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Our daughter is participating in the 3X3 WalMart Girl HS hockey tournament this weekend - which they are playing full ice at the Super Rink. I think it is the first 3x3 tournament she has ever played in. She is part of the St. Croix Saints - they sent two teams plus, the Schwan Blues and a team from White Bear are playing. The hockey was a blast and I think they had as much or more fun than the other tournaments like the Minnesota Meltdown. Every player is getting a lot of puck touches and scoring chances goalies are getting a ton of work. My daughter was exhausted after playing 3 thirty minutes games where they were going all out. I am a big fan of the format after seeing the action this afternoon. I highly recommend to others - to me it is outdoor shinney hockey and the girls are laughing and smiling.

Indeed & agreed. This is shinney for the 21st century. League to start next year, as well as hopefully an expanded tourney. Word will spread. This is great. Saints groups did very well. I was impressed by the WBL squad as well - very talented, but maybe even a little too physical at times for some. Blues U16 group did well too with the help of a couple U19 players. Tourney saw a number of top goalies including Nixon, Brasuhn, Fredrick, and McRostie as well.

They have been doing 3x3 hockey at Velocity Hockey Center in Eden Prairie for about a year now. The league runs spring through fall and is at all levels from Squirt and U10s all the way up to high school. Our Blake girls have been participating and even though they sometimes don't get too many kids there they have a lot of fun and it is great exercise. They only need about two lines anyway so if 6 show up, great, if there are 8-9 even better.

The rink is not full size so there is a whole bunch of shooting. The goalies love it for all the shots, and the smaller rink encourages lots of quick plays.

The play is kept going constantly using some special rules, like no penalty box time, instead they give the skater a penalty shot and all the other girls line up behind her on one knee until she goes. And after a goal or if the goalie freezes it she passes it to a teammate. I don't think there are any faceoffs at all.

They're just starting their fall league, maybe they have room for another girls team. Especially if you are in the south or west metro.

The Blake teams likes it a lot better than Showcase games. Who needs refs stopping the play all the time in a regular game when they can play constantly on the shorter ice rink?

We have a couple of the mini rinks back here, and in some cases 3 v 3 is played on a full sized sheet as well. Amazingly there are people who call this format "a waste of time" and "not real hockey" etc. I have yet to hear anyone who has played 3 v 3 like this, or in Small Area Games as waste of time, and all have been rather outspoken about how much fun they had.

I guess some people just don't get the fun part.

I agree with all of that and I assume the short/small ice is cheaper, but... There are some additional conditioning/positional advantages to a full sheet which of course is WAY more expensive too and a lot of "wasted ice..."

In the tourney this past weekend:

No off-sides, no icing, goalie freezes puck opposing team must back-out past the blue line before playing again, penalty shot penalties similar to described in prior post (good to enforce the knee/far blue rule though as this didn't always happen and some cheated a bit on PS)...