planetearth

I’d take Lane Hutson over Blake and he’s a second rounder

“But 3-inches the other way and you woulda missed completely.” -Charlie Conway to Coach Bombay

Thanks i would think at the right venue you could ticket by the game and get more revenue…

I wanna say when I looked at seats for Sioux Falls it was 3 sessions but I could be wrong

I think it’d be for the best if you went back to the “guy clutching head” avatar.

Safe to say there’d be 34,000 at a regional in GF? Still a rule that it can’t be at home rinks? Hence Fargo at Schees vs in gf right?

Pohlkamp is really good…

A lot more now than 20 years ago. edit: 9 first rounders last year playing/signed for college hockey. 3 playing in B10, 6 in HE.

My opinions: 1. For the past several years UND has been average. I believe this really started with the type of players recruited around the same time as the new Ralph. The UND style-game has been more pro-style with bigger bodied, less-dynamic players (generalization: there have been obvious exceptions) whose games translate very well to the heavy NHL style. 2. Look at the offensive skill on Michigan vs UND. The guys they’ve had the past several years are unreal. It’s like U20 grad program. Dyneamic NHLers. Not grinders. 3. Same for the Gophers, BC, and BU. How many 1st-2nd rounders play on those teams? Game-breakers… Jackson Blake is close, but he is not Lane Hutson, Celebrini, Gautier, Snuggerud, Willander, Moore, etc. Shoot, I think Bemidji’s young defenseman is better than our best. 4. Why doesn’t UND have those players? I honestly can’t believe it. It should reload with 3-4 first rounders every year for all the reasons touched on in this thread: facilities, tradition, fan-base, finances. Used to have the game-breakers, always had a stud or 2 that were always threats to score. I haven’t seen that for a long time.

This

Whoa, hadn’t thought of it that way

My point is in most cases quantity of players cures all vs small community hockey where literally every kid matters. Lots of small town with youth hockey programs move kids up to make rosters which trickles all the way down. IMO the goal of NDAHA should be to help community-based hockey thrive in ND. If that happens then the athletes will come along with it and you wouldn’t need 2 classes with so few teams to start with. Idk the solution but I have some ideas.

I didn’t get to hear what Dean said but I will say that I think this is an NDAHA issue more than NDHSAA. It starts with numbers at youth levels.

There are so many angles to this discussion. I don’t have numbers for each ND youth program but I’d imagine youth hockey growth is sustained or possibly peaked in GF/EGF. There is only so much population to draw from. I do believe GF does a great job developing their players, but they likely get all the athletes too: community culture/und hockey. GF will always be good. Hockey is exponentially growing in Bismarck, Mandan, Minot, Fargo, and West fargo, but so are populations. I believe Fargo South (the old flyers) had become the best youth program in the state prior to Davies. Look at all the new High Schools in the towns above: population. Dickinson alone has 80 squirts this year. The Grafton issue to me is a cautionary tale that I believe is reflective of most all small communities in ND. Granted Northstars are forecasted to be better in the future, but GPR had the culture needed, they probably averaged 10-15 kids per class playing hockey without PR kids 20-30 years ago (athletes) but were unable to sustain given the current state of youth sports in general: apathy/travel/specialization (lots of folks just don’t want to deal with it). Now you have some 3rd gen kids back in the mix, I hear GPR has about 40 mites. How will NDAHA address the elephant in the room always favoring the larger communities: more population, larger communities = less travel more kids to draw from. Numbers solve most problems. Can NDAHA do something to help sustain hockey in small towns? Does it matter? IDK but I have thought about it a lot. I have no dog in the fight.