Best Winter Peewee A Tournaments in Minnesota
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100percenteffort
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:32 pm
Best Winter Peewee A Tournaments in Minnesota
Can someone give me some insight to the best Peewee A tournaments. My friend coaches the 97 Madison Capitols and is looking for a tournament to register for.
St Cloud YHA has a good one over Martin Luther King Holiday
http://stcloudcentericeclassic.org/
http://stcloudcentericeclassic.org/
Star of the North in GR is always pretty decent. www.grhockey.com
Character is who you are when no one is watching
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mngopherfan
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Bemidji hosts the Paul Bunyan International Hockey Tournament December 27th-29th. See http://www.paulbunyanhockey.com. 16 teams and a pretty good level of competition; teams from Canada, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, Michigan & the Metro in previous years...
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punchinbag
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Re: Best Winter Peewee A Tournaments in Minnesota
I have seen alot of tourneys over the years and the Paul Bunyan International is one of the best. They treat you like royalty, they have off-ice things to do for the whole family, and the competition level is excellent. I know that they would love to have a team from the Madison area attend the tourney. I looked at the web link from D16dad and it says it all!! When we were there, they even set up free curling (Bemidji, along with Madison is a hot bed) and also had some fish houses set up on Lake Bemidji for our team to go ice fishing.100percenteffort wrote:Can someone give me some insight to the best Peewee A tournaments. My friend coaches the 97 Madison Capitols and is looking for a tournament to register for.
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wild_hockey_08
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- Location: International Falls
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Glory_Days99
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[quote="wild_hockey_08"]i believe that the bemidji tournament is around new years. I really enjoyed that one because there were teams from around the country. every team is guarenteed i think at least for 3 games and can get up to 5 games. bemidji also ran the tourny pretty well from what i can remember.[/quote]
Hands down best tournament in the state. The team is guarenteed 5 games, good competition fun atmosphere.
Hands down best tournament in the state. The team is guarenteed 5 games, good competition fun atmosphere.
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frederick61
- Posts: 1039
- Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 1:54 pm
I thought I would throw my two cents into this discussion if you are still looking for a winter tournament.
Because of the age difference (Minnesota has older kids playing Peewee A and Madison Capitals being a USA Tier I 97 team), I would be careful on what “best tourney” to select. To provide you a perspective, the 96 Wisconsin Fire team won the Tier I title last year by beating the 96 Capitals 9-1 among other teams. The 96 Fire had a up and down winter tourney playing locally last year. This year you could end up playing the same 96 Fire team if you entered a Peewee A tournament. So “best” is very subjective term.
The year older 95 Fire team entered the Edina tourney last year and had a tough but good tourney. The 96 Fire entered the Bloomington Tourney and made it to the semifinals. So you need to rate your team’s strength. I believe it does little to have a team in a non-competitive tourney (one where they dominate the competition or one where they are dominated).
If you rate the team as being competitive with the 97 Fire, I would recommend a Thanksgiving trip and play in the Burnsville, SuperRink tourney (Moundsview), or Hopkins. If you want to get into an early tourney, the Blaine Hall of Fame tourney in early November could be another good tourney. The Burnsville tourney offers 3-5 games, the SuperRink/Hopkins 3 games and the Blaine tourney offers 4-5 games if they keep the same formats. You might run into a Tier I team from Thunder Bay in the SuperRink or Hopkins tourney, but you may want to play some scrimmages on the side. You should be able to work out some ice locally and schedule a few scrimmages.
There is an Eden Prairie tourney at Thanksgiving also, but that tourney is one where you may find the 96 Fire entered.
There are a number of early December tourneys, but the Faribault tourney (about a half hour drive from the southern Twin City Suburbs) is a good one with quality competition, but the best early December tourney is Moorhead. They usually have 16 teams from all over. Their format is to have a single game to seed the 16 teams into two eight team brackets with single elimination play. The losers go to one bracket and the winners go to the other bracket. But Moorhead is a long drive from Madison.
If Christmas is a better option, then I would recommend the Bloomington tourney, you may even draw the 97 Fire providing you can get in, but this is a tough tourney where you will play 4-6 games usually starting the day after Christmas and ending on New Year’s eve. Bloomington has three sheets of ice, each with a different character. They have an Olympic sized sheet, a “band box” sheet and a typical high school sized sheet. The Bloomington tourney uses the Silver Stick method of scoring, so your team could lose a couple of games in pool play and still advance. I would steer clear of Edina tourney because it is almost a certainty that the 96 Fire will be playing there and you might be out of the tourney after one or two games.
The Bemidji tourney is a good one, but adds 300 miles to your travels (one way).
After Christmas, there are a number of good tourney’s to enter including ones in the Duluth area as well as Grand Rapids. I like the Cloquet tourney, they have a good mix of teams and usually have more then one Peewee A tourney in a year. There is a good casino to stay at that is about 10 minutes from the Cloquet Arenas. The casino is setup to entertain kids while the parents relax. The Cloquet tourney has more then one tourney including one in early Feb that could be of interest.
Another tourney to consider is St. Cloud. They play over the Martin Luther King holiday and end their tourney on the Monday, but you can play 4-5 games with competition from Western central Minnesota and Twin City teams. They usually have 16 teams playing on sheets of ice scattered over the St. Cloud area. You might be able to schedule additional scrimmages in the northern Twin City suburbs
There are also some March tourneys which could be attractive to your team. Since most league and district playoffs and completed in Febuary, there is opportunity to play in a March tourney that may fit your schedule. One is Fridley in the northern suburbs. There may also be teams willing to scrimmage with you and ice is easily available. I don’t know the schedules, but you may be able to combine it all and attend the state high tourney in St. Paul that week.
One set of tourneys in late January and early Febuary to consider is either the Roseau or Warroad tourneys. Most people I know who have gone found either town very friendly and interested in youth hockey. People have told me that the attendance to this tourneys is great and gives the kids a feel for playing in front of a crowd, but it still is a long drive from Madison.
I hope this helps.
Because of the age difference (Minnesota has older kids playing Peewee A and Madison Capitals being a USA Tier I 97 team), I would be careful on what “best tourney” to select. To provide you a perspective, the 96 Wisconsin Fire team won the Tier I title last year by beating the 96 Capitals 9-1 among other teams. The 96 Fire had a up and down winter tourney playing locally last year. This year you could end up playing the same 96 Fire team if you entered a Peewee A tournament. So “best” is very subjective term.
The year older 95 Fire team entered the Edina tourney last year and had a tough but good tourney. The 96 Fire entered the Bloomington Tourney and made it to the semifinals. So you need to rate your team’s strength. I believe it does little to have a team in a non-competitive tourney (one where they dominate the competition or one where they are dominated).
If you rate the team as being competitive with the 97 Fire, I would recommend a Thanksgiving trip and play in the Burnsville, SuperRink tourney (Moundsview), or Hopkins. If you want to get into an early tourney, the Blaine Hall of Fame tourney in early November could be another good tourney. The Burnsville tourney offers 3-5 games, the SuperRink/Hopkins 3 games and the Blaine tourney offers 4-5 games if they keep the same formats. You might run into a Tier I team from Thunder Bay in the SuperRink or Hopkins tourney, but you may want to play some scrimmages on the side. You should be able to work out some ice locally and schedule a few scrimmages.
There is an Eden Prairie tourney at Thanksgiving also, but that tourney is one where you may find the 96 Fire entered.
There are a number of early December tourneys, but the Faribault tourney (about a half hour drive from the southern Twin City Suburbs) is a good one with quality competition, but the best early December tourney is Moorhead. They usually have 16 teams from all over. Their format is to have a single game to seed the 16 teams into two eight team brackets with single elimination play. The losers go to one bracket and the winners go to the other bracket. But Moorhead is a long drive from Madison.
If Christmas is a better option, then I would recommend the Bloomington tourney, you may even draw the 97 Fire providing you can get in, but this is a tough tourney where you will play 4-6 games usually starting the day after Christmas and ending on New Year’s eve. Bloomington has three sheets of ice, each with a different character. They have an Olympic sized sheet, a “band box” sheet and a typical high school sized sheet. The Bloomington tourney uses the Silver Stick method of scoring, so your team could lose a couple of games in pool play and still advance. I would steer clear of Edina tourney because it is almost a certainty that the 96 Fire will be playing there and you might be out of the tourney after one or two games.
The Bemidji tourney is a good one, but adds 300 miles to your travels (one way).
After Christmas, there are a number of good tourney’s to enter including ones in the Duluth area as well as Grand Rapids. I like the Cloquet tourney, they have a good mix of teams and usually have more then one Peewee A tourney in a year. There is a good casino to stay at that is about 10 minutes from the Cloquet Arenas. The casino is setup to entertain kids while the parents relax. The Cloquet tourney has more then one tourney including one in early Feb that could be of interest.
Another tourney to consider is St. Cloud. They play over the Martin Luther King holiday and end their tourney on the Monday, but you can play 4-5 games with competition from Western central Minnesota and Twin City teams. They usually have 16 teams playing on sheets of ice scattered over the St. Cloud area. You might be able to schedule additional scrimmages in the northern Twin City suburbs
There are also some March tourneys which could be attractive to your team. Since most league and district playoffs and completed in Febuary, there is opportunity to play in a March tourney that may fit your schedule. One is Fridley in the northern suburbs. There may also be teams willing to scrimmage with you and ice is easily available. I don’t know the schedules, but you may be able to combine it all and attend the state high tourney in St. Paul that week.
One set of tourneys in late January and early Febuary to consider is either the Roseau or Warroad tourneys. Most people I know who have gone found either town very friendly and interested in youth hockey. People have told me that the attendance to this tourneys is great and gives the kids a feel for playing in front of a crowd, but it still is a long drive from Madison.
I hope this helps.
Bemidji tournament has 10 teams registered so far http://www.paulbunyanhockey.com/registration_status.htm...
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egf hockey1
- Posts: 131
- Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2007 4:40 pm
East Grand Forks - November 28-30. 4 games, 17 minute stop time periods. Information for all tournaments at www.egf.pucksystems.com. Good tournament last year with competitive teams from northern MN, Colorado, Winnipeg and Ontario.
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frederick61
- Posts: 1039
- Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 1:54 pm
EP's tournament over Thanksgiving Holiday is a great tournament with all 16 teams being very competitive. Bemidji's in December is OK, not getting the best teams anymore. St. Clouds Geyer-Signal still a good tournament. Sounds like Roseau is having a 12 - 16 team tournament in Jan 2009 and may be bringing up some very good Metro teams.