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ND High School Hockey 2018-19


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6 hours ago, UND92,96 said:

I was told all but three or four kids reside in the RR district. 

For those outside of Grand Forks who don't know the policy, basically anybody in town can petition to go to Central, and with very few exceptions it will be approved. But you have to reside in the RR district to go to RR, with a few exceptions for cases where a family moves into the Central district and an older sibling is already at RR.

It tends to be a mixed blessing for Central. Obviously it works great for boys hockey, and some of the sports hockey players tend to play, such as tennis, golf and soccer. But what doesn't get talked about as much is the fact that the traditional Central parts of town simply don't produce many athletes anymore, which in my opinion is a direct result of the privatization of youth sports pricing out a lot of families. If the policy were to all of a sudden change and kids from the RR district weren't allowed to go to Central anymore, or even if an unpopular coach were to take over at Central, they would go from being the biggest hockey power in the state, to struggling to even field a team.

Girls sports at Central tend to really struggle relative to RR, because very few girls from the RR district are choosing to go to Central, in some cases even if their older hockey-playing brother is already at Central. There pretty much couldn't be a bigger disparity between girls basketball at Central and RR right now, and Central hasn't beaten RR in volleyball since about 1997. 

In my opinion, things would be more or less equal between Central and RR across the board if Grand Forks would alter the boundaries so that South Middle School stays entirely in the RR district, Schroeder becomes entirely within the Central district, and Valley is split, with the westerly half of the Valley district going to RR. Since most of the athletes in town at present are coming from South and the southerly portion Schroeder, i.e. the RR portion of the Schroeder district,  RR is at a major advantage in most respects, other than boys hockey and the two or three fall and spring sports those kids tend to play.

Something I find somewhat interesting is how strong Central has become in wrestling.  They can't really compete with the west teams but there's no eastern teams that can.  It seems they have a coach who is really trying to build a culture there.  Maybe wrestling resonates more with that demographic, or perhaps its because wrestling is probably an order of magnitude less expensive to play as a youth compared to hockey?

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48 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Davies up 3-0 going into the third.  Any ND hockey fans feeling nostalgic?  Dean Wilson vs. a Grand Forks school in the state championship on a Saturday night.  Brings back some memories. 

Somewhere DaveK is blasting Whitesnake Here I Go Again on a Kenwood cassette deck.

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On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 7:36 PM, geaux_sioux said:

Watch men play hockey then watch women play hockey. It you can’t tell that one group is vastly better on their skates then you’re blind.

You know what, I might of argued with you but I saw highlights tonight of both girls and boys HS ND state hockey tourney and I'm not a great hockey mind and did not play hockey but watching the girls was like night and day compared to the boys in terms of skating skills, speed, power, balance.  No contest, boys were superior based upon the highlights I saw, it just jumped right out at me .  Can there be exceptions, sure there can, but overall no debate. 

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15 hours ago, TheFlop said:

Ignorant much?  The Grand Forks girls team has never won a state championship yet you are somehow trying to argue they've enjoyed the benefit of home ice?  If home ice matters that much shouldn't they at least have won one title based on it being such an advantage?

The best teams tend to win regardless of the location.  

Good point.  The last decade or several years of the WCHA Final 5 I St Paul was basically Minn home ice but UND sure did a number down there. 

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15 hours ago, UND1983 said:

Why do you hate girls hockey so much?  hate on hata

Puzzled, where does he say or necessarily indicate that he "hates" girls hockey?  My hunch is he's just not tuned in to it.  I tried watching UND women's hockey (I coach girls soccer, watch women's national team soccer, and have 3 daughters/no sons so I've got no inherent bias against women's sports) but the fact they don't check makes it a different game.  That's not good, bad or anything but in my mind (certainly others can disagree, that's fine) it's what inherently makes hockey a great sport in that is has skill, speed and physicality.  One aspect of those, the latter, is missing from female hockey.  For some, that's fine and I get it, but for me it just doesn't cut it in terms of viewing pleasure. 

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8 hours ago, GDPritch said:

You know what, I might of argued with you but I saw highlights tonight of both girls and boys HS ND state hockey tourney and I'm not a great hockey mind and did not play hockey but watching the girls was like night and day compared to the boys in terms of skating skills, speed, power, balance.  No contest, boys were superior based upon the highlights I saw, it just jumped right out at me .  Can there be exceptions, sure there can, but overall no debate. 

Yup. The truth doesn’t care about our feelings.

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14 hours ago, NDSU grad said:

Something I find somewhat interesting is how strong Central has become in wrestling.  They can't really compete with the west teams but there's no eastern teams that can.  It seems they have a coach who is really trying to build a culture there.  Maybe wrestling resonates more with that demographic, or perhaps its because wrestling is probably an order of magnitude less expensive to play as a youth compared to hockey?

I don't know a lot about wrestling in particular, but it seems as though Central has had some success in a few sports where there is a good coach and it's not necessarily a huge disadvantage if kids didn't start competing at a pretty young age. School-sponsored sports begin at 7th grade in GF, and that's just too late for most kids to catch up to their peers in sports like basketball and volleyball, among others. The most notable example of success is girls cross country, where GFC is usually among the top five in the state. Few kids start seriously running prior to 7th grade anyway, so there's no particular disadvantage compared to Red River or any other school.

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11 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Davies up 3-0 going into the third.  Any ND hockey fans feeling nostalgic?  Dean Wilson vs. a Grand Forks school in the state championship on a Saturday night.  Brings back some memories. 

Had the privilege of coaching with Dean when our daughters played on the same summer AAA team. The guy knows the game inside and out. Pulling for him and Davies tonight big time. 

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9 minutes ago, sioux rube said:

Had the privilege of coaching with Dean when our daughters played on the same summer AAA team. The guy knows the game inside and out. Pulling for him and Davies tonight big time. 

I coached with one of his former assistants and we did a lot of things the "Wilson way".  I learned more about the game of hockey my first year coaching with the guy than I ever had before.

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16 hours ago, NDSU grad said:

Something I find somewhat interesting is how strong Central has become in wrestling.  They can't really compete with the west teams but there's no eastern teams that can.  It seems they have a coach who is really trying to build a culture there.  Maybe wrestling resonates more with that demographic, or perhaps its because wrestling is probably an order of magnitude less expensive to play as a youth compared to hockey?

Central has an amazing wrestling coach right now Coach Welsh.  The guy is upbeat, puts a ton of time into the program, and gets that winning isn't the only thing that matters.  Central also has a ton of volunteer/minimally paid assistants that are always willing to open up the gym early before school or even on weekends to give the kids a chance to workout if they want.  Frankly, I'm not sure there's an overabundance of talent at Central but Welsh gets the wrestlers to perform up to their ability. 

RR just finished it's first season with new coach Andrew Kennedy, who was previously an assistant at Central.  Kennedy is another class act.  Once again, I don't expect to see RR knocking off Bismarck at State anytime soon but Kennedy will do a good job building the program there.  Grand Forks is very fortunate to have the wrestling coaches that they have.

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12 minutes ago, sioux rube said:

The all stars from Bismarck once again win the state title. They should when you have 5 high schools to choose from 

It's embarrassing that the community of Bismarck allows that.

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