UNDhockey22

They go to get bigger? No wonder the Europeans and Russians have consistently produced higher quality players than that of the US. There is more to hockey than putting on weight. A truth these countries understand, and apparently it's a message that no one passed on in North Dakota.

Look at the roster for UND. I believe almost all of their defenseman were drafted into the NHL. Even Rylan Kaip, who has seen limited success on the scoresheet, was drafted into the NHL. The way some of you try and correlate success in North Dakota high school hockey to a career beyond that is truely mind boggeling. I am not yet a historian when it comes to high school hockey, but I'm pretty close to it. It is rare, if ever that one team graduates 3 players that all continue to play division one hockey. Red River had Danny Irmen, Ryan Potulny and Nate Zieglemann in one year, but Irmen and Potunly left after their sophomore years. Even that is not a one school show, because Irmen transferred from Fargo North. Minot has Willert and Dittus, but no one knows if Dittus will play division one. What you need to understand is that many players that go to the USHL play division three hockey. To say Meland, Galbreath, Ladeuceur, and Arnason are all likely prospects after a year of two or juniors, you are implying they could step in with a junior team and have success tommorow. Which is not the case at all. I encourage you to watch many of these NAHL players from Bismarck and Fargo because USHL teams are a little more of a distance from our parts. These guys can move. The step from high school hockey to junior hockey is much larger than I think you realize. Take Paul Weisgarber for instance (great player might I add). His production is nothing near to what he accomplished in high school. Look at Andy Dittus (great player might I add). I think he has one goal playing in the USHL. These leagues aren't "you were good in high school so you'll be good here". No way, no how. If you guys want to speculate who is going to play division one hockey, the player better have had success on a variey of levels, and against a variety of competition. Until this year, Pat Arnason was a backup goalie to a good Eli Rosendahl. Not a division one Eli Rosendahl. I bet if you told Coach Hakstol that he was to recruit Jarrett Galbreath or Ryan Ladeuceur instead of Ben Blood (Shattuck St. Marys) he would politely thank you for the advice and show you the door.

I will take your note to Hakstol as a joke. As it was intended to be? I hope.

Then I believe the North Dakota Youth Hockey Association is not doing it's job.

I have no word on Selk, but I'm sure the Dittus family will have an idea. Again with that, it's not only about being good enough, someone has to give you a chance and you have to be able to fill the role they want you to fill. Right now it looks like Selk would be most successful being a grinder and making a selfless play if he were to play at the next level. North Dakota needs to change its approach to developing players. I think the practice to game ratio is a joke, and many of the coachs do not pay close enough attention to detail. These coachs need to know how to spot an error in a players stride, shot, etc., and teach them the proper way to fix that problem. To be quiet honest, many of them do not know how to do this. Creativity needs to be stressed, and at the younger levels the focus has to be almost solely on individual development. I'll go deeper into detail later...

There is no such thing as a state tournement for squirts. Go to www.ndaha.org and click on schedule. It has the dates for the state tournements for every age and there is no scheduled tournement for squirts. Besides it is simple logic that there would not be a state tournement for squirts. Tournements in general at that age have nothing but negative effects on development. The practice to game ratio in North America is a joke, and if there was a state tournement for squirts I would be disgusted. Thank God there isn't. Besides, when a kid gets to be 24 years old and playing for the Ottawa Senators he isn't going to remember his most memorable hockey moment as when they took the state squirt A championship. I have enough faith in the people running North Dakota youth hockey that they would not initiate a state tournement for squirts. If that's what the people in Grafton are trying to imitate, I feel sorry for all those players involved.

That is a pretty good analysis of the situation. I do not believe you improve very much as a player playing in games. It's not supported by scientific research. You improve by repetition. From that standpoint where do you get the least repetition? Games. And if you're not getting very much playing time, your repetition is going to be even less than that of other players on the team (obviously). I believe if McBain had a great work ethic he could still improve as much as he would have in Hazen, if not more, because he's practicing against better players. Practice is the place where you get the second most amount of repetition. The place where you get the most amount of repetition, is when you put down the remote control and go into your garage and stickhandle, shoot pucks, and do them in way that will correlate specifically to on ice success. But besides this, he would also have to be putting quality time in training in a hockey specific manner. People decondition after only 48 hours, so if you're not doing something besides skating during the hockey season, a lot of the conditioning and other things you have worked on during the summer, will slowly fade off and you will wear out towords the end of the season. This is not as prominent in high school hockey ,where the season is much shorter than that of Jr. A teams and pro teams. In all my years involved with hockey, I have seen very few, if any players that train to be hockey players. They train like football players. So in that regard, even if he is working his ass off, he could be falling more and more behind someone who is fortunate enough to be training with someone who knows how to train hockey players, not football players. *I have yet to see a facility in North Dakota where you are trained specifically to be a hockey player. They may claim to train you like a hockey player, but they do not. Maybe a few of the exercises they will have you do will be hockey specific, but if all your energy isn't focused in the proper manner, you're just wasting your time. It's not enough to train hard, you have to train smart. North Dakota has had a lot of good players. Players who were able to make the jump into the NAHL and USHL and some WCHA. But, you have to have something special to get onto teams like that, obviously. That's why I didn't think it was reasonable that a sub-par player for the best team in the state could make the jump. At least not at this point in time. Hopefully North Dakota can have more and more success placing players into the Jr. and Division one ranks. And when they get there hopefully they work harder than anyone else on there team, to represent North Dakota in a positive manner when they are in the public eye. Unlike many players who have poor work ethic, and partake in questionable activities for their respective Jr. teams.

I see what you're saying Chewey, and I will just agree to disagree. Upsets occur in hockey, we can all agree on that. I just don't think when it happes year after year it's an upset anymore. Anyway... I don't think it's reasonable to believe McBain could have "hopped" on to a USHL team or even a SJHL team. If he was a USHL caliber player we would probably know that by now. So unless he's really getting the shaft at Fargo South (I doubt they would shaft a USHL caliber player when they are struggling like this) he is not ready for the USHL at this point in time. Players who are not USHL, SJHL, NAHL, etc. caliber players can turn themselves into these types of players, but it takes some real work. Work that most players don't want to or don't know how to do. I don't think McBain is the best player on Souths team, and with the exception of Wurden, there isn't a player on there roster who could step into a USHL game without being absolutly lost.

Hmm interesting. I am in close connection with the Dittus family and I will give them a ring sometime tommorow and see what's up with that. Andy is a very good player, the only knock on him I have ever heard is he's all over the place in the defensive zone. I haven't seen that, but that's what I hear. I haven't heard anything of the sort from Stremick. He must be really making some strides. I always knew he was a good player but had never heard he was being contacted by any division 1 schools. Very interesting. Well, obviously Minot had some talent those years. Still something does not add up. Minot must not have been so much better (if better at all) as a complete team, to lose in the opening round of the state tournement don't you think? In my opinion, if ALL those players are division one prospects, they must have been absolutly terrible on defense or they had no depth. I do not think that in North Dakota High School hockey if you have 5 players who can head to a division one school on one team, and the rest of the team is even just a little above average you will not lose to the 4th seed. So the way I see it, Minot must have had some major holes somewhere.

Five or six D-1 recruits in 2005? I can think of two- Jordan Willert, and Rody Selk (who hasn't committed anywhere). Who am I missing?

I appreciate the information skates. Spoiler, where did you hear that their was a squirt state tournement? Or was that just the result of an active imagination?

It could very well happen, and the moon could very well collide into Earth next week. I don't see the best team in the state (arguably), that is currently playing pretty close to the best they have, lose to a team that is mediocre at best. Maybe Minot really does just flat out forget to perform at the state tournement. But I doubt it. If every year you have the better team than the team you are playing, the majority of the times you are going to win the game. That's simple logic. I believe it is unreasonable and frankly a little bit childish to say that the reason Minot does not win their first round game (or any West team for that matter) is because they did not show up to play. The fact of the matter is they are probably out worked, out coached, and out skilled year after year. That's why teams lose. Not because they are in awe of the Ralph, or the drive tired their legs.

Since when?

I was not aware they had a state tournement for squirts? Also, I would not count winning B championships as any sort of indication of the talent that will be coming through the high school.

Haha ; ). Who does everyone having going to state from the East. The biggest debate will probably be between whether or not North can outplay DL, who seems to be the 4th seed. Does anyone think West Fargo or Central will pull off an upset?

What are you talking about...

Bogeyboge50, next time you post it would be awesome if the punctuation of your sentences would match the context of that sentence. For example, when asking a question (Doesn't Grafton have a lot of sophomores and Juniors) you would use a question mark, rather than an exclamation point. Or when making an exclamatory sentence (Because I heard they're going to be really good in the next few years) you would use an exclamation point rather than a question mark. Thanks bud. I hope you got this information before your English test.

Compared to who? He has never made the Varsity squad.

I really don't think he will make a significant impact in the success or failure of Fargo South.

Agreed. McDougall was not even close to the second best player on the ice. Besides the players mentioned, John Lee and Nick Thielen were very impressive. Might I add John has committed to division 1 Denver. Also Sean Diechert played a very good game to keep the game as close as it was.

You make a very good point. Why are players transferring to Fargo South? Is it because there is more exposure in the Eastern part of the state? Are teams that are more successful scouted more often than the teams that are not as successful? Is it because playing with and against good players every day in practice will help improve your game? All of those reasons are individual reasons. Maybe I am wrong. I'm sure these players want to win a state championship, but for some reason I do not think the first thought in their mind when considering transferring is "I want to help Fargo South win a state championship, no matter what role on the team I play." Attitudes are contagious, and if the "it's all about me" attitude is being spread by a few players, it's not long until the entire team will be infected.

Hmmm, I'm not so sure I like your logic. "Well we beat Central by 5 goals and West Fargo lost to Central by 2 goals, so next time we play West Fargo we should win by 7 goals!" Clearly Red River is playing the best hockey in the state. If South plays their best hockey I believe they are no worse than Red River. They played Red River to a 3-2 game earlier in the year. Was that because Red River played poorly? I don't think so. If South can pull everything together, we will see an entirely different team come EDC tourney time. Until that day however, Red River is the best team in the state.

In some respects you are very right. Red River is clearly playing the best hockey in the state of North Dakota. The play as a team. Fargo South may or may not have more players with individual talent, but in the end where does that get them? It gets you a 8-0 trouncing and maybe, just maybe it deflates a little of the air that fills some of their players heads. I guess Red River felt it was South's turn to be on the opposite end of a blowout that they were used to giving teams this and last years (minus the classless taunting, most likely). However, I think deep down we all know Red River is not 8 goals better than Fargo South. If that were the truth then Red River would beat most (if not all) teams in Minnesota. But, if South continues playing like individuals it is going to be a rough final stretch.

Any predictions on the score next time South and Red River meet, if they do? I don't believe it will be another 8-0 showing, but it's hard to put South within 3 goals the way they are playing now. Does anyone think coaching might play a role in the way these teams are performing? Red River seems to be getting better and better and South keeps getting worse and worse. Coach Malm must be doing something very very right.

It could be very possibe that South has some issues so serious that they cannot be fixed before EDC and state tourney. I will not count them out yet, but after that clinic Red River put on tonight, I find it highly unlikely South will repeat as state champions. I tip my hat to the Riders...