Section 3A (2012-13 Season)

woodpencil · Post by **woodpencil** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:37 pm

Thanks for your predictions. However, I do have a question. Why do people knock the coaching in Luverne? I have seen that comment several times. Their record has continually gotten better in the last five years. Just curious.

Bettman, how do you consider a win against Windom "good." Were you at the game? If so, fill us in on the glass incident please.[/quote]

coaching - There are three reasons why Luverne is doing well.
1. athletes. the kids are in other sports which makes them better hockey players. they have good athletic programs in Luverne.
2. leadership. the positive of the coaches is the fact that they want to have good players and encourage them to be better by playing summer hockey on quality AAA teams like Albert Lea or other good programs. This is one of the main reasons the kids are good. They are learning from QUALITY coaches and they bring that back to the program. The coaches are also open to learning from their players experiences.
3. Summer ice. the community has bought into the hockey program. the kids are on the ice in the summer developing their skills, then playing other sports during the year. Learning the skills in the summer makes them better players in the winter. the coaches have their good HS players work with the youth which makes the HS better.

the coaches aren't packed with hockey knowledge, but they are doing the right things to make the program better. IF they could get a quality former college player of some sort it would really help the program. We are happy with our coaches and the direction they are taking us, but would be even better if we had that one missing element.

No other team in the conference is going in the right direction. Marshall doesn't even do summer ice and spends their money operating a rink while the kids are in school in the fall and in their fall sports. Killing their program; besides the fact that they lost a very good coach and gained something less than par. Other SW conference teams don't have the numbers to run the ice. The leadership of the coaches is the strength plus the time on the ice in the summer.

Section 3A HockeyScout · Sun Jan 27, 2013 10:47 pm

woodpencil wrote: However, I do have a question. Why do people knock the coaching in Luverne? I have seen that comment several times. Their record has continually gotten better in the last five years. Just curious. .

I have not always been kind to Luverne but while looking through the youth board on this site today I found this link:

http://youthhockeyhub.com/luverne-hockey/

It is a very good must read on what all SW Hockey programs should be doing. Looks like the high school coach down there is running a Summer Program where he is working with all players Mites though High School.

Also works on getting kids into the programs to help them get recognized at the next level. From the reading looks like Luverne has more talent coming up over the next few years.

Just a really nice refreshing article about some good things happening in Luverne. Needs to happen in more SW MN programs if they every want to catch up to the rest of the state.

That being said as of right now I think its New Ulm #1 seed and I dont think anyone wants to play Hutch they are going to be a bracket buster!

Season is flying by fast hope the seniors are enjoying it... Will be PLAYOFF TIME SOON ENOUGH!

no5hole · Post by **no5hole** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:29 am

When are the Luverne kids going to learn to stop talking smack on here? Everytime they do it it comes back to bite them. Marshall, win the Morris game and you have a share of the SW title.... unless Luverne loses to Windom on the eagles ice. Previous projections still holding strong for seeding, not that really matters.

Gretzky9 · Post by **Gretzky9** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:37 pm

notTONIGHT wrote:Lets get the seedings discussion going (if for nothing else just to get bettman going).

1. New Ulm, Avoiding playing the section is still working for them.
2. Luverne, Ugly loss to Marshall keeping them from #1 Spot
3. Litch
4. Marshall
5. Windom
6. Hutch
7. Redwood
8. Fairmont
9. Worthington

Hutch with two big section games left with Litch and Luverne. If they pull off either of those they could surpass Windom.
New Ulm has a big section tilt with Litch tomorrow night.
Luverne and New Ulm both have one ugly loss (Marshall and Dodge County respectively) Quality win discussion goes to Luverne with the Princeton victory.
There are a lot of games left to be played, which is good for Hutch.
Thoughts?

With a couple weeks to go here is my rankings (with no dog in the fight):

1. Luverne- too much talent and depth
2. New Ulm- experience and know how to win in big games....but lack depth
3. Hutch- Call me crazy...but have seen these guys a couple times. They have a better overall team than NU...lack goaltending as a strength. They WILL surprise unless they take too many dumb penalties....which they are prone to do. Stay out of the box and they have a chance.
4. Litch- lack depth but have enough talent to make a run
5. Marshall ***- have not seen them since injuries
6. Windom- Just not overly impressed
7. Redwood- no chance
8. Fairmont- no chance
9. Worthington- no chance

no5hole · Post by **no5hole** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 12:10 am

Good thing your not a gambling man Gretzky9, but you must be smoking something.

Deck Slide · Post by **Deck Slide** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:28 pm

no5hole wrote:Good thing your not a gambling man Gretzky9, but you must be smoking something.

No doubt.. How anyone has Luverne being the 1 seed at this point is really unbelievable. Who has Luverne beat.. Princeton.. The rest of their schedule is garbage.. New Ulm is and will be the 1 seed in this section.

notTONIGHT · Post by **notTONIGHT** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:36 pm

Deck Slide wrote:
no5hole wrote:Good thing your not a gambling man Gretzky9, but you must be smoking something.

No doubt.. How anyone has Luverne being the 1 seed at this point is really unbelievable. Who has Luverne beat.. Princeton.. The rest of their schedule is garbage.. New Ulm is and will be the 1 seed in this section.

Princeton is far and away the BEST win that anyone in this section has. There is not even another win that can be in the conversation.
However, Luverne is not the #1 seed. It will be NU.

Gretzky9 · Post by **Gretzky9** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:19 pm

notTONIGHT wrote:
Deck Slide wrote:
no5hole wrote:Good thing your not a gambling man Gretzky9, but you must be smoking something.

No doubt.. How anyone has Luverne being the 1 seed at this point is really unbelievable. Who has Luverne beat.. Princeton.. The rest of their schedule is garbage.. New Ulm is and will be the 1 seed in this section.
Princeton is far and away the BEST win that anyone in this section has. There is not even another win that can be in the conversation.
However, Luverne is not the #1 seed. It will be NU.

My rankings are not seeds...they are the order of best teams based on my opinion of watching them play (with the exception to possibly putting Hutch higher than NU). NU will not come out of this section. It will be fun to come back to these posts to see who is eating crow...if it is me so be it. I don't really care who comes out of the section and it will be kind of fun watching St. Thomas destroy whoever does....but with no bias and having seen them play I feel pretty good about my thoughts on this.

Deck Slide · Post by **Deck Slide** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 2:23 pm

notTONIGHT wrote:
Deck Slide wrote:
no5hole wrote:Good thing your not a gambling man Gretzky9, but you must be smoking something.

No doubt.. How anyone has Luverne being the 1 seed at this point is really unbelievable. Who has Luverne beat.. Princeton.. The rest of their schedule is garbage.. New Ulm is and will be the 1 seed in this section.
Princeton is far and away the BEST win that anyone in this section has. There is not even another win that can be in the conversation.
However, Luverne is not the #1 seed. It will be NU.

Pretty pathetic that Princeton is best win this section can muster up.. New Ulm beat Blake this year but Blake is not very good this year. Otherwise A team with a losing record could easiy come out of this section. LSP has the best goalie in the section and given the low skill level of this section i certainly wouldn't want to play them or Litch this year because of thier goaltenders.

Chalk_Talk · Post by **Chalk_Talk** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:01 pm

Deck Slide wrote:
notTONIGHT wrote:
Deck Slide wrote:
No doubt.. How anyone has Luverne being the 1 seed at this point is really unbelievable. Who has Luverne beat.. Princeton.. The rest of their schedule is garbage.. New Ulm is and will be the 1 seed in this section.
Princeton is far and away the BEST win that anyone in this section has. There is not even another win that can be in the conversation.
However, Luverne is not the #1 seed. It will be NU.

Pretty pathetic that Princeton is best win this section can muster up.. New Ulm beat Blake this year but Blake is not very good this year. Otherwise A team with a losing record could easiy come out of this section. LSP has the best goalie in the section and given the low skill level of this section i certainly wouldn't want to play them or Litch this year because of thier goaltenders.

LSH is in section 1A

notTONIGHT · Post by **notTONIGHT** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:19 pm

Deck Slide wrote:
notTONIGHT wrote:
Deck Slide wrote:
No doubt.. How anyone has Luverne being the 1 seed at this point is really unbelievable. Who has Luverne beat.. Princeton.. The rest of their schedule is garbage.. New Ulm is and will be the 1 seed in this section.
Princeton is far and away the BEST win that anyone in this section has. There is not even another win that can be in the conversation.
However, Luverne is not the #1 seed. It will be NU.

Pretty pathetic that Princeton is best win this section can muster up.. New Ulm beat Blake this year but Blake is not very good this year. Otherwise A team with a losing record could easiy come out of this section. LSP has the best goalie in the section and given the low skill level of this section i certainly wouldn't want to play them or Litch this year because of thier goaltenders.

Deckslide, if your going to make brash statements about the section, and the seedings, you might want to understand which teams are indeed in the section. Also, Princeton has swept Little Falls this season, and is currently ranked 13. Princeton is a good win for almost anyone in the entire class.

woodpencil · Post by **woodpencil** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:13 pm

Marshall 5 MBA 4

Luverne 13 Worthington 1

Looks like Marshall and Luverne will share the conference title (after Luverne beats Windom that is)

Marshall was able to get the win even with a couple players now out for the season, and Morris did out shoot them by quite a bit. Hope they enjoy the conference share of the title, as it probably won't happen again for another decade

Deck Slide · Post by **Deck Slide** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 3:54 pm

Chalk_Talk wrote:
Deck Slide wrote:
notTONIGHT wrote: Princeton is far and away the BEST win that anyone in this section has. There is not even another win that can be in the conversation.
However, Luverne is not the #1 seed. It will be NU.

Pretty pathetic that Princeton is best win this section can muster up.. New Ulm beat Blake this year but Blake is not very good this year. Otherwise A team with a losing record could easiy come out of this section. LSP has the best goalie in the section and given the low skill level of this section i certainly wouldn't want to play them or Litch this year because of thier goaltenders.
LSH is in section 1A

Whoops my bad.. They would fit right in with this section, not much skill.. The section will be fun though because seeds 1-5 all have a shot at winning it. Not many sections in Class can say that.

Joker77 · Post by **Joker77** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 6:29 pm

One thing that no one seems to realize is that Luverne has no idea how to incorporate systems into their play. Yes, Luverne has good talent but being able to efficiently run systems will trump talent in section 3A. Big cites teams can sometimes win games on talent but there is by no means any players that are of division 1 caliber in section 3A that can carry a team through playoffs. I'm predicting a repeat of last year in the section finals. Luverne vs New Ulm with New Ulm winning with their systems and Luverne choking when they try to run hail mary plays all game.

bardown27 · Post by **bardown27** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 11:17 pm

hutch beats litch 6-3 tonight. how does this affect seeding, if at all?

notTONIGHT · Post by **notTONIGHT** » Sat Feb 02, 2013 9:28 am

bardown27 wrote:hutch beats litch 6-3 tonight. how does this affect seeding, if at all?

This, paired with a hutch win next friday over Luverne next friday would really throw a wrench in the seedings.

gingerroll · Post by **gingerroll** » Sat Feb 02, 2013 9:32 am

notTONIGHT wrote:
bardown27 wrote:hutch beats litch 6-3 tonight. how does this affect seeding, if at all?
This, paired with a hutch win next friday over Luverne next friday would really throw a wrench in the seedings.

Friday night Hutch vs Luverne, 2 teams with talent and no coaching, should be a good one.

CherryPicker99 · Post by **CherryPicker99** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:41 pm

gingerroll wrote:
notTONIGHT wrote:
bardown27 wrote:hutch beats litch 6-3 tonight. how does this affect seeding, if at all?
This, paired with a hutch win next friday over Luverne next friday would really throw a wrench in the seedings.
Friday night Hutch vs Luverne, 2 teams with talent and no coaching, should be a good one.

You don't suppose any of that talent has anything to do with the coaching do you? Luverne is looking at having their second straight 20 win season and their coaching is bad. Luverne has scored 50 more goals and have given up 30 less goals than any other team in the section and they don't play systems. Am I missing something? Now attack their schedule. Those are some pretty definitive numbers no matter what schedule they are playing. Glad that Hutch and Litch finally put them on their schedules this season. Now if only New Ulm would follow suit. It would make seeding this section much easier.

notTONIGHT · Post by **notTONIGHT** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:50 pm

CherryPicker99 wrote:
gingerroll wrote:
notTONIGHT wrote: This, paired with a hutch win next friday over Luverne next friday would really throw a wrench in the seedings.
Friday night Hutch vs Luverne, 2 teams with talent and no coaching, should be a good one.
You don't suppose any of that talent has anything to do with the coaching do you? Luverne is looking at having their second straight 20 win season and their coaching is bad. Luverne has scored 50 more goals and have given up 30 less goals than any other team in the section and they don't play systems. Am I missing something? Now attack their schedule. Those are some pretty definitive numbers no matter what schedule they are playing. Glad that Hutch and Litch finally put them on their schedules this season. Now if only New Ulm would follow suit. It would make seeding this section much easier.

But wait, its Luvernes responsibility to ensure that the rest of the SWC puts together a good squad. Right?

woodpencil · Post by **woodpencil** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:40 am

slow down. Luverne has not been a power house in the SWC ever. While the team is doing very well, and tied for the conference title (with a weaker than ever Marshall team) they haven't yet developed the reputation of a great section team. The program is getting stronger, and while we support the coaches, they aren't the elite of the section. Quite honestly, the best coach in the section is no longer here and the replacement for him is very laughable. We will watch the Marshall program spiral downward the next couple years unless some leadership gets a handle on that association.

Luverne is growing a strong program, and like I stated before, that is coming from the summer ice and the quality AAA programs that some of the kids are playing for. The kids are improving their skills in summer ice from the high school to the youth, summer training on ice to improve skating and skills and from the coaching they receive outside the association. The coaches are also learning from the players. The community has also bought into the program and the association is moving in the right direction.

We certainly would like to see the competition improve in the SWC as that makes all the teams better and would make Luverne stronger. Unfortunately, many programs can't get the numbers (RWV, Windom, Worthington) and others lack the leadership and knowledge (Marshall) to develop a strong program. Looks like Marshall needs to clean house or at the very least tap into the knowledge of the assistant coaches.

Luverne will dominate the SWC for the next couple years.

notTONIGHT wrote:
CherryPicker99 wrote:
gingerroll wrote: Friday night Hutch vs Luverne, 2 teams with talent and no coaching, should be a good one.
You don't suppose any of that talent has anything to do with the coaching do you? Luverne is looking at having their second straight 20 win season and their coaching is bad. Luverne has scored 50 more goals and have given up 30 less goals than any other team in the section and they don't play systems. Am I missing something? Now attack their schedule. Those are some pretty definitive numbers no matter what schedule they are playing. Glad that Hutch and Litch finally put them on their schedules this season. Now if only New Ulm would follow suit. It would make seeding this section much easier.
But wait, its Luvernes responsibility to ensure that the rest of the SWC puts together a good squad. Right?

Teak · Post by **Teak** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 3:47 pm

woodpencil wrote:Luverne will dominate the SWC for the next couple years.

Just seeing them play with their good mix of frosh and sophomores, amongst the juniors and seniors, makes me agree with you on this. I would like to see Luverne take this section and go to state.

Section 3A HockeyScout · Wed Feb 06, 2013 3:17 am

Got this from a separate thread keep all 3A Topics here

Luverne heads up to Hutchinson for a big 3A Tilt on Friday. Hutchinson is undoubtedly a potential bracket buster, but at 5-16 have had a pretty miserable season playing a much tougher schedule that an 18 -3 -1 Luverne squad that is a section favorite heading into the playoffs. I think this is a good indicator for both squads where they are at heading into the post season.
Hutch is looking to send a statement to the section, and might very well do so if they can get some tendy play.
Luverne, with a very important blue liner ineligble for the game, is looking to find out where they stand with a traditional 3A power.

I had heard Luverne was missing what many would consider their Top Player the last couple games. The source told me he would be back for this game as it was not a State High School League Violation or Injury why he had to sit out.....

Without him wow Luverne would struggle in this one had he been playing now minus him Friday Night in Hutch's Backyard YIKES...

I think Hutch makes a statement

casualobserver · Post by **casualobserver** » Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:47 am

Luverne won't be the only team missing players.
Hutch had five starters out last night at Holy Family.

Injuries are part of the game and shouldn't be a factor.

Teak · Post by **Teak** » Thu Feb 07, 2013 9:05 pm

casualobserver wrote:Luverne won't be the only team missing players.
Hutch had five starters out last night at Holy Family.

Injuries are part of the game and shouldn't be a factor.

Neutral ice, neutral ice; let's play this game in Marshall.

notTONIGHT · Post by **notTONIGHT** » Fri Feb 08, 2013 9:47 am

[quote="Without him wow Luverne would struggle in this one had he been playing now minus him Friday Night in Hutch's Backyard YIKES...

I think Hutch makes a statement[/quote]

What quantifies a statement ? Is just a W a statement for this hutch squad with over 3 times as many losses as wins? And yes, Luverne will NOT have its full roster for this game tonight. If Hutch doesnt make a statement, thats a pretty loud statement in itself...

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Section 3A (2012-13 Season)

Who wins Section 3A this year (2012-13)?