2006-2007 ND High School Hockey

[Lives-to-play-hockey-06]

My mistake on Wurden and other's point totals, I was looking on the state leaders section and I obviously didn't realize that South had played more than 5 games. My bad. Meland is also currently at 27 points, as he netted 3 assists last nite. As for the whole Elite League thing, does Tyler Klein play any other sports in the summer? It is not surprising that Klein outscored him, Meland spent the entire summer playing legion baseball. Had he been playing hockey the whole time I'm sure his point totals would've been higher.

First three games of the year for GFRR: Shanley, Whapeton, and Crookston. It doesn't get much worse than that and the fact that they got all three at home is very lucky. Whapeton is usaully much worse on the road than at home where they can pull their gimmicks, Shanley may have less talent than whap, and Crookston just might be the worst team in minnesota. I expect others to catch up to Meland in points when their teams play these absolutly brutal teams. When he goes out and get 9 against whap 8 against shanley and 7 against Crookston his 27 doesn't look all that impressive to me.

[soohockey15]

Many top level hockey trainers encourage participating in other sports during the off season as this type of cross training helps to develop the athleticism that creates a better hockey player. Meland's participation in legion ball therefore can be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. In addition, particpation in another sport helps to minimize psychological staleness and burnout that can come from the extended pre and post season leagues and tournaments that some kids endure.

Bottom line, is that you cannot reliably make a generalization about point production simply based on summer activities. Some kids, who need to improve their skills, can benefit while naturally skilled players can benefit from the time off and come out hungrier in the fall.

Ooooh, so then if Jarome Iginla played, say, baseball during the summer for the Toronto Blue Jays he would the become a better hockey player come October? I have a really tough time seeing how not playing a sport and playing a different sport would then make you a better player at said sport. ND Pride I usually see your side of the arguement but this is something where you are wrong. If your side of this is true then why dont all players do track in the spring, baseball in the summer, and football in the winter? How good would the state be in hockey then? I suppose if everyone on Fargo North were 4 sport athletes, they would in turn be the best team in the state.

[skateshattrick]

Cmon now, how can you say that? The kid is averaging 3 points a game, leading the state in both goals and assists. He's the best player on the best line in the state, and you're putting Klein, Wurden and Miller ahead of him? You could put 2 JV players next to Meland and they would have 20-30 points. Wurden and Miller COMBINED don't have as many points as Meland does.

If you believe that point totals tell you who is a better player, than you really don't know much about hockey. Point totals don't tell you the style of play of the team, the talent surrounding that player, the caliber of competition played against, whether that player is good defensively, how good that player is along the boards or on faceoffs, if the team rolls 4 lines, if that player gets most of his goals on the power play, etc. A case in point is Jon Toews for the Sioux. There are many players in the league that have more points this year, and virtually anyone with any hockey knowledge would not say that those players are better because they have more points. Look at his performance in the World Juniors. He simply doesn't have enough help around him at UND.

I am not ripping Eric Meland, who is a very talented player, but point totals tell only a small part of the story. It is clearly a matter of opinion, but I would take Zach Miller over him any day. If Klein was on South or RR, he would probably put up similar numbers. With all due respect to his teammates, Tyler Klein doesn't have enough help and it is easier for a good team to key on and shut down 1 or 2 players. Wurden is a defenseman, so its a little like comparing apples and oranges, but he appears to have a very bright future beyond high school. I'm really not sure that Eric Meland is as good or any better than Powers or McDougall from South or Tanner Hills and Tanner Anderson from Grafton.

[bogeyboge50]

news from central! you all know Alex Simonson he quit the team earlier in the year he has transferred to Red River and will play the remainder of the season on RR JV's team! how big of an impact does that have on RR Varsity team next year!

[Siouxmama]

news from central! you all know Alex Simonson he quit the team earlier in the year he has transferred to Red River and will play the remainder of the season on RR JV's team! how big of an impact does that have on RR Varsity team next year!

What are the rules for sitting out after a transfer. Does it also apply to JV?

[bogeyboge50]

I believe in High School hockey its 90 days after a transfer to play Varsity but u can practice and play JV

[UNDhockey22]

Ooooh, so then if Jarome Iginla played, say, baseball during the summer for the Toronto Blue Jays he would the become a better hockey player come October? I have a really tough time seeing how not playing a sport and playing a different sport would then make you a better player at said sport. ND Pride I usually see your side of the arguement but this is something where you are wrong. If your side of this is true then why dont all players do track in the spring, baseball in the summer, and football in the winter? How good would the state be in hockey then? I suppose if everyone on Fargo North were 4 sport athletes, they would in turn be the best team in the state.

The extent of which you are taking playing other sports to improve your game is ridiculous. It is a fact that any sports specific hockey trainer will tell you that playing another sport will help improve your overall athleticism which will in turn improve parts of your game. Obviously, playing baseball will not increase your on ice vision. But, it may increase your shot power, as baseball requires wrist strength to snap the bat at the end of your swing. Playing soccer may not make you a better puckhandler, but it may improve your first step quickness because almost all battles in soccer are won and lost in a short sprint. Also what playing another sport does is gives you time away from the rink and to realize how much you miss being on the ice. It makes you hungry. If there was any credible data that suggested playing only one sport was the best for your development we all would have heard of it by now. But we have not heard that, because that is not the case. NDPride has posted on here long enough to where it should be apparent that he isn't going to pull this kind of ideology from the clear blue sky.

Growing up Wayne Gretzky was a multi-sport athlete himself. He played hockey, football, baseball, lacrosse, and also ran track. Maybe it was because of his participation in other sports that limited his development and was detrimental to his improvement...

[UofMGrad]

If you believe that point totals tell you who is a better player, than you really don't know much about hockey. Point totals don't tell you the style of play of the team, the talent surrounding that player, the caliber of competition played against, whether that player is good defensively, how good that player is along the boards or on faceoffs, if the team rolls 4 lines, if that player gets most of his goals on the power play, etc. A case in point is Jon Toews for the Sioux. There are many players in the league that have more points this year, and virtually anyone with any hockey knowledge would not say that those players are better because they have more points. Look at his performance in the World Juniors. He simply doesn't have enough help around him at UND.

I am not ripping Eric Meland, who is a very talented player, but point totals tell only a small part of the story. It is clearly a matter of opinion, but I would take Zach Miller over him any day. If Klein was on South or RR, he would probably put up similar numbers. With all due respect to his teammates, Tyler Klein doesn't have enough help and it is easier for a good team to key on and shut down 1 or 2 players. Wurden is a defenseman, so its a little like comparing apples and oranges, but he appears to have a very bright future beyond high school. I'm really not sure that Eric Meland is as good or any better than Powers or McDougall from South or Tanner Hills and Tanner Anderson from Grafton.

"With all due respect to his teammates, Tyler Klein doesn't have enough help and it is easier for a good team to key on and shut down 1 or 2 players."

Your right, good players with good line mates can be a very powerful weapon. Klein not having enough help seems a bit of a stretch.

ND Pride what is your opinion, you seem to make it to a lot of North games. Is klein being shut down by having poor line mates?

[Siouxmama]

I believe in High School hockey its 90 days after a transfer to play Varsity but u can practice and play JV

So does this mean the kid who transferred to Fargo from ?Hazen? was playing JV, or did he wait for the 2nd 1/2 of the season to play varsity.

[ND Pride]

Ooooh, so then if Jarome Iginla played, say, baseball during the summer for the Toronto Blue Jays he would the become a better hockey player come October? I have a really tough time seeing how not playing a sport and playing a different sport would then make you a better player at said sport. ND Pride I usually see your side of the arguement but this is something where you are wrong. If your side of this is true then why dont all players do track in the spring, baseball in the summer, and football in the winter? How good would the state be in hockey then? I suppose if everyone on Fargo North were 4 sport athletes, they would in turn be the best team in the state.

Soohockey the literature on player development that I am citing refers to youth players - those who are still developing physically, we are not talking about professional players already at physical maturity. In addition, these statements that you say are wrong are not things I have "cooked up" but the development principles of established trainers who are well known in the field who work with athletes of all ages (e.g. Peter Twist, Jack Blatherwick, etc, etc). Clearly, I think anyone would see that your example of a pro athlete involved in two different sports at that level would not fit the model - for one thing their seasons overlap and based on what I said about burnout your example would not fit as it is a grotesque exaggeration. It is not an issue of me being right or wrong but an issue of those who study athletic development - the literature is filled with cross training recommendations - playing an additional complimentary sport(s). For example, the training literature contains references to how Russian teams used soccer as an effective cross training sport and that it gave them an advantage as centers on face offs.

What you are doing here with your narrative is taking a theme - the benefit of playing another sport - and pushing it logically to an extreme. It is hard enough for kids to play two sports let alone three or four as you use in your example. Good use of logic but it must be disciplined by realism about the length of seasons and overlap and the physiologicial and developmental consequeneces of multi-sport competition. Your analogy is like saying if vitamins are good for me I will take triple the dosage and that will be even better. We know that it does not work that way because the body cannot absorb and use all the extra nutrients from that level of dosage.

Furthermore, some sports are better than others from a cross training perspective. You might consider reading "Complete Conditioning for Ice Hockey" by Peter Twist. Human Kinetics. Champaigne, Illinois, 1997. At the time that he wrote that book he was strength and conditioning coach for the Vancouver Canucks, which is a position that, I believe, he still holds. You can get on his website by typing his name in your favorite search engine and you can learn more about his training business. I am going to quote directly from his book on page 219 under the heading of "Off-Season Conditioning Guidelines":

"Other sports that involve constant movement along with directional changes and lateral movement (e.g. soccer, tennis, or basketball) may be used. I recommend staying off the ice throughout the off-season, unless your skating skills are quite poor." Twist goes on to say, "Even poor skaters may be better off staying off the ice until the preseason. Practicing skating technique will yield few results without first developing the proper physical attributes needed to support skill execution."

Now Twist is only one of the scores of sources that I could dig up if I had the time today. My statements on conditioning are never ideas that I make up on my own. They are based on an extensive literature that is supported by experience and exercise physiology. If there is something that I do not understand I call or e-mail the expert involved. If you want a more detailed bibliography I can try and assemble a list of sources for you. The challenges in developing as a hockey player are many because the sport is based on an unnatural movement (skating) that is structurally different from walking and running. It is a challenge to balance and blend hockey-specific exercises with training activities that are more general (weight training) but which need to be adapted. Hockey has a unfortunate tradition of being behind the times in the application of exercise physiology. That is changing and slowly the knowledge is seeping down to the lower levels of the sport.

[bogeyboge50]

So does this mean the kid who transferred to Fargo from ?Hazen? was playing JV, or did he wait for the 2nd 1/2 of varsity.

it just states that if ur in the school for 90 days u can play Varsity so im guessing if he started at the beginning of the year yes he could be playing varsity!

[soohockey15]

Soohockey the literature on player development that I am citing refers to youth players - those who are still developing physically, we are not talking about professional players already at physical maturity. In addition, these statements that you say are wrong are not things I have "cooked up" but the development principles of established trainers who are well known in the field who work with athletes of all ages (e.g. Peter Twist, Jack Blatherwick, etc, etc). Clearly, I think anyone would see that your example of a pro athlete involved in two different sports at that level would not fit the model - for one thing their seasons overlap and based on what I said about burnout your example would not fit as it is a grotesque exaggeration. It is not an issue of me being right or wrong but an issue of those who study athletic development - the literature is filled with cross training recommendations - playing an additional complimentary sport(s). For example, the training literature contains references to how Russian teams used soccer as an effective cross training sport and that it gave them an advantage as centers on face offs.

What you are doing here with your narrative is taking a theme - the benefit of playing another sport - and pushing it logically to an extreme. It is hard enough for kids to play two sports let alone three or four as you use in your example. Good use of logic but it must be disciplined by realism about the length of seasons and overlap and the physiologicial and developmental consequeneces of multi-sport competition. Your analogy is like saying if vitamins are good for me I will take triple the dosage and that will be even better. We know that it does not work that way because the body cannot absorb and use all the extra nutrients from that level of dosage.

Furthermore, some sports are better than others from a cross training perspective. You might consider reading "Complete Conditioning for Ice Hockey" by Peter Twist. Human Kinetics. Champaigne, Illinois, 1997. At the time that he wrote that book he was strength and conditioning coach for the Vancouver Canucks, which is a position that, I believe, he still holds. You can get on his website by typing his name in your favorite search engine and you can learn more about his training business. I am going to quote directly from his book on page 219 under the heading of "Off-Season Conditioning Guidelines":

"Other sports that involve constant movement along with directional changes and lateral movement (e.g. soccer, tennis, or basketball) may be used. I recommend staying off the ice throughout the off-season, unless your skating skills are quite poor." Twist goes on to say, "Even poor skaters may be better off staying off the ice until the preseason. Practicing skating technique will yield few results without first developing the proper physical attributes needed to support skill execution."

Now Twist is only one of the scores of sources that I could dig up if I had the time today. My statements on conditioning are never ideas that I make up on my own. They are based on an extensive literature that is supported by experience and exercise physiology. If there is something that I do not understand I call or e-mail the expert involved. If you want a more detailed bibliography I can try and assemble a list of sources for you. The challenges in developing as a hockey player are many because the sport is based on an unnatural movement (skating) that is structurally different from walking and running. It is a challenge to balance and blend hockey-specific exercises with training activities that are more general (weight training) but which need to be adapted. Hockey has a unfortunate tradition of being behind the times in the application of exercise physiology. That is changing and slowly the knowledge is seeping down to the lower levels of the sport.

I see what you're saying. The point I am trying to make is this. Say you and I are hockey players and are on the same level. Say all you do is play hockey, whereas I run track in the spring and play baseball in the summer. Although I would have an advantage over you in some aspects (conditioning and strength of different muscles), when it came time to start playing hockey again you would be a better hockey player than me. Thats why I think its a little unfair to use the Elite League comparison when talking about these two players.

[UNDhockey22]

I see what you're saying. The point I am trying to make is this. Say you and I are hockey players and are on the same level. Say all you do is play hockey, whereas I run track in the spring and play baseball in the summer. Although I would have an advantage over you in some aspects (conditioning and strength of different muscles), when it came time to start playing hockey again you would be a better hockey player than me. Thats why I think its a little unfair to use the Elite League comparison when talking about these two players.

If that was the case then what you are saying is either that Eric Meland is so much more superior to Tyler that by playing hockey in the summer Tyler was unable to catch the skill level of Meland (ridiculous), or that Tyler has surpassed the skill level of Eric Meland because he played more hockey in the summer and the reason Meland has more points than Tyler now is because of the strength of his team. Because if your theory was true, then once the Elite league started neither player would significantly improve more than one another and the gap between the two would stay the same.

If Eric Meland was in fact a superior player to Tyler Klein you would think in a 10 week long season he would have been able to shake off the dust after maybe two weeks at the most and prove to everyone that he was in fact a better player than Klein. The point I'm trying to make is not that Tyler Klein is a better hockey player than Eric Meland. My point is that maybe he is. Because when both players, placed on the same team, did not perform on similar levels.

[knowsall]

If that was the case then what you are saying is either that Eric Meland is so much more superior to Tyler that by playing hockey in the summer Tyler was unable to catch the skill level of Meland (ridiculous), or that Tyler has surpassed the skill level of Eric Meland because he played more hockey in the summer and the reason Meland has more points than Tyler now is because of the strength of his team. Because if your theory was true, then once the Elite league started neither player would significantly improve more than one another and the gap between the two would stay the same.

If Eric Meland was in fact a superior player to Tyler Klein you would think in a 10 week long season he would have been able to shake off the dust after maybe two weeks at the most and prove to everyone that he was in fact a better player than Klein. The point I'm trying to make is not that Tyler Klein is a better hockey player than Eric Meland. My point is that maybe he is. Because when both players, placed on the same team, did not perform on similar levels.

this is such a ridiculous arguement.Both sides should just stop. Only time will tell which player is better by who goes further with their hockey career. At the present time I like the situation Eric Meland is in. Playing with a couple of the top defensemen in the state, one of the top goalies in the state and a good group of young forwards, he could have the ability to showcase his talents the rest of this year and next year on what would be the top team in the state if all players return.

[ND Pride]

I see what you're saying. The point I am trying to make is this. Say you and I are hockey players and are on the same level. Say all you do is play hockey, whereas I run track in the spring and play baseball in the summer. Although I would have an advantage over you in some aspects (conditioning and strength of different muscles), when it came time to start playing hockey again you would be a better hockey player than me. Thats why I think its a little unfair to use the Elite League comparison when talking about these two players.

I agree with knowsall that this whole thing is getting quite hypothetical. There are various principles of training and development and that is all I am sharing as I am not involved in the Meland/Klein debate and the Elite League comparisons. It just touched on some issues related to player development. There are so many variables involved that it does get hard to draw conclusions about individuals. Hopefully we all have a little more appreciation for the complexity of the situation. Hockey is a great sport and perhaps one of the most difficult to make comparisons between players because of the wide variety of skill sets incorporated into the sport. Have a great weekend.

[Stiouxy]

it just states that if ur in the school for 90 days u can play Varsity so im guessing if he started at the beginning of the year yes he could be playing varsity!

You must sit out 90 school days from the day you change schools, so no he will not be able to play varsity hockey for Red River this year.

[hansen]

Does anyone have update to grafton-red river game?

[UofMGrad]

Does anyone have update to grafton-red river game?

Does anyone have an update on the DL vs. North game?

[soohockey15]

Red River wins 3-2

[GRAFTONhockey]

Wow RR over GPR...wild finish

[Wilbur]

Ummm...how so?

[ND Hockey Guy]

Bottineau 7, Hazen-Beulah 1

[Wilbur]

Jamestown over Williston tonight in Williston.

[Stromer]

Does anyone have an update on the DL vs. North game?

DL 4, North 3.

[ND Hockey Guy]

West Fargo 5, Mandan 1

Jamestown 1, Williston 0