ND Pride

I had seats far from the student section but at one game a group of drunken, I assume Sioux students by their age, walked around the an upper concourse chanting "F---- the Gophers" between periods. Now, Sioux fan or not how do you explain that behavior to small children. How many people think that shows good "spirit" should be allowed? In my opinion it is a disgrace to the team and the university.

I feel sorry for Phil, he deserves better than this.

Weisgarber and Galt were not drafted last year into the USHL or during the futures draft which I think was in August or September. This year's USHL draft, I believe, is in May. I believe Paul is interested in playing juniors next year and I would guess will certainly get that opportunity. I am unsure of Erick Galt's intentions but I think it would be crazy to pass up the opportunity and I would bet he will get some offers (USHL, NAHL). Here is the list of players in the USHL futures draft: http://www.ushl.com/draft/2005/resultsFutures2005.cfm

QB Eagles #7, I did not say that his stock was lowered - you said that. I said his "stock would be improved." As previously noted, I think he is a very good goalie - and his stock or status as a player is high. The role of a goalie is to stop the puck and any goalie who stops a penalty shot is going to impress. He missed that opportunity. It does not matter that it was the first game of the season - it is not an issue of conditioning or team play but basic play in a situation most every goalie faces every day in practice. Many teams even finish with the penalty shot or one shooter skating in on the goalie drill. The advantage is to the shooter so any goalie that can stop one creates one of the "defining moments" of the season. What people remember is that he was beat on the play and it does not matter if the call was legit or not because the issue is - he did not stop it. Again, he is a good goalie and deserves a lot of credit for his play this season. He just missed one of the many opportunites he will have this season to reinforce his status as a quality player. It was one play - there are many more to come this season - many more potential "defining moments" that will add up to who the best candidates are for Mr. Hockey. I agree with you that it would be stupid to point at one play when looking at a season long award and that is why I said, "He (Rosendahl) could still come up big." By "big" I mean accumulating enough "defining moment" performances to earn a major hockey award - All Tournament State, EDC, Mr. Hockey, etc.

I can't pull a #5 team out of the mess of teams in the middle. Clearly South is at the top right now followed by Red River and Grafton. I would put Minot next although I am not convinced that they would end up fourth in the state at the end of the season. Hillman is stong for Bismarck but their defense gave up 54 shots against South and they could not hold off Devils Lake in a 3-2 loss. The west is a big question mark with the exception of Minot. There are some good goalies around the state but I have not seen the level of performance in important games to rate a nomination for Mr. Hockey. Hillman probably comes closest for his effort against South - but he is a junior. There are plenty of big games to play and one of them could merit such a nomination based on future performances. Rosendahl could have improved his stock if he would have stopped Marc Harrie's penalty shot. He could still come up big.

Ryan lives in West Fargo and is a rep for some sort of medical equipment or medically related company. He is also an assistant hockey coach at North High School in Fargo.

I agree that there could be some significant movement in the east region standings as the season winds down. Central still has their 4 point game with Wahpeton and that will give them a nice bump. West Fargo has not yet played Grafton so they have a home and away series which will be tough as well as South and Red River. West Fargo had close games with Central and North so it could be interesting. Shanley was off to a reasonable early start but still has a 4 point with South and a number of other tough games ahead. Regarding Gillen's ranking of West Fargo as fifth in the state I think that is soft just like his listing of Shanley in the "other" category under the teams he rates. It makes for interesting discussion. We will see which teams step up in the second half of the regular season.

My feelings exactly. I could run off the names of 10-12 kids - Adam Campbell, Andy Dittus, Andrew Petersen, etc. Most everyone is a step below those kids as you say. Nice to have some consensus on something.

If someone has the Central/Grafton score tonight it would be great if you could share it.

On the topic of the best players - one way to "explore" that topic is to look at the rosters posted for Elite I and Elite II for this past fall. That would be a great starting point plus, those players have some coaching consensus as to their skill as opposed to someone's opinion on this board. People from the east will have difficulty evaluating people from the west because we don't see all of the teams. In addition, as even those in the west would admit, the overall quality tends to be lower and indicators such as goals and assists do not mean that much. A few weeks ago I calculated how many west teams beat east teams in inter-region games and the east has won almost every game. That does not mean that the west has no quality players but it does show that from a team standpoint the overall strength is not there. At this point in the season I would rate Paul Weisgarber and Erick Galt at the top end. I also think both Campbells and Marc Mihulka are looking good. All tournament teams are based on performance in the tournament so it does not make much sense to speculate on that. There are a lot of kids who could rise up and do a great job in the east/west region tournaments or state and do well. I could toss out 10 or more names but it is so speculative as to be nearly meaningless. List nearly every goalie - because many of them could have a hot streak.

You are welcome. Sorry I had to cut it short.

DaveK, with all due respect, to make the kind of analysis that you are trying to make requires more analytical resources than what you are providing. Let me say at the outset that it would be best for hockey in North Dakota if there was more parity and one area (East) or one town (Grand Forks) did not win most of the titles. I don't live in Grand Forks so I am not an apologist for their success, in the past. Every year is a new year I would leave it at that and forget about the speculations about the future. Cohorts of quality players appear in some cities/schools and they have success then the program falls back (Minot - one title in 1992). South won in 94 and again in 99 but had a stretch where they did not even go to state despite the numbers they have. My personal opinion is that there are too many variables involved to make futuristic predictions. For example, (remember - I am not from Grand Forks) - Red River could have won two more titles - in 2002 and 2003 - sorry but I do not mean disrespect to Grafton who won in 2002 and Central who won in 2003. After the 2001 season Danny Irmen and Ryan Potulny went to juniors and had great success. Had they stayed Red River might have had two more titles. My point - simply that any program (South, Central, North, Minot, Red River, etc) can come up short on state titles because their top players leave early for juniors, or in the case of some kids, leave one high school for another (migrate from Minot to Red River, Shanley to South, West Fargo to wherever, North to Moorhead). Parents get transferred in their jobs - kids go to Shattuck or some other AAA program - and programs that might contest for a state title are left high and dry. Right now, with the presence of UND and the community culture for hockey Grand Forks will always be a key center in North Dakota for high school hockey. I hope other communities can step up and give them competition because players improve with quality competition not lopsided victories. Finally, you mention the similaries between Red River and South 20-25 years ago - well, when I look at the data I see major differences (there is no D-1 hockey in Fargo, and there is a better hockey culture in Grand Forks) between them on that comparison. Grand Forks has been a hockey town and Fargo, regretfully, has been a town of hockey fragmentation - Patriots, Flyers, Raiders, the old park Board system, now Angels, the old Grizzlies splinter group - I've never seen such a mess - fragmented leadership in the past, etc. Hopefully things have and will improve but Fargo has had a lot of difficulty over the years with their hockey culture/organizations. It would make an interesting book. My conclusion - good luck to South this year. I am impressed with Red River's "reload" and they are a better than I thought they would be. I would focus on the present - it's hard enough to predict this season much less the next 2 or 3.

Stiouxy your line of thinking is right on. Those are the types of variables you have to look at to do a valid analysis. I think South was down this year in terms of the number of kids trying out - I think I heard about 60 but I am sure there are some South people here who can come up with a more accurate number. I think I heard that North had about 42 kids try out. Does anyone have data on the Grand Forks schools? This number issue is only part of the analysis. If it were only numbers then there would be no reason to explain the quality at Grafton or Roseau and Warroad (although with Warroad you could argue in-migration of quality players, or maybe "recruiting"), etc. Hockey culture is critical - that means tradition, dads who have played the game and know the game. Having UND in Grand Forks is also a tremendous asset as it provides kids with a high level of exposure to the sport. In addition, some of those Sioux players stay around the area and help with the youth programs - e.g. Rob Mihulka, Pierre Lamoureux, etc. Others like Bob Wedin (Sam's dad) played on state championship teams when they were in high school. There are a lot of people like that in Grand Forks and it is a tremendous resource. Grand Forks has the strongest hockey culture in the state. A lot of the discussion on this thread about the future is heavily speculative. So speculative as to be close to meaningless. I pointed out months ago on this board that if and when Fargo adds another southside public high school it will dilute the talent a ton. Shanley has already had some negative impact on local public schools in taking hockey kids out of the established schools. New programs give more kids an opportunity to participate and that is good. On the downside it makes it harder for any one or two teams to develop or maintain dominance. It would be great if all of the schools across the state had strong programs as it would be good for the sport and good for player development. Currently that is not the case. I am not from Grand Forks so this post is not intended to compliment the town where I live. I hope the second half of the season can be a productive one for all of the teams.

I have an answer to your question for the month of March. I know for sure that in March they will have their banquet and look at pictures and video of season highlights.

Hockeyman - the website wizard with four posts - after you have been around awhile you may learn that DaveK is out of high school, specifics does not go to south, and X2theZ does not live in Fargo. And personally, I am a high school hockey fan and I enjoy watching all the top players like Marc Mihulka, Paul Weisgarber, Thomas and Paul Campbell, Erick Galt and all of the others where ever they happen to play. On another topic, thanks to some great radio coverage I learned that South beat West Fargo 4-0 tonight.

Red River will play Roseau on 1/17 and East Grand on 1/31 (again - won their first encoutner 2-0). Central will play East Grand on 1/14 (again - lost their first encounter 0-5) and Warrroad on 2/7.

Does anyone have high school scores from around the state tonight? Bob Gillen's site indicated that Red River and Central were tied 1-1 at one point in the game.

Just to followup on the goalie stats issue - if you want to use stats as a basis for comparing players then it is best to standardize the analysis as much as possible to make the comparison valid ( apples to apples, etc). We can do that by comparing Goals Against for Red River, South, and Grafton goalies for EDC play only - controlling or standardizing on a "common" set of opponents. Just looking at goals against we have Sean Diechert first with 0.6 (3 goals scored on him), Rosendahl with 1.4 (7 goals scored on him), and Kringstad 1.8 (9 goals scored on him). Hillman has only played against South and had a 94.7% save percentage but let in 3 goals. Ell played against Jamestown and shut them out - assuming that Hillman would have done as well we would see him with a goals against of 1.5 in games against EDC teams - although only 2 games. My point with this is simply to point out that statistical calculations can be helpful to drawing conclusions but in some cases only gives the appearance of objectivity because of other factors that have not been taken into account in the analysis. Nothing against any of these players as they are all very accomplished. In the EDC, however, which is the most "scientific" way of calculating stats we have a different ranking of players than taking all games into account.

Eli Rosendahl - nice kid - he has the best statistics in the state right now. That proves....that he has the best statistics in the state right now. In my opinion he is a good goalie but just for the sake of analysis when analyzing statistics - if that is your basis for conclusions (e.g. top netminder) then you need to look at the underlying data that you use to calculate your statistics. I would not argue that South or Grafton have better goalies than Red River because I really don't care - but from an analytical perspective South and Grafton have played some teams that are tougher than those on Red River's schedule this year. South, as we all know, has played Moorhead and gave up 4 goals and also played in the Rochester Tournament against Minnesota competition - for what that's worth. Grafton has played Warroad and Osseo. Strength of schedule impacts statistics for goalies as well as other players on the team so I think if you are basing your conclusion totally on stats then you are on some soft ground in your conclusion. Rosendahl may well be the best goalie in the state - stats or no stats - I'm not sure. On the other hand the best goalie could be Hillman or Kringstad - it's too early to tell in my opinion. I think if it is true that the defensemen, especially the sophomores for Red River are as good as some say they are then it will be harder for Rosendahl to show how good he is - as would be the case for any goalie with good d-men in front of him. It will be interesting to see who ends up as the top goalie in the state as the season winds down - if that question can even be meaningfully answered given the many variables (quality of team mates, strength of schedule, etc) involved in determining who is the best.

First of all, the season may have 108 days and be near a half-way point but the season is not at the halfway point in the attribute that matters the most and is most meaningful - # of games played. Secondly, I think the state all-tournament team has the number of players that you list but isn't the all state team larger than the six positions you mention. I think they had some at-large selections for the all state team. Maybe someone can check it out as I can't find my copy of Gillen's list from last year. I think it would make more sense to to list players by position who seem to be standing out. It is far too subjective to list a small number of players at this point in time. Finally, Campbell, as in Paul and Thomas is spelled Campbell, not Cambell.

That is a great question to pose and a very difficult one to answer. Your comment about Jamestown is a good one and it will be interesting to see how they can do in January. I think Shanley has some good coaching and may continue to to create problems for teams in the middle of the pack. Central has good potential and I really like what I see from Red River. I think Red River has probably done the most to fill in the gaps from last year's graduating seniors. North is due for a turn-around but it is one thing to hope for it and another to actually get the job done. Good luck to all the kids I hope all of the teams reach their potential and have play their "A" game during the holiday tournaments.

Just for the record, as long as we are comparing demographics for Minnesota and North Dakota, here are the hockey demographics for the 04-05 season. North Dakota had 4,258 players registered with USA Hockey, South Dakota had 1,879 and Minnesota had 46,600. If you divide the North Dakota number (4,258) into the Minnesota number (46,600) you will get 10.9 - or in simple terms Minnesota has almost 11 times as many kids playing hockey through USA Hockey as North Dakota does. Plus, as one of my previous posts indicated, the population in Minnesota is growing while North Dakota is flat to marginally increasing after several years of decline. These sorts of variables, along with tradition, culture, and other hockey infrastructure variables, are needed to understand the differences between the two states.

Demography is not MNHockey9s strong suit. Revised census figures were posted the other day and Minnesota's population increased by 36,253 in 2005 to total 5,132,799 up 4.3% from 2000. North Dakota had threee years of decline since 2000 but was up the last two years. In 2005 North Dakota's population grew by an estimated 369 to total 636,677. The point simply is that Minnesota should have more teams as their population is larger than ours and continues to grow. That demographic alone, however, does not show the whole picture because a larger percentage of the North Dakota population is elderly than is the case in Minnesota. Minnesota has a larger proportion of children than North Dakota which impacts their numbers in youth and high school sports at all levels - including high school. I might add that many of the families that are playing hockey in North Dakota have moved into the state from Minnesota. We know well the quality of hockey in our former state of residence.

Now you are comparing probably the 2 best football sates with one of the state that isnt talented in football. MN and ND are probably the 2 biggest hockey states in the country that is like me comparing MN hockey to one of the worst hockey states like a California.

Since when are people caring about college hockey. Im talking about HS hockey. I know that Irmen and Potulny both went to Red River. I never once said that ND didnt have great players, all I said is overall MN is 10 times better than ND hockey. Come on, the west hockey in ND is a joke.