HockeyDad2015 wrote:If there was a template on how to destroy your tournament, The Duluth Icebreaker has found it.
Put the 3 best teams in your tournament all in the same pool, then have no bracket play on Sunday. Seed them based on goals given up.
Good luck in the future Duluth Icebreakers!
Fact, Wayzata, Andover, Edina and Park Cottage Grove will not be back again!
Come on now, I would not say the 3 best teams were in the same pool. Give Wayzata and Roseau credit as they both won on Sunday.
But yes, I will agree that this tourney will not be the same next year.
Very good point, I was just going off of Lets play Hockey rankings.
Wayzata and Roseau are both very good as well. My point was at the start of the tournament Edina, Andover and PCG were the best teams at the time.
Something has to be said about them all being in the same pool. I'm sure if you were to ask those teams they would have been fine playing each other over a team they would have killed.
Usually in most tournaments you have a bracket play after pool play so you can have a true champion. Wayzata never had that chance or Edina. You think Edina really gave a crap about that game against Wayzata knowing they had no chance to win the tournament?
There are always some blow out games (in any tournament really) but usually I attribute that to teams who either over or under qualify themselves as A or B. I would be curious to learn the methodology of who plays who (and where.) I kinda feel like one guy is alone with LPH, twitter, and years of personal failure and bitterness that he is projecting on the pools. Or it's completely random. You'd think the hometown teams would fare better if this was the case. I hope the 10s up north are plentiful in number and talent. The 12s (B) and 14s (A) were struggling this weekend. Did all the 12 and 14 girls on their 2013 and 2014 state tournament teams move up to high school already?
Our association will probably always go to this tourney simply due to location. Our parents and players would prefer to go to Duluth than almost anywhere else for a tourney. AND we realize it's just for fun. We are not invested in the results or dismayed by having to drive to Carlton or Cloquet for a Duluth tourney game! That incident at UMD freaked out some people, that's for sure. But the way the hosts carried on in a difficult spot was appreciated.
And Dear Edina,
Can I please get in writing that you will not attend next year? We lose to you often enough in the metro.
HockeyDad2015 wrote:Very good point, I was just going off of Lets play Hockey rankings.
Wayzata and Roseau are both very good as well. My point was at the start of the tournament Edina, Andover and PCG were the best teams at the time.
Something has to be said about them all being in the same pool. I'm sure if you were to ask those teams they would have been fine playing each other over a team they would have killed.
Usually in most tournaments you have a bracket play after pool play so you can have a true champion. Wayzata never had that chance or Edina. You think Edina really gave a crap about that game against Wayzata knowing they had no chance to win the tournament?
I do agree that it was poor planning to have Edina, Andover and PCG all in the same bracket. I was not happy to see that either as we would have liked to play one of them as well. The only team that did not get a fair chance to win the Championship was Wayzata AND that is why I said no one likes that format. It would have been so easy to make the Duluth Tourney a 4 Pools of 3 teams and have a true Champion in 4 games. In the end you HAVE to win all your games to be Champion.
In the end Wayzata won all their games and didn't play in the championship!
Never heard of such a thing, I'm sorry.
In the end all I'm really saying is take better care of the teams coming to your tournament, then they will want to come back. I would hope that's what they want. I've heard that these tournaments that they run pay a lot of the fees for their hockey association. News flash Duluth, I think your hockey bill is about to go up.
Side note:
What happened at UMD that freaked people out?
HockeyDad2015 wrote:In the end Wayzata won all their games and didn't play in the championship!
Never heard of such a thing, I'm sorry.
In the end all I'm really saying is take better care of the teams coming to your tournament, then they will want to come back. I would hope that's what they want. I've heard that these tournaments that they run pay a lot of the fees for their hockey association. News flash Duluth, I think your hockey bill is about to go up.
Side note:
What happened at UMD that freaked people out?
I agree with you once again. Roseau was undefeated in the Fargo Tourney and did not even place. So that tourney was not perfect this year either.
The reason it happens this way is the tourney directors that setup the games like to have pool play because it make it easier to have games setup in advance. Then they do not have to keep updating the board so often in different arenas to make sure everyone knows where their next game is. Once again, there is an easy solution for that.
And whats with not having warmup pucks at the arenas for the teams paying to play there? Only 1 rink had pucks and that was in WI, and we thanked them. It is always a great day when we don't have to carry pucks into the rink for a game. The little things
How was Roseau Undefeated in Fargo? All 4 number 1 seeds made it to bracket play. They must of had a Tie at least. Having a Tie isn't the same as Undefeated, with the Tie you leave the door open to not winning your pool.
The way the Fargo Tournament was setup was far better then Duluth, Hands down. Not even a close call. Better teams too.
HockeyDad2015 wrote:How was Roseau Undefeated in Fargo? All 4 number 1 seeds made it to bracket play. They must of had a Tie at least. Having a Tie isn't the same as Undefeated, with the Tie you leave the door open to not winning your pool.
The way the Fargo Tournament was setup was far better then Duluth, Hands down. Not even a close call. Better teams too.
Yes they had a tie to EP who advanced. And yes a tie still puts you as undefeated (not defeated) as rules go in any sport. Yes the setup was better in Fargo as you get a TRUE champion but you still advanced teams in a tie that should not happen in a tournament (happened twice in Fargo). Once again, you need to win all your games to be Champion.
A problem that could be quickly fixed. Do a shootout in pool play then. Usually takes no more then 5 minutes. Fargo had plenty of time between games to make that happen.
A problem that could be quickly fixed. Do a shootout in pool play then. Usually takes no more then 5 minutes. Fargo had plenty of time between games to make that happen.
Just a shoot out? So the best goalie can win? Pool play tie breakers are usually better than a shootout. People know when you play pool play that it pretty much takes all wins to advance, less than that you roll the dice with the tie-breakers. Fargo's (and most pool play tournaments) are fair. Duluth's system is not. Which is why our association stopped going to this tournament years ago.
Driving2Hockey wrote:Tournament is a joke. The Wayzata 12UA team has gone 9-0 the past 2 years and NEVER played in a semi or championship. How do you not lose or tie a game in 2 years and not have a chance to play the team that won it?
The tournament cares about one thing and that is making money. They care nothing about running a good and fair tournament.
That being said, I blame the associations who keep sending their teams back to this awful event. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I believe most teams have finally had enough. Goodbye Icebreaker Tournament.
P.S. Only in Duluth do they call it seated. It was same way in the program. The team that sits first must get the higher seed. Too funny.
Eh, this is why every youth association runs tournaments. The best part of having my child play in the Choice League this season is that I don't need pull her out of school to drop $500 in Rochester or Breezy Point (no offense, nice towns, but if I want a vacation I want to choose where I go) and stay in a run down hotel room for four hockey games scheduled at crazy hours.
If I was running a youth association and cared about the finances of my members, I would rent a bus, go to Duluth / Rochester, play 2-3 games in a day, and let my players sleep in their beds that night. I know a few associations that do this.
My fondest memories of Youth Hockey and some of my fondest of Youth in general were the overnight Hotel Tournaments. It's the same for kids today. The camaraderie of travel is what makes Youth Hockey stand out from all of the other sports. Nothing against the Choice league, but your kid is not going to be talking about it with her friends in 20 years, if she even remembers it.
HockeyDad2015 wrote:How was Roseau Undefeated in Fargo? All 4 number 1 seeds made it to bracket play. They must of had a Tie at least. Having a Tie isn't the same as Undefeated, with the Tie you leave the door open to not winning your pool.
The way the Fargo Tournament was setup was far better then Duluth, Hands down. Not even a close call. Better teams too.
Yes they had a tie to EP who advanced. And yes a tie still puts you as undefeated (not defeated) as rules go in any sport. Yes the setup was better in Fargo as you get a TRUE champion but you still advanced teams in a tie that should not happen in a tournament (happened twice in Fargo). Once again, you need to win all your games to be Champion.
We were undefeated also tied shakopee didn't move on because goal differential If they would have had a shootout at the end of that game I know we would have won better goaltending. Though I will give Shakopee props they came back from down two goals to tie. The true number ones did not advance we palyed Rosea in a game that did not mean anything. Great game glad we did also glad we didn't have to stay around for the championship and get home late. Let's face it these tournaments don't mean anything they are just games.
In the end its the final 8 that are left standing at the end of the year. This year it is so balanced anybody can be state champion. Heck we shutout Eden prairie this year and they are ranked ahead of us and we have lost and tied Shakopee and they are ranked behind us. 12 year olds you can't predict how they are going to play.
QUOTE: My fondest memories of Youth Hockey and some of my fondest of Youth in general were the overnight Hotel Tournaments. It's the same for kids today. The camaraderie of travel is what makes Youth Hockey stand out from all of the other sports. [/quote]
The setup for the IceBreakers tourney was not ideal but as mentioned above the kids live for these out of town tourneys and these are one of the main highlights of the season. 1st place, 2nd, place or last place not the end of the world. I think parents are much more worried about taking home 1st place hw than the kids. There is also a TON of volunteer time that goes into hosting and putting on these tourneys. Again, may not have been the ideal format but a great city, hosted by a great girls program and ultimately the girls will remember the experience of an out of town tourney and not get too hung up on where they finished. As someone else mentioned, these are games that aid in development and lead up to what really counts..... Districts, Regionals and State.
Great! You keep saying that all the way to a tournament that will no longer exist after a few years unless you change the format. You also need to cater to the people or the people stop coming. The better teams come to win, the weaker teams play for the fun of it. There used to be pride in going to these out of towers and winning them, now you people want to hide behind the fact that it's all about the experience. The better teams will still get that great experience in other out of town locations that run a better tournament.
Duluth could still run a tournament that catered to the teams that are there to beat the best and cater to the teams that know they are coming for just the "experience". Just a little extra work.
Plus every association does volunteering, except most aren't doing it to pay for a large portion of their hockey bill. $1500 per team, X roughly 60 teams is $90,000. Nice pay day. I think if I were in charge up there I would do everything I could to keep that cash cow rolling. Not to mention in previous years when it seemed to be ran better you had more teams. Hmmmm!
We played this tournament years ago when there were 16 teams at U12 and they had teams ranked 1, 2, 3, and 4 in one group of four, in that order, as if someone just went down the LPH rankings and filled in the blank brackets. It sounds like things have only gotten worse since then. Duluth is a great city, for both players and parents, and we played there twice a year for many years. It's about the same amount of work to do things the right way as it is to be lazy, so not sure what the issue is.
And they said it was completely random! I guess that shoots that theory in the back end.
I don't think it's the Icebreaker committee being lazy, now it looks more like it's planned that way. They want it to a "fair" weekend, just not "fair" to the best teams in their tournament. They know exactly who the best teams are and do this on purpose. Shame on you guys!
Keep hiding under the umbrella of a great experience in Duluth, we will see how that ends for you guys. By the looks of things in another two years you should have about 4 teams at every level. If your lucky.
Just went and looked at what people were saying about the the Duluth Icebreaker Tournament last year, I found it rather interesting. Here's one persons take from last year:
"I agree that the pools are set up poorly. It seems every year that the Duluth tournament organizers figure out a way to ensure that the top teams in the tournament cannot possibly meet in the championship round. Once is a coincidence. Every year is purposeful. Let's Play Hockey rankings aren't always exactly right obviously, but they are usually pretty close with the 1st five teams. Why not grab a copy of LPH before you set up your pools so that come Sunday, you have the best teams competing for championships rather than a couple good teams and a couple other teams that were lucky enough to be pooled in weaker pools?"
Now fast forward 1 year, seems like they did it again. Put the best teams in the same pool. Future teams should run from this tournament, all they are doing is taking your money and could care less about the hockey tournament. This year they had fewer games then in the past. Big money grab! Run a good tournament and the teams will come. Looks like Duluth was getting complaints from the weaker teams and made a choice to cater to those teams. Nice job Icebreakers, Nice job. Glad to never be apart of this dog and pony show in the future.
Instead of bringing your concerns to the tourney organizers, post 10 times on a message board about how terrible the experience was for you. Or, just sayin', you could do something constructive with your criticism.
Every tourney runs a little differently. Both my kids have been in situations where pool play or tiebreaker or whatever doesn't go their way even if they come in as a favorite. We've played in tourneys where we didn't even have a Sunday game (after beating both eventual championship game teams!) As others have said here, it's not sections regions state. Not meant to be.
Our association loves Duluth. Loves the most modern vs oldest school rinks we get to play in. Going to the UMD games with hundreds of girls youth players. Getting to sneak out of town to watch a classic boys hockey rivalry a few miles away. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Sometimes we win or lose by ridiculous amounts. Like every tourney we play in. The high school holiday tourneys (boys and girls) have some serious lopsided match-ups. Will you forego those tourneys in a few years?
Chances are you have played or will play the top ranked teams back home in the metro. We also go up north to play teams we don't normally schedule. If White Bear vs Edina or Wayzata vs Lakevile or whoever current LPH 1 and 2 don't play for the championship in Duluth in January, I don't think this means a darn thing.
If so many teams are bailing I hope you are all giving up your room blocks at the Edge. The teams who will return (and the wait list teams) want to get our names on those waterpark accommodations!
Nevertomuchhockey, you are clearly missing the point!
That's fine that you defend the tournament, for all I know your with the association and are trying your best to save the cash cow, I get it.
The point is they could still run a great out of town tournament and cater to all the teams.
Some teams come up there to go swimming, problem though is some teams liked to come up there to play great talent and win that tournament. Now you've made this tournament an after thought.
I do love the condescending take on the tournament though. Those teams that have blocks at the swim parks should keep their reservations and go to Duluth and swim rather then pay $1500 to play in a tournament that could careless if your there or not.
