How Affluence Affects Hockey Success

[defense]

See above posts about the factors relating to producing state champions...thats what we're talking about here. Wayzata hasn't produced a single one and has only made it to St Paul once since goalies started wearing masks.
Wayzata/Plymouth is the Escalade capital of the midwest. They even have valet parking at the high school..The only towns that can compete with them for that title are Brainerd (0 state titles), Minnetonka (0 state titles), White Bear (0 state titles), and Stillwater (0 state titles). All of those have had hockey for quite a few decades and have had people "interested" in hockey regardless of what Defense says. Those schools facilities aren't too shabby either. If affluence has such a significant impact on success in hockey....Wayzata is up 3-0 every game before the puck even drops.

So none of these schools have ever been any good at hockey????

Moorhead hasn't won any titles, are they no good at hockey???
Moorhead may not be much compared to some of the suburbs being talked about, but compared to their area they certainly are affluent. People in Moorhead have been interested in hockey for "decades", however Moorhead didn't come on strong untill the 1990s. Has Moorhead grown since the '80s ??? Did Moorhead build a new youth hockey rink in the '90's???? Why does Moorhead consistently have one of the toughest schedules in hockey???? They have been dropping teams from their schedule for years because they're too good, too often. Yeah, Moorhead certainly is not Edina, Excelsior, or Minnetonka as far as household incomes go, but they are certainly better off than Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes, Park Rapids, Alexandria. Moorhead also obviously produces much better hockey teams year after year than these other communities. Now this is not to say that affluence has everything to do with Moorhead's success in hockey. It took Moorhead some time to develope a strong hockey culture. Probably has something to do with coaching. But, without some money, how did they build the Sports Center??? How did they build the youth hockey rink???? How do they pay to play so many games on opposite corners of the state???? How do so many of their players develope such strong skills????
What happens to Moorhead hockey if they cannot afford to build the Youth hockey building??? How about the Sports Center???
Having a nice sum of money to work with is not totally nessacary in order to build a hockey power, but it sure does not hurt. Everything from nice new buildings housing extra indoor ice to extra training to traveling long distances in order to play the best costs extra money that not every one has.

[MNHockeyFan]

Here's a list of per capita income by municipality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mi ... ita_income

Interesting that 7 of the top 10 are towns around Lake Minnetonka.

And not a single state champ...dare I say...ever from this area??? First state champ on the list is Edina at #15.

Measured by per capita income, Edina is tops amongst cities having a population of at least 25,000. Eden Prairie is No. 1 amongst cities over 50,000 and Plymouth is No. 1 for those over 70,000. The vast majority of kids attending Wayzata high school live in Plymouth (where the school is located) - the town of Wayzata has a total population of just 3,700.

[goldy313]

You can't find the town of Hill-Murray or Holy Angels, or Cretin anywhere on a map and many metro area schools include more than 1 town. We also don't get the 8 best teams and determine a champion, we get 8 teams from different regions and determine a champion. I don't get equating Wayzata's lack of success because they're in region with Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, and Benilde to affluence.

In 2007 one of my kids did a paper for his statistics class at Winona State where his original idea was to compare the "affluence" of a team to it's success. Not being able to for certain determine income because that's not public data he moved on to home values which wasn't perfect but at least a start. He used Rochester as his base and tracked kids in football, hockey, and baseball. You could pretty much figure which kids as squirts (by going back to when they were squirts) would be on the high school hockey teams while that wasn't true at all in baseball and football based soley on home value. Success in hockey when compared to the other 2 schools in hockey was also related to home value where again that wasn't the case in football or baseball. Lastly there was a more defined range with no low outliers in hockey while the range in football and baseball was much broader due to how low the home values could go in those sports. There were also gaping holes in pin plots on a map for hockey while not in football and baseball. In Rochester at least you can pretty clearly make a connection with the downturn in hockey to a lessening of the talent pool due to economic circumstances.

Some people try to equate with the addition of another school and Lourdes rise but this discounts Lourdes was pretty good prior to Century opening and John Marshall falling off after to the point where Rochester still fielded 3 strong teams up until 2004 or so then it fell to 2 and now down to 1, and that 1 is in class A. You can make a pretty good argument that an intentional rise in costs has led to unintentional decline in talent by pricing too many out of the game and letting others buy their way through. I would bet that given no economic or social factors Johnson, Southwest, or Sibley could produce a state champion quality team again.

[DMom]

Here's a list of per capita income by municipality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mi ... ita_income

Interesting that 7 of the top 10 are towns around Lake Minnetonka.

And not a single state champ...dare I say...ever from this area??? First state champ on the list is Edina at #15.

I would attribute that to the fact that after a certain income level, the month long trip to Italy or the Hawaiian winter vacation tends to have priority over hockey practice.

[The X]

You can't find the town of Hill-Murray or Holy Angels, or Cretin anywhere on a map and many metro area schools include more than 1 town. We also don't get the 8 best teams and determine a champion, we get 8 teams from different regions and determine a champion. I don't get equating Wayzata's lack of success because they're in region with Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, and Benilde to affluence.

In 2007 one of my kids did a paper for his statistics class at Winona State where his original idea was to compare the "affluence" of a team to it's success. Not being able to for certain determine income because that's not public data he moved on to home values which wasn't perfect but at least a start. He used Rochester as his base and tracked kids in football, hockey, and baseball. You could pretty much figure which kids as squirts (by going back to when they were squirts) would be on the high school hockey teams while that wasn't true at all in baseball and football based soley on home value. Success in hockey when compared to the other 2 schools in hockey was also related to home value where again that wasn't the case in football or baseball. Lastly there was a more defined range with no low outliers in hockey while the range in football and baseball was much broader due to how low the home values could go in those sports. There were also gaping holes in pin plots on a map for hockey while not in football and baseball. In Rochester at least you can pretty clearly make a connection with the downturn in hockey to a lessening of the talent pool due to economic circumstances.

Some people try to equate with the addition of another school and Lourdes rise but this discounts Lourdes was pretty good prior to Century opening and John Marshall falling off after to the point where Rochester still fielded 3 strong teams up until 2004 or so then it fell to 2 and now down to 1, and that 1 is in class A. You can make a pretty good argument that an intentional rise in costs has led to unintentional decline in talent by pricing too many out of the game and letting others buy their way through. I would bet that given no economic or social factors Johnson, Southwest, or Sibley could produce a state champion quality team again.

Agreed. Not to difficult to realize the kids from affluent familys have many more options in hockey. The summer AAA teams cost big money that lots of familys just cannot afford. Its all about the amount of ice, coaching, and competition played against in most cases that seperates the pack. IMO.

[mulefarm]

You can't find the town of Hill-Murray or Holy Angels, or Cretin anywhere on a map and many metro area schools include more than 1 town. We also don't get the 8 best teams and determine a champion, we get 8 teams from different regions and determine a champion. I don't get equating Wayzata's lack of success because they're in region with Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, and Benilde to affluence.

In 2007 one of my kids did a paper for his statistics class at Winona State where his original idea was to compare the "affluence" of a team to it's success. Not being able to for certain determine income because that's not public data he moved on to home values which wasn't perfect but at least a start. He used Rochester as his base and tracked kids in football, hockey, and baseball. You could pretty much figure which kids as squirts (by going back to when they were squirts) would be on the high school hockey teams while that wasn't true at all in baseball and football based soley on home value. Success in hockey when compared to the other 2 schools in hockey was also related to home value where again that wasn't the case in football or baseball. Lastly there was a more defined range with no low outliers in hockey while the range in football and baseball was much broader due to how low the home values could go in those sports. There were also gaping holes in pin plots on a map for hockey while not in football and baseball. In Rochester at least you can pretty clearly make a connection with the downturn in hockey to a lessening of the talent pool due to economic circumstances.

Some people try to equate with the addition of another school and Lourdes rise but this discounts Lourdes was pretty good prior to Century opening and John Marshall falling off after to the point where Rochester still fielded 3 strong teams up until 2004 or so then it fell to 2 and now down to 1, and that 1 is in class A. You can make a pretty good argument that an intentional rise in costs has led to unintentional decline in talent by pricing too many out of the game and letting others buy their way through. I would bet that given no economic or social factors Johnson, Southwest, or Sibley could produce a state champion quality team again.

Agreed. Not to difficult to realize the kids from affluent familys have many more options in hockey. The summer AAA teams cost big money that lots of familys just cannot afford. Its all about the amount of ice, coaching, and competition played against in most cases that seperates the pack. IMO.

disagree, if you don't have the athletic ability and physical tools you can have as much money, ice time and coaching, and you still won't make it.

[Toomuchtoosoon]

Affluence has a more direct correlation to success at the youth level than high school. Money spent to develop kids pre-puberty gives those communities an edge. That edge goes away somewhat when puberty kicks in and natural ability plays a bigger role. There is no doubt early skill development helps a lot, but how a kid grows will have a huge say when they are in highschool. Intra community comparisons and inter community comparisons do make it more difficult to do the evaluation on the impact of affluence, but it does play a role.

[TTpuckster]

Here's a list of per capita income by municipality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mi ... ita_income

Interesting that 7 of the top 10 are towns around Lake Minnetonka.

And not a single state champ...dare I say...ever from this area??? First state champ on the list is Edina at #15.

Measured by per capita income, Edina is tops amongst cities having a population of at least 25,000. Eden Prairie is No. 1 amongst cities over 50,000 and Plymouth is No. 1 for those over 70,000. The vast majority of kids attending Wayzata high school live in Plymouth (where the school is located) - the town of Wayzata has a total population of just 3,700.

I can see now why Roseau almost always beats EGF and TRF.
More affluent....No doubt....

[High Flyer]

Here's a list of per capita income by municipality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mi ... ita_income

Interesting that 7 of the top 10 are towns around Lake Minnetonka.

And not a single state champ...dare I say...ever from this area??? First state champ on the list is Edina at #15.

Measured by per capita income, Edina is tops amongst cities having a population of at least 25,000. Eden Prairie is No. 1 amongst cities over 50,000 and Plymouth is No. 1 for those over 70,000. The vast majority of kids attending Wayzata high school live in Plymouth (where the school is located) - the town of Wayzata has a total population of just 3,700.

Which school district is Grant? WBL? Stillwater? Maht.?

[BodyShots]

And not a single state champ...dare I say...ever from this area??? First state champ on the list is Edina at #15.

Measured by per capita income, Edina is tops amongst cities having a population of at least 25,000. Eden Prairie is No. 1 amongst cities over 50,000 and Plymouth is No. 1 for those over 70,000. The vast majority of kids attending Wayzata high school live in Plymouth (where the school is located) - the town of Wayzata has a total population of just 3,700.

Which school district is Grant? WBL? Stillwater? Maht.?

HM

[Mite-dad]

None of this makes sense to me. You think about it, who are the rich people? Weren't they the nerds in high school? How can they have the genetics to produce great hockey players?










Just kidding of course. Just trying to add some humor to the discussion.

[defense]

And not a single state champ...dare I say...ever from this area??? First state champ on the list is Edina at #15.

Measured by per capita income, Edina is tops amongst cities having a population of at least 25,000. Eden Prairie is No. 1 amongst cities over 50,000 and Plymouth is No. 1 for those over 70,000. The vast majority of kids attending Wayzata high school live in Plymouth (where the school is located) - the town of Wayzata has a total population of just 3,700.

I can see now why Roseau almost always beats EGF and TRF.
More affluent....No doubt....

No, Roseau has had so much success because they have an unbelievable hockey culture.

[TTpuckster]

Measured by per capita income, Edina is tops amongst cities having a population of at least 25,000. Eden Prairie is No. 1 amongst cities over 50,000 and Plymouth is No. 1 for those over 70,000. The vast majority of kids attending Wayzata high school live in Plymouth (where the school is located) - the town of Wayzata has a total population of just 3,700.

I can see now why Roseau almost always beats EGF and TRF.
More affluent....No doubt....

No, Roseau has had so much success because they have an unbelievable hockey culture.

Culture?
Ha!
No culture in Roseau.
Gotta be affluence...No doubt..

[BBB]

So none of these schools have ever been any good at hockey????

Didn't say that

Moorhead hasn't won any titles, are they no good at hockey???

Didn't say that either but based on the statement about producing state CHAMPIONS, Moorhead isn't included...nor WBL.

Has Moorhead grown since the '80s ???

Yes, it has. By more than 10k and I'm sure outlying burbs have as well.

They have been dropping teams from their schedule for years because they're too good, too often.

Settle down, you just got wiped out by Eagan and lost to Lakeville South who was garbage. Congrats on the tourney though...you proved you were a top 20 team.

they are certainly better off than Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes, Park Rapids, Alexandria

Based on the link about incomes Moorhead falls in the middle of those 4 you listed with Fergus and Detroit Lakes having higher incomes.

Moorhead also obviously produces much better hockey teams year after year than these other communities

These are class A schools that are middle of the pack teams in 6A. They participate in some of the worst regular season and section competition in the state, and don't do so well. Nice Comparison. The towns you listed are about 2k to 10k. Moorhead is like 40k and draws kids from surrounding areas as well. They also play in a league with teams from NW MN and section 8AA, much better competition.

Probably has something to do with coaching. But, without some money, how did they build the Sports Center??? How did they build the youth hockey rink???? How do they pay to play so many games on opposite corners of the state???? How do so many of their players develope such strong skills????

I am not sure how they finance their high school team. Maybe you can enlighten us on how much the parents have to nut. I can only assume Escalade driving parents? Rich private donors (whose kids are bubble players)? Offering plates at games? You tell me. It sounds like a good idea to have a rink like that for a large community that has also been home to Concordia, some jr teams, MHS, and a large youth association. It must sell ice time. Is it also open all year? Summer camps. Figure skating. Mens league I would guess. It probably doesn't take a bunch of private donations to keep the lights on. FM is over 200k now and with growing communities along with girls hockey I doubt a lot of ice hrs go to waste?
Thanks for bringing up Moorhead though. They are a perfect example of a team with good coaching it seems, a large talent pool, and obviously the facilities it takes to keep on par with the rest of the state. Maybe it would be easier for you guys to come up with the teams who are not in affluent communities and therefore have chance to win the state title.

[defense]

These schools were used as examples of teams who weren't up to par. My mistake.

I don't recall talking about state titles. Someone else did though.

An increase in population generally means a larger pool of money to draw from.

I don't play hockey anymore, I am considering coaching again though. I don't remember being wiped out by Eagan or losing to a horrible Lakeville South team. Do you know what assumptions do???

Thing is, with a population 4 x's the size of the other communities, of course Moorhead is likely to average less household income. This is HS level math. I also did not post the link about incomes.

Yep, they sure are communities that have hockey teams in the middle of class A. They don't do so well in section 6a or a lot of times in the regular season. Totally correct.
They also are in west central MN. Moorhead is in west central MN as well. Moorhead would be the community that produces the best hockey year in and year out in west central MN. THey also would be the largest, and the most affluent. THank you for understanding.

Seems to me that since there are 4 times the people in Moorhead there would be 4 times the money pool to draw from, and then some when you consider the other towns. There would also be the potential for 4 times the hockey players, 4 times the hockey fees, 4 times the people paying to use the rinks, 4 times the people to pay for the rinks, and 4 times the truly affluent people. I'm positive that not much ice time goes to waste in Moorhead and there in lies the point.
I'll concede though, I got burned. Fergus Falls and Detroit Lakes are light years ahead of Moorhead.

Point made.

[Mite-dad]

It would be a great social study. First compare the family income of hockey kids to family incomes of kids in other sports, and also to the median family income for the town/region.

Then, within hockey families, compare the family incomes of those that have their kids play other sports in the off season with those that have their kids on AAA teams/intense summer hockey training/other elite programs.

Then compare the family incomes of kids that make it to the D1 level with those that spent a fortune on summer hockey programs for their kids.

[defense]

Pretty sure the conclusion we are going to come to is that having money surely doesn't gaurentee anything, but it is a heck of an advantage.

[HShockeywatcher]

You can't find the town of Hill-Murray or Holy Angels, or Cretin anywhere on a map and many metro area schools include more than 1 town. We also don't get the 8 best teams and determine a champion, we get 8 teams from different regions and determine a champion. I don't get equating Wayzata's lack of success because they're in region with Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, and Benilde to affluence.

In 2007 one of my kids did a paper for his statistics class at Winona State where his original idea was to compare the "affluence" of a team to it's success. Not being able to for certain determine income because that's not public data he moved on to home values which wasn't perfect but at least a start. He used Rochester as his base and tracked kids in football, hockey, and baseball. You could pretty much figure which kids as squirts (by going back to when they were squirts) would be on the high school hockey teams while that wasn't true at all in baseball and football based soley on home value. Success in hockey when compared to the other 2 schools in hockey was also related to home value where again that wasn't the case in football or baseball. Lastly there was a more defined range with no low outliers in hockey while the range in football and baseball was much broader due to how low the home values could go in those sports. There were also gaping holes in pin plots on a map for hockey while not in football and baseball. In Rochester at least you can pretty clearly make a connection with the downturn in hockey to a lessening of the talent pool due to economic circumstances.

Some people try to equate with the addition of another school and Lourdes rise but this discounts Lourdes was pretty good prior to Century opening and John Marshall falling off after to the point where Rochester still fielded 3 strong teams up until 2004 or so then it fell to 2 and now down to 1, and that 1 is in class A. You can make a pretty good argument that an intentional rise in costs has led to unintentional decline in talent by pricing too many out of the game and letting others buy their way through. I would bet that given no economic or social factors Johnson, Southwest, or Sibley could produce a state champion quality team again.

Agreed. Not to difficult to realize the kids from affluent familys have many more options in hockey. The summer AAA teams cost big money that lots of familys just cannot afford. Its all about the amount of ice, coaching, and competition played against in most cases that seperates the pack. IMO.

disagree, if you don't have the athletic ability and physical tools you can have as much money, ice time and coaching, and you still won't make it.

For individual athletes, you are correct. But for communities with multiple players, they need the base and then the athletes will be found. Those with the "athletic ability and physical tools" cannot be found without the ice and coaching...

[O-townClown]

Pretty sure the conclusion we are going to come to is that having money surely doesn't gaurentee anything, but it is a heck of an advantage.

One of the USA Hockey videos I recently watched had the Canadian "Own the Podium" guy (who is actually a Brit).

Anyway, studying success in sports at the world level has shown this truism:

In order to excel at the world level, you need two of the following three - money, culture of the sport, and population.

If you only have one it isn't enough.

So, applying this reasoning to high school hockey in Minnesota...

Roseau has the culture (off the charts) and money (tremendous resources devoted to the sport), so it can overcome numbers (or lack of).

Many small Iron Range towns have lost the people and affluence, so the culture isn't enough to carry on success.

Plug in any other area for any other sport and I'm guessing it holds. South America might have little money, but they have a real soccer culture. When the Grateful Dead funded Lithuanian basketball they won an Olympic Bronze...without the money they aren't a top team.

[MNHockeyFan]

In order to excel at the world level, you need two of the following three - money, culture of the sport, and population.

Very interesting. It seems to me that at the high school level you might need to modify these three things just a bit.

To "culture of the sport" I would add "stable demographics of the community". Two examples: St. Paul Johnson and Minneapolis Southwest. Each had a strong hockey culture (and tradition) for years. They still have an adequate population but its composition has changed. I guess you could say that this has led to a loss of "culture of the sport", but a changed demographic is the reason why. Which will probably make it impossible for either of them to recapture their past glory.

At the high school level, in addition to "money" and "population", you also need enough people that WANT to put their money into hockey. You also need a younger demographic - younger parents having kids. An example: Naples, Florida. Very wealthy, with a growing population - they have two out of the three. But it's mostly a senior demographic, with most well past their child rearing years, and they are not motivated to build rinks, hire good coaches, etc.

So to me at least the "world level" and the "high school level" have similarities, but they also have some key differences. Mostly it has to do with the demographics of the individual communities from which high schools draw their teams.

[BBB]

Thing is, with a population 4 x's the size of the other communities, of course Moorhead is likely to average less household income. This is HS level math. I also did not post the link about incomes.

Very similar to Brooklyn Parks population but with only about 2/3rds the avg income of BP. What if North Metro wins the AA tourney next year? Are they affluent?

I'll concede though, I got burned. Fergus Falls and Detroit Lakes are light years ahead of Moorhead.

Thanks for finally conceding. I never said that they were light years ahead but similar or slightly more avg incomes based on the link above. Moorhead could probably take their B1 team most years and beat these towns A bantam team just because of the talent pool they can pick from and the depth a community of 50k people can produce.

[BBB]

Very interesting. It seems to me that at the high school level you might need to modify these three things just a bit.

To "culture of the sport" I would add "stable demographics of the community". Two examples: St. Paul Johnson and Minneapolis Southwest. Each had a strong hockey culture (and tradition) for years. They still have an adequate population but its composition has changed. I guess you could say that this has led to a loss of "culture of the sport", but a changed demographic is the reason why. Which will probably make it impossible for either of them to recapture their past glory.

Good point

[defense]

Pretty sure the conclusion we are going to come to is that having money surely doesn't gaurentee anything, but it is a heck of an advantage.

One of the USA Hockey videos I recently watched had the Canadian "Own the Podium" guy (who is actually a Brit).

Anyway, studying success in sports at the world level has shown this truism:

In order to excel at the world level, you need two of the following three - money, culture of the sport, and population.

If you only have one it isn't enough.

So, applying this reasoning to high school hockey in Minnesota...

Roseau has the culture (off the charts) and money (tremendous resources devoted to the sport), so it can overcome numbers (or lack of).

Many small Iron Range towns have lost the people and affluence, so the culture isn't enough to carry on success.

Plug in any other area for any other sport and I'm guessing it holds. South America might have little money, but they have a real soccer culture. When the Grateful Dead funded Lithuanian basketball they won an Olympic Bronze...without the money they aren't a top team.

BBB would do good to read this post.

[BBB]

I kind of developed a habit in college of only reading the first and last sentence of a paragraph so I read the post you recommended and:
I don't care about what a Canadian (er British) guy says about sport. I hope the Canadians are pumped up with the 10's and 10's of millions of dollars they spent think they would be the big medal winner. You can have your ice dancing medal. They were one shot against away from sending the whole country in the largest mass suicide since Jonestown had it not been for Sidney Crosby (an alum of the affluent SSM program).
I don't give a poop about Lithuanian basketball but a quick look at their history shows they were very good at BB until the Soviet Union took over and when the soviets won gold in 88 that they were led by 4 Lithuanians. 92 was their first Olympics back on their own and they have been in the bronze game in every olympics since. What also happened in 92 was that the NBA players started playing (all from very affluent backgrounds i'm sure) or maybe Lithuania would have a gold. They have had good basketball for like 80 years, not because of the greatful dead. Russia has been irrelevant in basketball since 88.

[O-townClown]

An example: Naples, Florida. Very wealthy, with a growing population - they have two out of the three. But it's mostly a senior demographic, with most well past their child rearing years, and they are not motivated to build rinks, hire good coaches, etc.

You couldn't have meant Naples. There are four sheets of ice serving that market (three at Germain and one at Skatium in Fort Myers), their Pee Wee team just lost in the Tier I championship game, and they have extremely good coaches top to bottom.

Also, the population is definitely not growing in Collier & Lee county. Ground Zero for the housing crisis. The growing days are behind us.

I was summarizing his comments. It doesn't say that if you have money and people you will be world-class at everything. Take the U.S. and dart throwing or Saudi Arabia and bobsled. To be world-class, you need to have two of the three.

Another way to look at this is that to overcome the lack of money, you need tons of people and a rabid culture for whatever sport.