UNDhockey22

The voting process for these awards are not perfect. Same goes for all-tournement and the all-state awards. At the end of the day, what is a certificate that says "All-State" or "Mr. Hockey". It's a certificate. It doesn't really get you anything but recognition. So for all the players and parents that may be upset about how it turned out my advice to you is to forget about it. I gaurentee there is not a Jr. coach or college coach who is going to recruit someone because they made all state, or because they were Mr. Hockey. Your not going to see Columbus stop recruiting Wurden because Herbel won Mr. Hockey. My bet is they will roll their eyes and continue on in there regular fashion. I don't think it is logical for someone from the West to try and bash the quality of players coming from the East (Erick Galt). Although he may not have got the playing time he wanted when he was at Lincoln, that does not mean he is not fit to play in that league. Players from the West have moved on from high school hockey and have done very well. No one will argue that. As far as the jab you took at players from Team ND playing Jr's. Team ND was mostly led by players from the East. The top two lines looked like this- Marc Mihulka, Paul Campbell, Nick Klenow; Andy Dittus, John Greicar, Marc Harrie. Five of the six are from the East. Brad Benke, David Hovet, Lane Smith, Tim Greigoire, Tony Kringstad were also on the team from the East. That is not all the players, but I'm drawing a blank. Point being, the team was led by players from the East, not the West.

In most cases, X number of points in the West is significantly less if you were to play in the East. That point is supported by West teams losing in the first round of state the majority of years. Now, Eric Herbel must be a good player. However, does anyone think he is as good as someone who is leaving to play in the USHL, and is being scouted by the Columbus Blue Jackets? I doubt it. What probably happend was, a few coachs in the East split votes between Wurden and one of the other two candidates from the East. While every coach from the West voted for Herbel.

That could be. Or it could be that the coachs from the East split votes between either Wurden and Miller or Wurden and Everson. And all the West coachs voted for Herbel. That is the only way I can believe Herbel won, even if Wurden is a "C" student.

I never said 8 years of development hurt high school hockey. The point is that the majority of development comes over those 8 years vs. the 3 years in high school. So if you want to look as to why a high school hockey team is succeeding you might want to look at the youth program before you start pointing fingers at high school coachs (not that it has been done on this message board, but it is a scenario). I was unsure of how many years were played before squirts, but I was sure there were at least two years played by the majority of players. Read what I am saying. I am being as clear as I can be. You have at least 8 years of development in youth hockey (at least). You have 3 years in high school. The majority of your development obviously comes in those 8 years of youth hockey. So to say that by strengthing the high school schedule of teams in the West will significantly improve their development, is hardly a logical case to make.

I would say the majority of problems with any program is the youth program. You have 2 years before squirts, 2 years of squirts, 2 years of peewee, and 2 years of bantam. That's 8 years of development in youth hockey versus 3 years in the high school program.

Teams in the West are not going to significantly improve because they play better teams. If more people in the West knew how to develop players or put more effort into doing so at young ages and continued that intensity throughout high school, I see no reason why the would not be as good or better as the teams in the East. Do you think Red River and Central are traditionally so good because they get to play Warroad or Roseau once a year? No way. If you put the right personal in Wahpeton, and had them start with mites and work with them up into high school, they could beat Red River, South, Central despite not playing in tournements in youth tournements in MN or things of that nature. In my opinion, the reason why teams in the East are traditionally better is because for the most part the players are developed better. Not because they play better teams.

If you are still unclear about my posts, as far as developing hockey players go, just ask. There are many different aspects of the game that need to be taken into consideration when training a hockey player. There are so many skill sets in this game it is difficult to figure what is the best way to train, so that everything you do, can correlate directly to improvements on ice. The difference in weight training in hockey is different from that of any other sport.

Because he fears change. I am from the East and love to see teams from the East succeed. But, I want whats best for the game. I hope the teams in the West continue to improve and are able to provide more teams that can compete on a consistent basis with the likes of GFRR, FSH, Grafton, North, Central, etc.

Yes it was Wurden. I don't think he has the offensive prowess to be a power forward in a higher quality league. Like any player moving up to a higher level of play, I think Wurden would be wise to improve his first step quickness. With the way the rules have changed, play favors a smaller agile player. It's like racing a Jeep vs. a sports car (Jack Blatherwick).

I'm sorry I wasn't intending for that to be directed specifically at you. Other people on this board were criticizing me for claiming what your above post states earlier this season.

I'm sorry but you still do not understand. To train hockey players you're workouts have to be integrated with specific movements that are related to how you perform on ice. I said that hockey players do not want to be trained like tennis players, soccer players, or football players. Do you believe that a hockey player is training properly by lifting weights like a football player, even if he is stickhandling and shooting pucks in his garage? I hope not. Weight lifting, sprint training, and endurance traing ALL need to be specific to hockey players. Not just "skills training" as you alluded to. In essence, everything a hockey player does is skill training. Matt Malm is a great coach I am sure. But he does not know how to develop a Alexander Ovechkin. If he did, Grand Forks Red River would never lose a game. I am a huge advocate of hard work. But hard work will not get you far in this game anymore if you are not training smart. Because in due time for every player training hard, there will be a player training hard and smart. And it is easy to see which player will be the one succeeding in the end. Anyway, I believe the point went to cost. The people who know how to train hockey players smart, rarely do so for free. That means you have to pay for it. Who can afford this training? The wealthy. *This does not mean I believe poor families cannot have children who are very succesful in athletics.

You're talking about wrestling. We are talking about hockey. Hockey is a sport where there are few people who know how to train hockey players properly. There is probably no one that works at any high school in the state that knows how to properly train hockey players and will also do so for free. In this day and age hockey players don't want to be trained like wrestlers, football players, tennis players, soccer players, or long distance runners. Hockey players should be trained like hockey players (I gaurentee your wrestling coach did not know how to train hockey players). You can work very very hard on your own, and you still won't achieve the same success as someone who does not work as hard as you but they train smarter than you. Working hard, without working smart is a waste of energy. Ask any hockey player in the state what the most efficient way to recruit fast twitch muscle fiber is? They won't have the answer. Ask them why Alex Ovechkin can move his stick and his feet at the same speed at the same time. They won't have the answer. My bet is they would say "because he's really good". So who can tell you the answers to these questions. Not the players parents. So you can work as hard as you want but you won't be working effeciently. In the meantime someone else will be working just as hard but twice as smart and will dominate they player who is not training smart in every aspect of the game. So how do you get this advice? You pay someone to tell you.

Geez, I wonder if anyone has mentioned that on SiouxSports already?...

The game of hockey today is much different than it was 10 and 20 years ago. Players are bigger, stronger, faster, and less prone to injury than they were in the past. This is mostly because of advances in training, and the acknowledgement that it is necessary to train to become a top notch player. In the past, such training methods were not practiced. An NHL superstar once said "I'll start lifting weights when a dumbell scores a goal". If most players took that approach, it would not be long until they were laughed off the ice. With that said, it takes money to get the proper training. The wealthier the family, the more money they can dish out to support their training needs. This does not mean that all rich kids will be better hockey players than poor kids. It just means that rich parents have more opportunities for their players to improve, because the knowledge you need to train a player effectively is rarely held by the parent, thus you must pay someone for that advice.

Alex Simonson, a third liner? I think not.

I'm glad someone so patiently waited until I posted something that was incorrect, and corrected me. Such is a rare occasion, you should be given an award. Anyway, I didn't say as a matter of fact he was going to Omaha, just what I had heard, and said it was second hand information. But enjoy the time while it lasts, I'm not wrong often.

Now the senior athlete of the year from the West and the senior athlete of the year from the East have to kiss at center ice. It's really unfortunate.

I had heard Omaho was the team of interest as well. That is second hand information, however. It won't be long until we know for sure.

My intention was not to say your post as a whole was out of wack, sir. But I think you would agree that if you were basing the play of the line on two games at EDC, that would be well, out of wack. Agreed? I do not disagree, I do have an attitude that "I'm always right". The reason for that is because normally, I only post on things that I know to be fact, and have evidence to support my claims. Maybe to say "hands down" they were the best in the state was a stretch. I would say that they were the best in the state. By saying hands down, I may have made it seem as though they were on an entirely different level than every other line in the state. I know a lot about most teams in the state. I am heavily involved in the game but am not a current, past, parent, or coach of anyone affialiated with Fargo North. Narveson to South? Could be. But I doubt it.

North frequently played two lines. I'm not sure about what they did during the entire EDC tournement, however.

I do not disagree North struggled against Grafton at EDC. As a matter of fact, there may have been a few times during the season when they struggled. However, at the first meeting of North vs. South it was a very close game until depth got the best of North. Norths top line scored all 3 goals keeping the game at one point at a 4-3 margin. It wasn't until the South opened the flood gates on Norths 2nd and 3rd lines that the game got out of hand. Norths top line did not always struggle against Grafton. If I remember correcly they beat Grafton early in the season. At another meeting in the season Tyler Klein scored two goals against Grafton in a 8-2 or something loss. They also lost to Red River by a score of 3-1. I am pretty sure no one will disagree that the only reason these games were kept even reasonable was because of Norths top line. It sure wasn't because of their goalie who had an 86% save percentage.

No. An out of wack vision would be basing their quality on two games at the end of the season. When comparing lines, you want to compare how the lines play when they are against eachother. How do you figure that creative passes does not make a top line in the state? You say that creative passes and crisp passes do not get you wins, goals get you wins, is that correct? Well if creative passing and crisp passing do not directly correlate to goal scoring than what does? Are you trying to say that creative passing should be overlooked by something like physical power and strength? It is visions like those why development of players in this area is not what it should be. If you would go back and read your post through you would see that none of it correlates to how an actual hockey game works. You are trying to say, that if Norths line is as good as I say, they should have scored so many goals to make up for all the goals that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines allowed? That is the most ridiculous statement I have heard regarding the game of hockey. I don't base my opinions on how players compete against sub-par teams like West Fargo and Jamestown. With that being said, that is why I have been comparing them to teams like South, Grafton, and Red River. And yes, I watched South play Grafton, and South play Red River. And I feel that the line that best understood how to use the other forwards on the ice to create an offensive advantage, and capitalize on that advantage was Fargo Norths line of Klein, Bombenger, and Bekkedahl.

If you're using "only coming up with one goal in two games" as your point of argument your vision of the game is extremely out of wack. The reason I mentioned getting a game tape from Coach Erickson was because you could watch the games against other top lines in the East and see that Norths top line typically dominated play in the offensive zone. It was when Norths 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines were on the ice that they were extremely overmatched.

Whenever I watched this line against other top lines in the state (Grafton, Red River, South), the majority of time they kept the play out of their defensive end. There can be some argument on the subject, because it is a matter of opinion. But I believe that if you were to watch game tape when this line was up against other top lines in the state, their play was superior. I cannot recall seeing any line in the East that was as creative, or passed as well as this line did. If these players would have had the privelege of playing with some stronger defenseman their point totals combined could have been tops of any line in the state.