Early look at 2008 FARGO SQUIRT Tournament

boardmember · Post by **boardmember** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 10:36 am

boardmember wrote:
Zebos wrote:Bracket 1A

Fargo Flyers 5
Rosemount 3

Crookston 0
East Grand Forks 5

Wayzata 7
Moorhead 3

Eden Prairie 6
Alexandria 2

Edina 11
Lakeville South 3

Burnsville 4
Bloomington Jefferson 3

Littleton 4
White Bear Lake 5

Maple Grove 4
Fargo Angels 2

Fargo Flyers 1
EGF 3

Wayzata 5
EP 0

Edina 7
Burnsville 1

WBL 1
MG 2 o/t

Wayzata 6
EGF 2

Edina 4
MG 0

Wayzata, Edina final at 2:00 PM No surprise.

eastendhockey · Post by **eastendhockey** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 4:10 pm

Regarding the Minnesota teams beating the Colorado teams; The Colorado teams will be made up of birth year '97 and '98 kids. No '96's. Same with California teams. That one year makes a big difference.

Ozzie82 · Post by **Ozzie82** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 4:16 pm

Eastend, thanks for the clarification.

5thgraders · Post by **5thgraders** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 5:10 pm

This squirt Tournament is touted as the best Squirt Tournament
in the World. Problem is that this clearly is not the case at all if
it was then the best teams would be let in to the tournament ??
Why is it that the Fargo Flyers play Fergus Falls and beat them
8 to 0. They are 50miles up the road why play them ?? Oh I get
it you know you could beat them to get the team on a roll for the
rest of the tourny is my guess. Well it didn't work next year you
should blackball some of the better teams from the city as then
you may have a better chance to make it to the Finals. It is run
by a bunch of homer hankies the truth hurts.

My_Kid_Loves_Hockey · Post by **My_Kid_Loves_Hockey** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:04 pm

5thgraders: I thought by fifth grade kids didn't whine as much........but there are exceptions to the rule.

Please post in some other thread.

O-townClown · Post by **O-townClown** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:32 pm

I believe it was 4-3 Edina.

Ozzie82 · Post by **Ozzie82** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:36 pm

That is correct O Town. Looks like Edina wasn't overrated after all!

Papa Bergundy · Post by **Papa Bergundy** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:20 pm

At least it wasn't the 9-1 beatdown they put on them earlier.

Tenoverpar · Post by **Tenoverpar** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:44 am

Ozzie...to say That is correct O Town. Looks like Edina wasn't overrated after all! is not quite what the belief was. If you look at what the faithful have said over and over and over is a general consesus to not get so over excited because they are squirts. It has nothing to do with overated. CLearly Edina is the best Squirt team in Minnesota this year.

Hnut61 · Post by **Hnut61** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:53 am

5thgraders wrote:This squirt Tournament is touted as the best Squirt Tournament
in the World. Problem is that this clearly is not the case at all if
it was then the best teams would be let in to the tournament ??
Why is it that the Fargo Flyers play Fergus Falls and beat them
8 to 0. They are 50miles up the road why play them ?? Oh I get
it you know you could beat them to get the team on a roll for the
rest of the tourny is my guess. Well it didn't work next year you
should blackball some of the better teams from the city as then
you may have a better chance to make it to the Finals. It is run
by a bunch of homer hankies the truth hurts.

Why don't you ask the roughly 1300 "A" and "B" level kids who participated if this is the "Greatest Squirt Tournament." They all seemed to be having a great time to me.

5thgraders · Post by **5thgraders** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:46 am

[quote="Hnut61"][quote="5thgraders"]This squirt Tournament is touted as the best Squirt Tournament
in the World. Problem is that this clearly is not the case at all if
it was then the best teams would be let in to the tournament ??
Why is it that the Fargo Flyers play Fergus Falls and beat them
8 to 0. They are 50miles up the road why play them ?? Oh I get
it you know you could beat them to get the team on a roll for the
rest of the tourny is my guess. Well it didn't work next year you
should blackball some of the better teams from the city as then
you may have a better chance to make it to the Finals. It is run
by a bunch of homer hankies the truth hurts.[/quote]

Why don't you ask the roughly 1300 "A" and "B" level kids who participated if this is the "Greatest Squirt Tournament." They all seemed to be having a great time to me.[/quote]

Congrats to them it is you who toots his own horn that this is the best
squirt tournament in the World. Then why leave out allot of the BEST
Teams. It baffles those who question the motives behind this not very
well thought out process. If it is the best in the world then let the best in ?

O-townClown · Post by **O-townClown** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:10 am

Who was left out? Quit griping.

Thousands of people think this is the best Squirt tournament around Minnesota and one guy disagrees. I don't like your chances here.

spin-o-rama · Post by **spin-o-rama** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:34 am

5thgraders wrote: Congrats to them it is you who toots his own horn that this is the best
squirt tournament in the World. Then why leave out allot of the BEST
Teams. It baffles those who question the motives behind this not very
well thought out process. If it is the best in the world then let the best in ?

I'll take the hook.

Please share your nominee for best squirt tournament in the world and give reasons why.

jancze5 · Post by **jancze5** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:47 am

to say "the World" is a bit bold...but

Here's a basic opinion on why everyone LOVES the Fargo tournament..it's a freaking AAA format tournament. Set up exactly like every AAA tournament in the country that AAA teams play in all year. You get to play teams you wouldn't otherwise see in the regular season, you get to stay in a hotel with your teamates and have fun, you get to drink beer and BS with people you otherwise wouldn't know from adam, you get to forge friendships with people from other place, you get to appreciate a player from a town far away from you and follow the kid down the road, you get to pin trade for fun, you get to do everything that makes AAA winter tournaments fun....yet in Minnesota we shun AAA hockey but LOVE and call the it THE BEST IN THE WORLD, the closest thing to AAA our young kids play in. Go figure!

Bottom line: the tournament is great, I'm glad both of my boys had a chance to play in it. It's well worth the trip, to call it the best squirt tournament may be a stretch, but it's definately GREAT

Ozzie82 · Post by **Ozzie82** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:23 pm

tenoverpar,

Fair point (and great name!). I guess I should have directed my "overrated" post at hockeywizard who posted the following:

hockeywizard wrote:As I recall Edina was 'all that' undefeated, unbeatable and ranked #1 in the Squirt division in Fargo last year and didn't even make the '#1' bracket of the tournament!? So much for press clippings!

sorno82 · Post by **sorno82** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:18 pm

I find it interesting that although the Edina team is still clearly the best squirt A team this year, they seem to either fallen back a bit to the pack, or the pack has improved more than they have during the year. Wayzata gets thumped 9-1 early on,then lose 4-3 just recently. EP was able to beat them, though it sounds like it was some great goaltending.

It makes you wonder if some over do it a bit in the summer, then wear out or get into diminishing returns at the end of the association year. Edina is predominately MM, where Wayzata has kids doing all kinds of different spring/summer/fall hockey. Wayzata kids do go year round also for the most part, but maybe not as intense as the Edina kids. I think there is only one MM kid on the Wayzata "A" team, not sure on their "b" teams.

slasher · Post by **slasher** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:51 pm

Sorno- There's a bunch of Wayzata Mites skating at Minnesota made this winter. I'm not sure about the Squirts?

When are we going to see Wayzata dominate in high school hockey? Can I ask this question in the youth site?

LesHabs · Post by **LesHabs** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:02 pm

sorno82 wrote: It makes you wonder if some over do it a bit in the summer, then wear out or get into diminishing returns at the end of the association year.

With respect to the Edina kids, it is not over doing it in the summer, it's about over doing it now. I hear they regularly practice 2, even 3 times a day on weekends, which if true, is INSANE for kids this age.

sorno82 · Post by **sorno82** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:21 pm

From what I understand, most Wayzata kids don't like the highschool hockey coach and go elsewhere. You would think the way they are near the top in every age level they would be dominating in the next 5 years. It would be interesting to know how many kids disperse to the private schools from EP, Edina, and Wayzata.

In the mite choice league, I heard most of the kids are from Edina and EP, with just a handful from Wayzata. Could be wrong-don't know for sure.

tomASS · Post by **tomASS** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:40 pm

sorno82 wrote:. You would think the way they are near the top in every age level they would be dominating in the next 5 years. It would be interesting to know how many kids disperse to the private schools from EP, Edina, and Wayzata.

Welcome to our world in District 112 - Carver County would have one heck of an all-star HS team. It just happens that many that came up through association hockey were also private school kids from early on in their life.

boardmember · Post by **boardmember** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:50 pm

sorno82 wrote:I find it interesting that although the Edina team is still clearly the best squirt A team this year, they seem to either fallen back a bit to the pack, or the pack has improved more than they have during the year. Wayzata gets thumped 9-1 early on,then lose 4-3 just recently. EP was able to beat them, though it sounds like it was some great goaltending.

It makes you wonder if some over do it a bit in the summer, then wear out or get into diminishing returns at the end of the association year. Edina is predominately MM, where Wayzata has kids doing all kinds of different spring/summer/fall hockey. Wayzata kids do go year round also for the most part, but maybe not as intense as the Edina kids. I think there is only one MM kid on the Wayzata "A" team, not sure on their "b" teams.

Sorno82

Are you kidding me! Another MM conspiracy theory??

Winning a 2.5 day 6 game hockey tourney by an average margin of 6 goals......Yep they definitley must be going backward! EP must be going backward too! EP beat Wayzata 4-2, 3 weeks ago but lost this week 5-0. It must have been all that fall Football catching up to the lads from EP.

The Edina 10 and 11 year old kids played 6 games in a 49 hour peroid, The Wayzata 10 and 11 year old kids played 6 games in a 53 hour peroid.

Edina went 6-0 and outscored their oponent 46-7
Wayzata went 5-1 and out scored their opponent 37-12

2 teams that dominated their brackets, 2 teams that played 6 games in 2 days. I expected a close, exciting game by two tired but good teams to close out the Tourney! Hats off to both teams for their showing! and Shame on you for trying to reason the close game on the Edina kids past summers skating at MM is diminishing their ability to win by 6 in that game!!

mn4hockey · Post by **mn4hockey** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:01 pm

5thgraders - if you didn't notice, when they do the 1st day pairings, they try to put two decent teams with one weaker team. this way they weed out those weaker teams right away. If you can imagine it's still a little hard to predict how good a team of 10 year olds are going to be, even more so if you haven't seen them play. My suggestion to you would be, if you don't like the set up then maybe take your team elsewhere, im sure the Fargo Flyers wouldn't hesitate to pull a different team from the waiting list.

sorno82 · Post by **sorno82** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:40 pm

Chill Boardmember- The MM defenders have more of a hair trigger than most.

I wanted to make an observation that the gap seems to have narrowed. I also stated that most Wayzata kids skate year round also, just not at MM. There is a huge difference between 9-1 and 4-3, it is the difference to not even in the same league to being competitive. Just wondering if kids are wearing out, or if others are getting closer since the hours skated in the winter are probably the same.

I have no problem with MM, and I am sure the kids have a big early advantage that go through the program. But I just wonder if the early advantage narrows as the year goes on and others get more ice.

Shame? get real.

hockeywizard · Post by **hockeywizard** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:29 pm

[b]As I recall Edina was 'all that' undefeated, unbeatable and ranked #1 in the Squirt division in Fargo last year and didn't even make the '#1' bracket of the tournament!? So much for press clippings![/b]

So Ozzie which part of that statement prior to the tournament this weekend isn't true? They were touted as the greatest team ever and fell on their faces! Everyone wanting to annoint Edina King of the Hill before they played a game! Now they deserve the accolades for this years victory!

Truthbetold · Post by **Truthbetold** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:42 pm

Slasher/Boogey, Let's make sure that you seperate "Youth Hockey" from High School Hockey. Many times players leave their associations after Bantams to different High Schools. Most would agree that Wayzata has a heck of a youth program and that does not mean they have to dominate at High School

Sorno- There's a bunch of Wayzata Mites skating at Minnesota made this winter. I'm not sure about the Squirts?

When are we going to see Wayzata dominate in high school hockey? Can I ask this question in the youth site?