Notes from 2013 PWA, PWAA, and BAA state tourneys

[hockeygoof1]

In the past year, I have seen about 250 hockey games or more. I don’t count them.

If you follow my game stories at YHH, you will see that I have reported on games played by national Olympic teams, North American Junior Hockey, Elite, Selects, AAA teams (Little Caesars, Honeybaked), bantam AA, bantam A, peewee AA, peewee A, U14, U12, squirt A and squirt B.

I have no notion of what I will write before I go, but part of what I write is picked up in the camera.

You can find all these stories on our YHH site. Go read them. It will take you a month.

My goal is accuracy. What I write is re-enforced by pictures and written stats.

With all that, what I can say about Sundays game is that I have not encountered a first period in the past year like the first period of the bantam AA state championship.

I planned to write the Bantam AA championship as a memory for the kids that played in the game not focused on anything else. I had planned to ignore the hit to the kid that crawled when I left the arena in part because the Duluth East people did not seem upset at the time.

But when I added what the camera saw, I felt it had to be reported and reported as part of the game. If just one or two referees read the story and looked at the pictures, they will recognize the symptoms of penalty and will call the penalties in the future.

Hockey is a great sport, but it has to be managed on and off the ice. Part of the management process is to recognize what is wrong and fix it. This story puts a spotlight on what is wrong and gives Minnesota Hockey food for thought on how to better manage youth hockey. Ignoring the story is not the answer.

It's like coaching. No matter what you write, 50 percent will think you're a quack. The other 50 percent will think you're a genius. Keep writing. Ask for a raise.

[Tripod]

Edina Bantam A was State runner-up, but they came in from the weak bracket. The champions, consolation champs and third place winners were all from the other bracket.