ND High School Hockey 2017-18

[scpa0305]

1 hour ago, iluvdebbies said:

It's coming.....It's just a matter of how they split the divisions. Right now they are looking at two, ten team, divisions.....AA&A.

How is that going to be possible?  One GF team against those smaller programs?  I hate to say it but Nd high school should tier...more games and better competion.  High costs though.

[iluvdebbies]

2 minutes ago, scpa0305 said:

How is that going to be possible?  One GF team against those smaller programs?  I hate to say it but Nd high school should tier...more games and better competion.  High costs though.

No both Grand Forks teams would be together....along with Davies, Bismarcks, Minot and others. Depending on the criteria they come up with.

[SiouxVolley]

Divide it by how many bantam and squirt players are registered.  Jamestown HS now has under 700 students.  Williston and Dickinson have so many transfer from other state that never played hockey so they should be ‘A’ teams until that changes.  Can still have a WDA and EDC, but why should Bismarck schools have to play Beulah-Hazen or Bottineau-Rugby or Watford City for counting games.  Devils Lake, Jamestown, Grafton, Wahpeton etc are just too undermanned to compete with GF and West Fargo schools.  If a A division starts, maybe St Mary’s, Shanley, Ryan start their own teams and other schools like Langdon and Cando convert or co-oping from Jr Gold as they know they would be competitive.

[scpa0305]

9 minutes ago, iluvdebbies said:

No both Grand Forks teams would be together....along with Davies, Bismarcks, Minot and others. Depending on the criteria they come up with.

I know, if the grand forks teams combined no one else but Bismarck and fargo would have a punchers chance. That’s why they should keep it the way it is and continue to play Canadian and MN teams.  HS age kids should do the same.  Tier 1

[geaux_sioux]

Just now, scpa0305 said:

I know, if the grand forks teams combined no one else but Bismarck and fargo would have a punchers chance...see Theo bantam teams.

If GF combined they should play AA MN and would make state most years.

[SiouxVolley]

37 minutes ago, Yote 53 said:

South Dakota hockey teams are not very good, and they are getting worse.  The state changed the age bands to comply with USA Hockey, a mistake, IMO, because it will make it even harder to compete with ND and MN teams and SD should want access to playing good, competitive programs from ND and MN.  The problem is the youth teams, when they travel out of state, play down as much as they can.  You have programs like Sioux Falls who will send their top teams to Minnesota B2 tournaments.  Sioux Falls has a HUGE number of kids playing in the program.  I'm talking about the same size or maybe larger than FYHA, but you would never know that by looking at the quality of play.  I understand Sioux Falls now fields "Gold" teams that play MN A, but we'll see how long that lasts.  It just seems to be a race to keep everybody the same in that state so everybody can be even for state league play.  It's a very insulated hockey culture and any player that aspires to play at a high level, the only option is the AAA Jr. Stampede. 

SW Minnesota is getting a lot better at hockey.  In recent years you've had Luverne coming out.  LDC won Section 3A this year and they have some good young players coming through.  If you look at the Minnesota youth A rankings you will see a surge of southern Minnesota towns in the rankings the last several years.  Hockey is a numbers game and there are more kids playing in southern MN towns.  Would not shock me to see a Class A champ from Section 1A or 3A in the next few years.  Class AA is for the Metro schools, Section 7AA and Section 8AA.  Unless something seriously changes in Rochester, the farthest south a AA contender could come from would be Lakeville or Farmington, and I consider those Metro.

For every other ND town not named Grand Forks or Fargo I agree that there is nothing wrong with Bantam A hockey.  Technically, it is all supposed to be A hockey and then breaks down into AA/A for MN State tournament play, but we all knew what was going to happen once the cat got out of the bag.  I was just saying in my original post that NoDak towns have the opportunity to travel east to play just like anybody else.

Actually wish SD teams the best, but one needs to work up to top line teams over the years.  Saw Pierre played a couple of lower western ND teams and beat them or was competitive. That was unheard of just 20 years ago.  SD needs to make it a HS sanctioned sport.  But SD HS association is just too stubborn.

[scpa0305]

Just now, geaux_sioux said:

If GF combined they should play AA MN and would make state most years.

Agreed...especially up north.  But a better idea would be to go Tier 1 (U18/u16). More games.

[iluvdebbies]

5 minutes ago, scpa0305 said:

I know, if the grand forks teams combined no one else but Bismarck and fargo would have a punchers chance...see Theo bantam teams.

Why would they combine the GF schools....this has nothing to do with that. The AA & A are high school classifications like High school football. What they are talking about is splitting ND high school hockey into two divisions....

[geaux_sioux]

1 minute ago, iluvdebbies said:

Why would they combine the GF schools....this has nothing to do with that.

So they could go to the MN tournament and ruin the damn thing by winning it all. Could you imagine? It was bad enough that EGF won.

[scpa0305]

4 minutes ago, iluvdebbies said:

Why would they combine the GF schools....this has nothing to do with that.

I’m not saying combine the High schools...I’m saying creating a team to play tier 1 (a team in Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks), more games against better competition.  The creation of one bantam AA Hs shown that grand forks can compete against top end MN teams.  But what happens after bantams?  Now these kids that have developed against top end competition are stuck playing against lessor competion for several years (or they are forced to go to juniors early).  

These kids stop playing good Cities team at the age of 14/15.  And by splitting up the talent so other ND teams have a chance (central and RR), they’re no longer able to compete against high end cities teams (consistently).

[Shawn-O]

Suggested realignment:

Tier I - Central, Red River

Tier II - everyone else

[Yote 53]

USA Hockey Tier 1  - Team North Dakota

You already have a Tier 1 team in the state, but it is before & after.  Now, you talking about establishing a full season Tier 1 Program? 

[scpa0305]

8 minutes ago, Shawn-O said:

Suggested realignment:

Tier I - Central, Red River

Tier II - everyone else

Haha I was using gf as an example.  Same theory applies to Bismarck and Fargo.  Each of those cities could create one or two (fargo) teams and play T1EHL.  The kids who don’t make those teams could still play HS.

[gfhockey]

Grandforks aa team was ranked 2nd for most of the year I believe

 

Minot is Almost the size of gf and only one team.....

[scpa0305]

5 minutes ago, Yote 53 said:

Tier 1  - Team North Dakota

You already have a Tier 1 team in the state, but it is before & after.  Now, you talking about establishing a full season Tier 1 Program? 

Yup. GF could pull EGF kids too.  Fargo could pull Moorhead etc 

[SiouxVolley]

Not HS but ACHA Div 1:  Minot State was ranked #1 go into the 16 team nationals and made the semifinal where they just lost to Illinois by a 4-2 score.  One of the teams Illinois also beat at at nationals was #12 U of Jamestown.

http://www.minotstateu.edu/pio/news/2018/03/johnson-lifts-beavers-to-semifinals.shtml

Williston State and Bottineau managed to fare at .500 in ACHA D1 even through they are JCs. 

ND has some pretty impressive showings from small colleges.  NDSU is missing though.

[sioux rube]

6 hours ago, iluvdebbies said:

I was talking with an AD who  has been in on the discussions......he told me Jamestown has quite a few, co-ops which gives them a large enrollment. So if it was strictly enrollment they might be top ten. It will be a tough call.....but I think it happens eventually. What the criteria wil be....who knows.

Jamestown’s main co-op is Valley City. Other than that it’s next to nothing. We have had a player from Cooperstown, one from Ellendale, and one from Carrington over the last 10 years. I can’t imagine what our record would be if we were in the east. Be lucky to get 5 wins. The enrollment at JHS has been going down for years. I graduated with 310 classmates. My son 2 years ago was at 170. 

[andtheHomeoftheSIOUX!!]

Ryan Cunningham: http://knoxradio.com/sports/local/cunningham-sports-blog-when-are-titles-not-enough-maybe-right-now

[JohnboyND7]

On 3/12/2018 at 10:22 PM, sioux rube said:

Jamestown’s main co-op is Valley City. Other than that it’s next to nothing. We have had a player from Cooperstown, one from Ellendale, and one from Carrington over the last 10 years. I can’t imagine what our record would be if we were in the east. Be lucky to get 5 wins. The enrollment at JHS has been going down for years. I graduated with 310 classmates. My son 2 years ago was at 170. 

160 in 2010. Both my sister's were around 200 in '06 and '07 i think. 

[OgieOgilthorpe]

On 3/12/2018 at 4:20 PM, SiouxVolley said:

Divide it by how many bantam and squirt players are registered.  Jamestown HS now has under 700 students.  Williston and Dickinson have so many transfer from other state that never played hockey so they should be ‘A’ teams until that changes.  Can still have a WDA and EDC, but why should Bismarck schools have to play Beulah-Hazen or Bottineau-Rugby or Watford City for counting games.  Devils Lake, Jamestown, Grafton, Wahpeton etc are just too undermanned to compete with GF and West Fargo schools.  If a A division starts, maybe St Mary’s, Shanley, Ryan start their own teams and other schools like Langdon and Cando convert or co-oping from Jr Gold as they know they would be competitive.

This is a VERY bizarre post...Do you even follow ND youth or HS hockey...at all?

Cando has not had a Jr. Gold team since like 1999...haha. They provide 0-3 players a year to DL. Also, if it takes the combination of Shanley, Fargo South, AND Oak Grove to make one small team that can barely provide a JV team, then how is Shanley going to provide one on their own? Same thing goes for St. Mary's and Minot Ryan etc....there are not even close to enough numbers available, so that'll never happen. Keep those smaller schools feeding the bigger schools where needed. Side note---also, where the heck did you get the idea that WF schools are dominate at hockey? Take a quick look at the past 10-12 years of HS hockey and see how well those "undermanned" teams you listed stack up against WF even before they split. I can assure you Grafton and DL have done more than hold their own against the mighty WF teams. Grafton is going to be a little down, but they always hang around the top 4-5 in the East while making it to state fairly often and even won state most recently in 2008. DL also holds their own in the east and are WELL above .500 against WF teams in recent years. They also make it to state pretty routinely....unlike WF. Hell even Jamestown is probably above .500 against WF in recent years....but yes I agree with your comment when it comes to Wahpeton I guess. 

Here is my take:

YES to creating 2 divisions. Finding the line between A and AA will be tough and will have to be open to adjustments each year just like ND HS football is with it's divisions. Team strength will shift and change, so the division line will need to shift and change as well. I think by creating these 2 divisions, we could eliminate the struggling Jr. Gold league and pull them into the HS league. Yes I understand that those are clubs and not affiliated with their school systems, so that'll be a major hurdle, but I'm just spit balling here and dreaming a little.But this new setup could also get Wahp/Breck back into the mix to get ND up to around 22-25 teams to work with rather than 18-19. NO to combining teams by city/town. That would just be silly and would turn HS hockey into a summer league and would only exacerbate the larger town skills/numbers gap even further.  As of right now AA could be 12 teams, but most years 8-10 teams. 

AA - Minot, DL-Cando, Grafton-PR, Red River, Central, Bismarck High, Bismarck Century, Fargo Davies, Fargo South/Shanley, Fargo North, WF, and WF Shyenne

Every team would have to play each other at least once for league points, but scheduling beyond that could be open to out of state games to get some MN competition if that's wanted.  Playing some of these teams more than once because of distance, scheduling ease, or past rivalry/history would be fair game as well (fargo schools vs fargo schools, RR vs Central, BC vs BHS etc. etc.) but those would be non-league games.

With this setup the travel would actually be pretty easy. The furthest trips would be GF to Bismarck or Minot to Fargo, which isn't horrible. For playoffs there would be no pre-state tourney, so top 8 teams would go to state and be seeded by place in standings (tie-breaker rules applied). The 4 teams that were eliminated would play in a consolation tournament at the same time as state. Maybe even throw the winner of the A team in there somehow?? That might be far fetched...but anyway, this might be a good filter/sorter for helping figure out where the division line should be. Teams winning the A division often would get moved up and teams losing in the consolation tourney too often would get moved down.  

 

A North- Crosby, Williston, Watford City, Bott-Rugby, Langdon-Cavalier, Grand Forks JV (if possible somehow), Mayport-Hillsboro

A South- Dickinson, Hazen-Beulah, Mandan, Bismarck JV, Jamestown-Valley City, Fargo JV, Wahp/Breck

For travel sake East-West would work better, but for competition-wise I thought North-South looked a little more even...maybe?

Play each team in your division at least 2 times and then again have an 8 team state tournament based off the top 4 teams from each division. 5 teams would be eliminated at the end of the season. Again this would open up a lot of out of state games for MN and SD...even Canada. Also would leave open schedule spots for games against closer teams from the north/south. Might work 

Seems a little messy but it might create some excitement in ND HS hockey. Teams that never have a chance to make it to state could have a chance at winning a state championship. 

 

[SiouxVolley]

West Fargo Sheyenne will emerge as a power just based on the earnings of their parents.  Don’t underestimate that.

Shanley, St Mary’s, and Ryan can increase enrollment by taking over for what were formerly Jr Gold programs.  Some kids just want to play but are not skilled enough for higher level HS programs.  Private schools generally need a selling points for kids to enroll.

Cando can work with Langdon, which would increase numbers.

I started an AA vs A NDHS hockey conversation here, and some posters here immediately poo-pooed it and now the local radio station is talking it up as serious.  Don’t even live in ND, but think small town ND should have hockey.  Co-oping with big schools means a lot of kids in smaller schools will drop the sport.   GF or Fargo vs MayPort CGHillsboro CV-Hatton-Northwood-Finley-Sharon just won’t fly.

[gfhockey]

Maybe have it like mn like marricucci lakes conferences etc

 

ceeate the a purpur conference with the strongest teams and seed for regionals to advance for state

[geaux_sioux]

You could even have a team for Thompson in the lower division with Grand Forks kids that wouldn’t make varsity and don’t want to play 3 years of jv.

[UND1983]

12 minutes ago, geaux_sioux said:

You could even have a team for Thompson in the lower division with Grand Forks kids that wouldn’t make varsity and don’t want to play 3 years of jv.

Isn't that what the midget team is right now? 

[geaux_sioux]

Just now, UND1983 said:

Isn't that what the midget team is right now? 

Essentially. Wouldn’t you want them to have a school to attach to? Or would they just be the Grand Forks Fighting Rejects?