTLY 12 grand forks kids playing D1…that’s pretty friggin impressive for a town of 60k with 2 smallish schools. I doubt Moorhead has that many? Probably more like 5-7? But I would guess Moorhead likely has more NHL players all time though? Here’s a list off the top of my of recent+current GF kids who have played D1 since 2010. Let me know if I missed any…there are a ton. Grant Johnson, Luke Johnson (NHL), Casey Purpur, Paul Ladue (NHL), Jon Lizotte (NHL), Montgomery (current),Montgomery (current), Kunz (current), Caulfield, Casey Johnson, William Lawson-Body(current), Will Howard(current), Cole Hanson(current), Brandon Holt (current), Kaleb Johnson(current), Mason Salquist (current), Lucas Kanta (current), Tucker Hodgsen(current), Panzer was born in GF but we won't count him (current), Mikey Coleman (next year), Cole Spicer, Johnny Simonson, Alex Simonson, Eric Meland, and many more.

Lolol. Make your kids ditch their friends, move your family to a different town and school, and pay higher taxes all just for the off chance of your kid potentially playing in a better state tournament maybe 1 time out of 3 years at best. Sounds like a great plan.

This seems pretty scorched earth, but I'm all for it. Nothing could get worse at this point. UND athletics as a whole is in complete shambles right now given the history and size of school...and that's not even mentioning the top tier facilities. I've lost interest in all programs as of a few years ago. Big changes would show they're serious about being relevant, and would pull folks like myself back in again. Look at the excitement around football already. Now imagine hockey and basketball if new coaching upgrades came in.

They played in the Warroad tournament instead this year. Last year they beat Gentry Academy, and beat Providence Academy Season before that they beat Holy Family and beat Roseau Season before that they lost to Gentry Academy Season before that they beat Warroad (1A) and lost to Roseau. Do you even follow hockey?

So...you are comparing the 2 grand forks teams beating 8 other teams for the EDC title more often than the 2 grand forks teams would beat all 80 other MN A teams for a state title as a comparison? Lol No, I was stating that the average EDC team is much more competitive than the average MN A across all 80 teams. And it's not close. You then mentioned 7A as a more specific comparison, which I agree is a better comparison since it's about the same number of teams and is fairly level across the board, but the EDC likely wins out most years there too despite 7A debatably being one of the more solid in MN outside of Hermantown and SCC powerhouses skewing those sections. MN A probably has 40-45 teams that are worse than Mayport. In fact, Mayport went 7-6-1 vs MN A this season and 6-4 vs MN A last season. So let's not confuse sheer numbers of teams with overall competitiveness. The EDC is probably pretty comparable to the top 25% MN A in reality. And the top 3 EDC teams are probably pretty comparable to the top 3 MN A teams every year, with MN A top 3 likely winning out most years. The majority of ND vs MN games are EDC vs MN A each season, and the record speaks for itself. 2023-2024 records = ND 26-14-0 2022-2023 records = ND 21-14-0 2021-2022 records = ND 21-13-2 2020-2021 records = ND 12-7-1 We can agree to disagree, but safe to say both GFC and RR would fit in better at AA than A. Because I'd say it's pretty reasonable to state that the top 3 EDC teams would consistently be top 10 MN A every year. I just think a lot of people get a false sense of MN superiority complex after watching their giant state tournament showcasing their best of the best of the 145 teams and with all the excitement and publicity that comes with it, I guess I can see how that can happen. So I can see how for some people it feels like that's how all the MN teams are across the board all year long. It's just emotional thinking. And It's easy to forget about all the other teams that are at home... a lot of which (at least of class A) are realllllly bad hockey teams. Once again, look at the success Wahp has finally found playing in MN A after decades of winless seasons in the EDC.

I'd say this year yes it was. And I'm not talking non-con games and full schedule comparison. I'm talking EDC vs 7A. Most years EGF goes 1-3 or 0-4 versus GFC+RR, and top dog Warroad is usually on par with them. Then the top 2-3 WF/Fargo schools are most often better than the rest of the 7A. Go look at past season scores and tell me I'm wrong. 7AA is a different story, but I'll never understand the 7A superiority complex when the direct scores speak for themselves.

RR has been scheduling a few top end AA MN games every year now and has typically beaten them. Plus the Bantam AA grand forks team has typically steam rolled the MN AA competition for 5+ years now. I think there's no question a combined GF team would easily be top 10 MN AA year after year and likely top 5 most often. I think a lot of years RR and GFC on their own would do really well, but neither would have this season.

agreed but Id say 8 out of 10

Clown comment. Because some kids and family's still have pride and commitment to playing for their hometowns. All this transfering and importing has gotten out of hand. It's gross in college and even worse to see it happening so often even in high school now. Plus the EDC is the same if not better competition than MN A. Most years it's a long shot for them to make it to state over Warroad etc so I'd say this year is def not the norm. Compare direct scores over the last 5 years if you disagree with that. EGF won the Gambucci for the first time in a decade this year.

Certainly lots of variations at play and this "study" was pretty anecdotal, but with that said I'd imagine if you changed it to NHL instead of D1 it would just favor the HS route further. How do you think it would flip? That's essentially saying kids that don't make it D1 are more likely to get to the NHL than kids that play D1....so I'm confused on your thoughts there. Unless you think kids that leave early go major juniors more often or something.

First time EGF has won the Gambucci cup in 9 or maybe 10 years so it's been a rough go for the MN side.

You'd better post it a 4th time just to make sure lol. Low IQ mouth breather confirmed. I have no high school players of my own, so I have no skin in the game there, but I am a lifelong North Dakotan and heavily involved in the hockey community. And I just have to point out BS when I see it. And your type of attitude contributes to why we see parents ship their subpar kids off early to fighting leagues to ride the bench instead of playing alongside their lifelong friends representing their towns and schools. It's a lose lose for both parties every single time unless the kid has clearly and obviously mastered the level and has strong opportunities to move onto (USHL, NTDP, or mayyyyyybe NAHL).

Not to pick on this comment in particular, as there are many here and often....but I'll never understand the constant bashing of NDHSH skill and/or competitiveness, especially by our own peers. How and why has it become common place here and around the local hockey community for so many to openly bash our own state and our own kids+programs? "Shallow wading pool of talent".... compared to what, NAHL, Junior As? Because as far as high school hockey goes, I'd argue that the average skill level of NDHSH players hangs around with the best average in the country for high school. As far as sheer numbers, yes there are states that have nearly as many varsity teams as ND has total varsity players, so obviously they are going to produce more next level players in total, but I think you'd be surprised if you looked at percentages instead. I think too many folks get blinded by sheer numbers and just directly correlate that to better hockey, especially when they only watch the final games of the year between the top 5% compete at the neighboring state tournament and just assume that's the norm across the board for all teams and conferences all year long. They forget about the other 95% not on TV and especially forget about the bottom 25% who couldn't beat a single ND team outside of HB, and get steam rolled by Wahp/Brek, Mayport and GPR every year. GF has proven to be the top hockey community in the state, but their bantam AA team proves year after year that they're also one of the top in all of MN as well. Same goes for off-season select teams. If 2 states with exactly equal average skill level both have to create select teams, but one has to skim the top 20 off the top out of 400, and the other skims the top 20 off the top out of 4,000, who's going to have a better team? One team's top 2 players are going to be matched by the others entire 20. Watching that game might make it appear one state is a much better hockey state, but across the board they're actually the exact same. I understand we're all entitled to our own opinions, but I wish more people would step back and look at the bigger picture. This negative and false reputation we've created ourselves about our own local hockey has had a direct negative impact in actually worsening our own local hockey. Many parents have heard and believed these negative perceptions, which has probably contributed in their decision to move their kids away early. This has suppressed top-end talent here which has probably snow-balled to worsen things even further. I think we can do better, and could wear a little more pride here IMO.

Mattern might not get the record now that they won. Tough game tonight and tough game tomorrow whether they win or lose. 7 points to beat the record might be tough. I hadnt seen him play much until the state highlights. Every goal was a breakaway. I was surprised how free he was on 1 of them especially. He legitimately had 1/2 the rink of space on one. Does he score much NOT on fast breaks? He won't be able to rely on that at the next level so that would be a little bit of a concern for long term ceiling for him.

DL 4 Mayport 3 FINAL OT Mayport came a long way from the beginning of the year.

Yeah they have found their stride. Beat Bott, Beat WFS and now taking DL down to the wire at their first ever EDC. Nice addition to the state if they can keep their numbers! Assuming they have some Hillsboro kids?