Elk River/Zimmerman question

[Mr. McTabish]

I just had a question about Elk River and Zimmerman. When they did the three way Rogers/Zimmerman/Rogers split, didn't Zimmerman and Rogers merge for a hockey team?

Did they realign that so it's Elk River & Zimmerman now? That'd make sense, I guess. Zimmerman doesn't have enough players to have their own team, why they always attaching themselves to everyone else?

Can Elk River have Rogers back too now?

Can Elk River/Hill Murray become one?

Elk River/Hill Murray/Eden Prairie...?

[hockeydad]

Not real knowledgeable about the situation, but my best guess is Rogers and Zimmerman split because the two schools combined to make a Class AA team, but Rogers alone is still Class A. Same thing happened with Delano/Rockford/Watertown Mayer a few years ago, Watertown Mayer left to go with Mound Westonka, otherwise Delano would have been AA.

I have a question about Zimmerman. Do they have their own association? Are they working toward having their own team?

[royals03]

My best guess would be geography. Since rogers has its own rink now Zimmerman kids would have to drive through E.R. to get to practice.
Now, I doubt that it has anything to do with Zimmerman pop. making Rogers AA. I beleive Zimm. has their own org. but not their own arena.

I also have another theory that could also fold into this, the economy is bad, gas prices were through the roof and it made it tough to recruit

[CB00]

Facts:
Zimmerman, Rogers and Elk River 5 years ago were one high school, all 728 school district.

Zimmerman youth players have ALWAYS played for Elk River.

The public voted to separate Elk River High School into 3 smaller community based high schools; Elk River, Zimmerman, Rogers. Unlike the super schools with student populations over 2,500.

Zimmerman cooped with Rogers the last few years as Rogers didn't have the numbers to support a high school team. Since MSHSL adds the total enrollment of both schools, Rogers and Zimmerman, it put Rogers into the AA bracket.

The coop agreement ended this year and MSHSL put Zimmerman back with Elk River as it made sense since the youth program played with Elk River. Also the players didn't have to drive 20 miles to practice to Rogers. Zimmerman in 7 miles from Elk River.

This is no different then many small communities through out MN.

Zimmerman is not creating an association. Why would they? Lack of numbers, no arena. It doesn't make sense$$$ Arena's have enough trouble paying the bills today. Population of Zimmerman is just over 2,000.

I think all the Zimmerman kids would have open enrolled into Elk River if there was not a coop with Elk River, rather than going all the way to Rogers. Plus, these are the kids they played youth hockey with.

[royals03]

They have always had that option to open enroll, but kids chose to come to Rogers because it allowed them to play their other sports with the kids they grew up with in Zimm. The other thing is we know the history of the E.R. program bringing in players from all over the metro and cutting kids that grew up in their program just so they can go to state and have the E.R. roster look like it is a boarding school.

[Mr. McTabish]

Right on. Thanks, CB00.

[CB00]

Royals03
Elk River over the years has offered many players full rides to their public school Rogers needs to work on keeping their players example: Jensen. If you can play one of the better schedules in High School hockey, why would you want to play in the Mississippi 8 against the powers of Big Lake, Monticello, STMA and others? The Varsity roster has only Elk River players, no one from any other program. Stop your crying

[iamlegend99]

what does the school population have to be in order to make it a AA team??

[karl(east)]

what does the school population have to be in order to make it a AA team??

I haven't looked at the numbers for this year, but it's around 1300. I remember Alexandria was the largest A school last year. Duluth East was at 1233 last year and opted up to AA, and there are six other opt-ups (Roseau, GR, Cloquet, BSM, Hill, AHA).

For AA, they take the 64 largest schools (including co-ops) along with any opt-ups. Everyone else is put in A. The number is a little weird this year, as some schools (such as Princeton) have jumped over the enrollment line and were moved into AA. Others, such as Rogers, moved down. So the 1300 mark is just where it happens to fall.

After this season, and every 2 years, they will re-align things again with new attendance figures.

The MSHSL has the attendance figures that they use to calculate these things on their website somewhere.

[east hockey]

what does the school population have to be in order to make it a AA team??

http://mshsl.org/mshsl/news/2007-08enrollclass.asp

Lee

[royals03]

Royals03
Elk River over the years has offered many players full rides to their public school Rogers needs to work on keeping their players example: Jensen. If you can play one of the better schedules in High School hockey, why would you want to play in the Mississippi 8 against the powers of Big Lake, Monticello, STMA and others? The Varsity roster has only Elk River players, no one from any other program. Stop your crying

Jensen would have left any program not just Rogers. E.R. has kids leave all the time and one of the main reasons is because theydo not like the program. I have also heardthe reason that E.R. will not play Rogers is because they have not earned their dues. Well I beleive E.R. was swept by C.P. last year and Rogers shut them out and Jensen was not even playing. You see I believe the coach is afraid he will lose to the Royals.

I did not mean to insult this years roster I was just going off of last decade's rosters.

[karl(east)]

It should probably also be noted that the attendance figures used by the MSHSL are not the actual number of students in the given school. In an attempt to create some social balance, kids who qualify for free or reduced lunch count as a fraction (1/4?) of a student. I believe the reasoning behind this is something along the lines of keeping kids whose families realistically can't afford all the expenses sports such as hockey incur from being included in the figure.

[Bench Major]

Well I beleive E.R. was swept by C.P. last year and Rogers shut them out and Jensen was not even playing. You see I believe the coach is afraid he will lose to the Royals.

Yes, it's true, after twenty-six straight wins, the Elks dropped 2 in a row to CP. A .929 winning percentage is what they've fallen off to in this series.

The bigger question is who will Rogers be playing next year when all the AA schools drop the single A, non-section opponent? Is Waseca available again???

[hockeydad]

CB008

Thanks for the info.

The only point I would like to make is that it was not the MSHSL that put Zimmerman and Elk River together. The League does not have the power to make that decision. It had to have been the choice of the schools and the school board.

[RLStars]

CB008

Thanks for the info.

The only point I would like to make is that it was not the MSHSL that put Zimmerman and Elk River together. The League does not have the power to make that decision. It had to have been the choice of the schools and the school board.

Hockeydad is right, it was an agreement with Elk River and Zimmerman to coop. The MSHSL has nothing to say about it.

[EREmpireStrikesBack]