Wait a minute Jeffy95 I love your hatred for Hermantown and how they are bending the rules and everyone knows half that team is not a real Hermantown kid.... BUT WARROAD!!! They were cheating and sandbaging in Class A from the start of it 1994. From 94-08 Warroad was Hermantown play up during the regular season against AA Teams. Bring kids in from all over with Marvin Windows and then win Class A titles while they could of competed at 8AA and for the Class AA Title. Warroad was just as bad as Hermantown.Jeffy95 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 11:57 amBiggest difference this year is they didn’t even bother with the Base. Biondi and Pionk are the only two Hermantown kids who are contributing to the scoring. This is truly an All Northern MN AAA team.NMNSUPPORTER wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 10:46 am Why is it so difficult for people to realize that Hermantown does not have a magical potion or secret sauce, it is simply they have a good base program and then add a few of the areas top squirts, pee wees, bantams, and hs players every year. Simply put it is a numbers game. They take there base and bring in a few of the areas other top players every year and poooof there a winner. Hermantown was nothing more than a speed bump prior to the advent of AAA youth hockey. The Lake Superior Stars bring in a selection of local youth players that are above average and by doing so they create bonds with like skilled kids. Those kids and the parents see what happens when they come together and decide hey why not continue the summer success in the winter. Just to be clear when the HS went Tier I and Tier II Hermantown got placed in Tier I the first year and got crushed, the following year they requested to be the team the switched with Greenway as Greenway requested to play Tier I and Hermantown moved down to Tier II.
They have been playing at the lowest level they can forever and have taken advantage of the Summer Hockey Movement better than any other program.
That is why they win, not because of some special program. Bruce Plante was the benefactor of the AAA movement, his players were not all from the Hermantown Zipcode. In fact due to AAA and open enrollment Hermantown has raped a pillaged the Proctor/Twig program, the Denfeld program, and the Range programs ever since AAA started. Lets just leave it with they were smart enough to maximize AAA and not fight it. Heck the Hibbing brothers parents were anti AAA until there boys got selected and poof dad didnt get the HS job and they moved to there AAA home
The good news, (Hope) is that this rarely works when teams bring in these short term rentals to try to buy a championship. Great example is when the Lakers brought in Payton and Malone to a team that was already the favorite. For the sake of our game, let’s hope Hermantown and EP fall flat on their face at some point. Warroad and Andover are my teams this year! Bring it home boys!
Warroad build the blueprint for what Hermantown is doing now... WARROAD??? seriously that one made me chuckle.