How good is Hermantown?

[EHSHack]

haha i like the previous responce above sayin " east would walk all over hermantown" haha wow do you watch hockey at all!? yeah ill give you that east is very good this year but in no means would they walk all over hermantown but good joke!

I hope that was a joke, because I LOL. Literally.
Anyway, you have to look at it from East's perspective. East plays many out of town teams that are better competition than area teams, no matter how you look at it. I would take Blaine, Minnetonka and Cenntenial over Marshall, Hermantown, and I-Falls any year. Plus, East would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Not only would they lose road games against tough teams, if they win, well they are AA they SHOULD win, but if they lose...wow they're AA they shouldve won. Now that isn't necessarily right, but its how it would shake out.
I would like to see us play Marshall, because they gets alot of kids that dont like Randolph, or got cut, and no one at East likes Marshall because they can recruit. (more than us... (':- )

But anyways, haven't seen Hermantown play but they seem like they have a good squad and wouldn't be surprised to see them in the hunt for a section championship.

[HShockeywatcher]

wild77, not sure exactly what you're talking about. Hermantown plays both St Cloud Cathedral and Duluth Marshall. Also, until recently Hermantown plays mostly A teams, probably because they are an A school. They have probably the toughest schedule just taking into account Class A teams of anyone in the state.

EHSHack, I do give you props for adding the "(more than us... (':- )" to the end of your post. You aren't oblivious to what goes on.
I agree that what you say is how people feel, although in reality it isn't true. We all know class alone doesn't mean you have a certain ability. To be honest if East played Hermantown, I doubt they would've lost a meeting to date.
The only point I would bring up to your post is that using the teams you mention Blaine is only starting to be a power. And if you are thinking of the whole high school game, a road game to Blaine means more cost, less fans and parents get to go, and the players probably miss part of the following school day. A road game to a local school is just the opposite, save A LOT of money on travel, possibly a sell out crowd and players will be able to attend a full day of school the following day. Just another thing to factor in, but good points.

[sinbin006]

If I said East was better than Meadow Creek, no one would make the argument that they haven't played, so you can't compare them.

I wouldn't say Meadow Creek has the same reputation as Hermantown. It's one thing to compare teams that have good records, it's different when the teams have had success in the past.

[east hockey]

wild77, not sure exactly what you're talking about. Hermantown plays both St Cloud Cathedral and Duluth Marshall. Also, until recently Hermantown plays mostly A teams, probably because they are an A school. They have probably the toughest schedule just taking into account Class A teams of anyone in the state.

EHSHack, I do give you props for adding the "(more than us... (':- )" to the end of your post. You aren't oblivious to what goes on.
I agree that what you say is how people feel, although in reality it isn't true. We all know class alone doesn't mean you have a certain ability. To be honest if East played Hermantown, I doubt they would've lost a meeting to date.
The only point I would bring up to your post is that using the teams you mention Blaine is only starting to be a power. And if you are thinking of the whole high school game, a road game to Blaine means more cost, less fans and parents get to go, and the players probably miss part of the following school day. A road game to a local school is just the opposite, save A LOT of money on travel, possibly a sell out crowd and players will be able to attend a full day of school the following day. Just another thing to factor in, but good points.

Blaine is only starting to be a power? Care to elaborate before I correct that statement?

Lee

[sinbin006]

Hermantown plays Thief River Falls on Monday 12/29....

Hawks should be the favorite but should be a good test for them.

Especially after a long bus ride. Should be a great game to watch!

[east hockey]

If I said East was better than Meadow Creek, no one would make the argument that they haven't played, so you can't compare them.

I wouldn't say Meadow Creek has the same reputation as Hermantown. It's one thing to compare teams that have good records, it's different when the teams have had success in the past.

Well, he was sort of using an extreme example to make a point. Of course you can compare two teams who don't play each other. In this particular case, let's start with the class they play in....

In fairness to the question at the start of the topic, the answer is; Hermantown is very good. I give them a better than even chance to get to state. Having them in 7A this season would make for one heckuva fun section tournament but apparently the gurus at the State League know better than we do.

Lee

[HShockeywatcher]

"Blaine is only starting to be a power? Care to elaborate before I correct that statement?"

Blaine has been very good. I was more thinking of relative to their class. And if you wanted to say that Blaine is coming back. In the last few years Blaine hasn't been as good and Hermantown has been consistently good. Simply an observation and maybe it isn't the best one at that.
I guess looking at their schedule it would be better to use one of the Rochester schools in that. Put together with all the logistical points a school and AD should be considering it all adds up.

[sinbin006]

Well, he was sort of using an extreme example to make a point. Of course you can compare two teams who don't play each other. In this particular case, let's start with the class they play in....

In fairness to the question at the start of the topic, the answer is; Hermantown is very good. I give them a better than even chance to get to state. Having them in 7A this season would make for one heckuva fun section tournament but apparently the gurus at the State League know better than we do.

Lee

I know what he meant. Would I like to see this game? You bet I would! I think it would be a great game and DE would have to be favored and would probably win but it would be closer than people think. I also know where
East is coming from too. As far as the "gurus" are concerned they could use a geography lesson

[east hockey]

"Blaine is only starting to be a power? Care to elaborate before I correct that statement?"

Blaine has been very good. I was more thinking of relative to their class. And if you wanted to say that Blaine is coming back. In the last few years Blaine hasn't been as good and Hermantown has been consistently good. Simply an observation and maybe it isn't the best one at that.
I guess looking at their schedule it would be better to use one of the Rochester schools in that. Put together with all the logistical points a school and AD should be considering it all adds up.

In the last few years? Since "last year" is part of "last few years", look up what Blaine did last season. Then try to say Blaine "hasn't been as good" while keeping a straight face.

If you're going to argue, come up with an argument that people won't shoot full of holes instead of trying to constantly shift or complicate the argument. People are really tired of you doing that and I'm getting to that point. Understand?

Lee

[karl(east)]

As far as the "gurus" are concerned they could use a geography lesson

I wouldn't complain about that too much...after all, it gives the area two shots at at state tourney berths!
Though to be fair, it would make a lot more sense if the Range teams had a section to themselves, along with a couple other teams up in the north, and the Duluth area were all in one, along with some of the southern teams currently in 5A.

As for some of the other topics covered here...I will be quick to say that the East administration does not allow players to miss school following a game night, no matter how late the bus gets back. They are very strict about this.
Also, as a fan, I was always fine with East traveling far away to play other good teams. Sure, I might not have seen them as much, but I was satisfied knowing they were testing themselves against the best the state has to offer. Others may disagree with me on this, though.
EHSHack summed up the East position on playing the local A schools pretty well. Thank you.

But enough about East on a Hermantown thread. Hermantown is an excellent team, obviously, and with STA down a tiny bit, Breck failing to live up to expectations, and 7A still in a bit of a muddle at this point, I'd rank them in the top 3 in class A along with Warroad and Little Falls. They'll have their hands full with Cathedral in getting out of the section, though. I'd say they're also the favorites to win the LSC at this point. With Cloquet a non-factor this year, their game with Marshall will likely decide the conference, though I suppose Denfeld is capable of pulling off an upset and throwing things off somewhere along the line.

[HawkeyPower]

Hermantown has consistently had a easier schedule when the LSC AA teams like Cloquet are having a down year. I would like to see them play in a Holiday tournament in the Cities instead of TRF. Their team this year is strong on their forward lines and somewhat weak with their young defensemen. They will be able to score on all three lines and hope they don't get hurt too bad on the blueline. They will never have the chance to play East again unless they play AA, so all the talk here is just chat room banter. Bottom line is they have a good team this year and if they can stay away from anymore injuries, they should be able to compete with anybody they face. The first two weeks of the new year will speak volumes to who the Hawks are this year.

[HShockeywatcher]

"constantly shift or complicate the argument"

My whole point was that there are a few teams on DE's schedule that are not top teams year in and year out and if you were to take one of them off the schedule and instead schedule a team within 10 miles of home you would simply save money, make more money, and students on both ends would for sure be able to attend school the whole next day. That was the whole point. You are doing what many on this board do so much, you take one minor detail of someone's post and rip it apart when you have a much better knowledge base than them even though what you are ripping apart has nothing to do with the actual point of their post.

I have been incorrect in points I have made, as I am now...sort of.

Blaine is in the North Suburban Conference. Blaine, Centennial and Elk River are generally above average teams, with Osseo, MG, Andover and Anoka having pretty good teams, doing really well many years and being competitive some years. After looking more into it, though, I still question you questioning my statement. Half of their schedule is relatively easy year in and year out. For the last 5 seasons (including this one) they have had good records, but most of their losses have come against their non-conference opponents who are the real challenge on their schedule. Before that they were on a 4 year slump. Before that they were good for 2 years and bad for two years. (simply looking at records and rankings on PS2) I wouldn't consider them a power in much of this stretch. It appears they had a good core of players for a few years. Looking at their schedule the last three seasons they have gone to state all three of them. To get there they beat mediocre teams. Then when at state they beat below average teams and lost to above average teams.

As far back as your PS2 goes, Hermantown has had one year with a losing schedule; 2002-2003 where they finished 12-14-1. Much better than can be said for Blaine.

You are completely right to assume (as I'm sure you do) your content knowledge of the history of the programs of Blaine and Hermantown is better than mine. But I really don't know that I would consider Blaine a "power" in AA, since the point I made was using the 'relative to their class' side, as you could consider Hermantown more of a "power" in A.

I agree in a vacuum, where profits, travel time, being in school and many other things I am not thinking of are not considered, play the bigger city school. When you factor them in, as my point was, the picture changes. I never even said my perspective was correct, just that it's something to consider.

Back to what this thread should actually be about:
Comparing teams isn't a great science, but to date Hermantown hasn't played a top team. There are 7 tough games on their schedule, TRF, four right after break, Red Wing and Hibbing. With Hibbing, Int Falls, Marshall, and Hermantown all in 7A, any of the top seeds could take home the top prize. Good luck to them all.

[elliott70]

Hermantown has consistently had a easier schedule when the LSC AA teams like Cloquet are having a down year. I would like to see them play in a Holiday tournament in the Cities instead of TRF. Their team this year is strong on their forward lines and somewhat weak with their young defensemen. They will be able to score on all three lines and hope they don't get hurt too bad on the blueline. They will never have the chance to play East again unless they play AA, so all the talk here is just chat room banter. Bottom line is they have a good team this year and if they can stay away from anymore injuries, they should be able to compete with anybody they face. The first two weeks of the new year will speak volumes to who the Hawks are this year.

Sure, go to the cities, play the likes of Totino and Blake and skip TRF and East Grand Forks, And Spring Lake Park.

Oh, that's right TRF beat up on Totino and 3 other A schools down in the metro.
Oh, EGF beat a highly rated Grand Forks team.

We will see if the trip to TRF is as easy as some may think.

[karl(east)]

Blaine is in the North Suburban Conference. Blaine, Centennial and Elk River are generally above average teams, with Osseo, MG, Andover and Anoka having pretty good teams, doing really well many years and being competitive some years. After looking more into it, though, I still question you questioning my statement. Half of their schedule is relatively easy year in and year out. For the last 5 seasons (including this one) they have had good records, but most of their losses have come against their non-conference opponents who are the real challenge on their schedule. Before that they were on a 4 year slump. Before that they were good for 2 years and bad for two years. (simply looking at records and rankings on PS2) I wouldn't consider them a power in much of this stretch. It appears they had a good core of players for a few years. Looking at their schedule the last three seasons they have gone to state all three of them. To get there they beat mediocre teams. Then when at state they beat below average teams and lost to above average teams.

But I really don't know that I would consider Blaine a "power" in AA, since the point I made was using the 'relative to their class' side, as you could consider Hermantown more of a "power" in A.

This is all fair enough...but I'm starting to wonder what your definiton of a "power" is. If you look at this decade, and the achievements of some of the "top" programs in AA:

Team-Tourney Apps-1st-2nd-3rd
Holy Angels 4-2-0-0
Hill-Murray 5-1-1-0
Moorhead 5-0-3-0
Grand Rap. 2-0-2-0
Duluth East 4-0-1-2
Roseau 4-1-0-0
Edina 3-0-1-0
Elk River 4-1-0-0
Blaine 4-1-0-1

By that measure, Blaine stacks up very well. They're a serious contender for team of the decade. Their section for most of those years included Elk River, and has since contained Centennial. It's not the strongest in the state, but it's not the weakest either, and these things fluctuate wildly from year to year.

And while I can understand some frustration with people picking apart small, somewhat irrelevant parts of your posts...I guess that simply teaches a lesson about posting small things that we haven't fact-checked properly. It's something we all need to work on and be careful of.

[karl(east)]

To be fair and stay on topic, here's Class A over the same time frame:

Team State apps-1st-2nd-3rd
Dul. Marshall 5-0-3-1
STA 4-2-0-1
Warroad 6-2-1-1
Hermantown 3-1-0-2
Totino-Grace 2-1-1-0
Breck 2-2-0-0
Roch. Lourdes 4-0-1-1
Orono 5-0-1-1

There are some problems in doing this with Class A, as it has had several very weak sections this decade that do little to nothing at State (prior to the recent realignment, these were sections 1,4, and 6). Another, Section 8, has only had one team do much of anything. At the beginning of the decade, section 5 was seriously overloaded and produced 4 state champiosnips by 3 teams over 5 years. Section 7, Hermantown's home for a fraction of the decade, also has been a bit over-strong.

Make of that what you will.

[HawkeyPower]

[I would like to see them play in a Holiday tournament in the Cities instead of TRF.

Sure, go to the cities, play the likes of Totino and Blake and skip TRF and East Grand Forks, And Spring Lake Park.

Oh, that's right TRF beat up on Totino and 3 other A schools down in the metro.
Oh, EGF beat a highly rated Grand Forks team.

We will see if the trip to TRF is as easy as some may think.[/quote]

What I would like to see is how they match up against teams say in the Schwans Cup. This has nothing to do with the level of competition that exists in TRF. The competition would be considerably higher and more consistent in the Schwans Cup than it would be in TRF. I an sure TRF will be interesting this year, but competing against AA schools in the cities would be interesting as well.

[riverman]

maybe mshsl can sneak a law through saying ALL TOURNEYS MUST BE HELD IN THE TWIN CITIES

[east hockey]

maybe mshsl can sneak a law through saying ALL TOURNEYS MUST BE HELD IN THE TWIN CITIES

You've been spending time at the Youth Forum! Mr. Elliott may wish to weigh in on that one.

Lee

[EHSHack]

maybe mshsl can sneak a law through saying ALL TOURNEYS MUST BE HELD IN THE TWIN CITIES

You've been spending time at the Youth Forum! Mr. Elliott may wish to weigh in on that one.

Lee

On the other hand, I wouldnt mind seeing a huge tournament on da range...
Hermantown could play the tough gritt teams form up North, and maybe even some AA schools too.
Why ARENT they in the Schwas Cup anyways?

[HShockeywatcher]

karl(east), I won't make this long.
-The comments about Blaine I would still stand by. If you look at their schedule, it's easy to see how their record gets so good. Yes they had one dominant year with a title, but aside from that if you look at who they played at state (and sections) and who they won and lost to, it doesn't add up to a power.
-"I guess that simply teaches a lesson about posting small things that we haven't fact-checked properly"
Huh? The OPINION in there that is being disputed is whether we can define Blaine as a power or not. Not only is it my opinion, but I also commented in the post that I may be wrong. Rarely will you see an incorrect FACT in a post of mine.
-All this doesn't take into account the logistical things that IMO matter close to as much.

[HawkeyPower]

maybe mshsl can sneak a law through saying ALL TOURNEYS MUST BE HELD IN THE TWIN CITIES

You've been spending time at the Youth Forum! Mr. Elliott may wish to weigh in on that one.

Lee

On the other hand, I wouldnt mind seeing a huge tournament on da range...
Hermantown could play the tough gritt teams form up North, and maybe even some AA schools too.
Why ARENT they in the Schwas Cup anyways?

I believe you have to be invited to get in.

[gottago]

Hermantown 3 TRF 2 (fyi....nothing more)

[Zamboni Guy]

Hermantown 3 TRF 2 (fyi....nothing more)

Shots:
Hermantown - 36
Thief River Falls - 18

[karl(east)]

karl(east), I won't make this long.
-The comments about Blaine I would still stand by. If you look at their schedule, it's easy to see how their record gets so good. Yes they had one dominant year with a title, but aside from that if you look at who they played at state (and sections) and who they won and lost to, it doesn't add up to a power.
-"I guess that simply teaches a lesson about posting small things that we haven't fact-checked properly"
Huh? The OPINION in there that is being disputed is whether we can define Blaine as a power or not. Not only is it my opinion, but I also commented in the post that I may be wrong. Rarely will you see an incorrect FACT in a post of mine.
-All this doesn't take into account the logistical things that IMO matter close to as much.

I think we're comparing apples and oranges here. You are judging whether Blaine should be considered a state power by their records, while I'm doing it strictly on state tournament appearences and relative success there. And judged on those grounds, Blaine stacks up very well. I'd say they look better than Edina or Duluth East on those grounds and are perhaps comparable to Moorhead. The only programs I'd give more credit to are Holy Angels and Hill-Murray.

So my question would then be...if we can't call Blaine a power, who can we? Are there seriously only two or three powers in high school hockey?

And we can't just toss aside Blaine's state title without doing the same for other programs' best years. This has been a decade of relative parity in AA, and if we did that, we'd probably be left with zero teams we could call "powers" by any measure.
--
The other statement cited here obviously did not come off as well as it should have. It was probably poorly worded. I'll try again.

Yes, you did mention that your opinion on Blaine may have been wrong, and that you didn't know as much about relative histories of programs as some...and that's exactly the point! If you're building the argument on tenuous things, it's going to come off sounding shaky to people, even if you may ultimately be right. The issue is not whether the fact was right or wrong; it was whether the facts being cited had any basis.

The statement wasn't meant to be a condemnation. I'm just as guilty of this as anyone.

[HShockeywatcher]

I would like to respectfully say I agree with some of your points, disagree with others, and also point out that my initial point was made concerning scheduling. Regardless of your definition of a "power," that was one of four things I was listing to factor in.

The only thing I think you misunderstand about my post is that I'm not using their record to say they are a good team, I'm using their records to say they didn't have a tough SOS (probably; get ready for Lee to use PS2 to try to prove me wrong) and had an easy section so getting to state doesn't mean as much. It's like using a school from 1AA and talking about how they get to state every year and using that to say they are an amazing team. Blaine had relatively no competition; the results of their games to get to state and during their season showed it.

Take this year for example. They are 9-1 with one game left on their schedule I would consider tough, and that's against East. Centennial should put up a fight but I don't think offer much. In the section finals they will have to play the winner of MG/Cent to get to state. One tough game. Assuming they make it to state and lose to East they will be 26-2 at the time (my guess) and really not have proven much in the second half of the season IMO.

Disagree if you will, but that is my OPINION.