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14 teams in Detroit this weekend where is the Machine? How will the 97 Blades do?
Belle Tire , Minnesota Blades, LittleCaesars Compuware,Washington All Stars , Cougars,Team,Pittsburgh ,Belle Tire Dearbor,TPH, Junior Penguins,IndyWings Oakland Grizzlies, Tri County Hounds Team Carolina

All the top AAA teams are there. Maybe the Machine was not invited or busy playing in some local Alliance tournaments.

97 Machine is busy this weekend with the "Alliance" Meltdown versus the likes of Easton Stealth and the Route 90 Rebels...

Sk8 Str8 wrote:97 Machine is busy this weekend with the "Alliance" Meltdown versus the likes of Easton Stealth and the Route 90 Rebels...

You choosing to ignore the Colorado Thunderbirds, Wisconsin Jr Admirals and Madison Capitals?

The 97 Blades might be missing the Meltdown, but the 2000, 98, and 96 Blades will be there, as well as all the Machine teams.

I did not mean to ignore or downplay those teams, all solid programs. But my guess is the Machine would rather play what I would consider a higher level of competition in the Detroit tournament. Maybe the unintended consequense of the "Alliance" is that the MN Made teams are obligated to stay in town and pass up other competitive tournaments.

Doglover wrote:All the top AAA teams are there. Maybe the Machine was not invited or busy playing in some local Alliance tournaments.

The Machine was in that tournament last year.

They won at the 96, 98 levels

Third place for 97,99 levels


2008 Machine out of town tournaments, Detroit, Winnepeg, Duluth

2009 Machine out of town tournaments Winnepeg, Calgary

dogeatdog1 wrote:14 teams in Detroit this weekend where is the Machine? How will the 97 Blades do?
Belle Tire , Minnesota Blades, LittleCaesars Compuware,Washington All Stars , Cougars,Team,Pittsburgh ,Belle Tire Dearbor,TPH, Junior Penguins,IndyWings Oakland Grizzlies, Tri County Hounds Team Carolina

97 Blades crushed team Carolina 16-0 in their first game.

What a joke. I'm sure they'll face some tougher competition as the weekend goes on but I think a game with 97 Stealth, or most any other team in the metro, and in this weekends Meltdown Invite, would have been a better test. Also, Team Carolina is an example of an open team in an invite tournament. Shame on the tourney organizers.

How come more Detroit and Chicago teams don't come to Minnesota with more frequency? Why do we have to travel and they don't?

The initial poster asks why the Machine didn't go and that's why. (Although they are going out of town to another tourney or two) They don't have to. Trips of that type can cost between $1000 and $3000 depending if a family drives or flies.

observer wrote:What a joke. I'm sure they'll face some tougher competition as the weekend goes on but I think a game with 97 Stealth, or most any other team in the metro, and in this weekends Meltdown Invite, would have been a better test. Also, Team Carolina is an example of an open team in an invite tournament. Shame on the tourney organizers.

How come more Detroit and Chicago teams don't come to Minnesota with more frequency? Why do we have to travel and they don't?
The initial poster asks why the Machine didn't go and that's why. (Although they are going out of town to another tourney or two) They don't have to. Trips of that type can cost between $1000 and $3000 depending if a family drives or flies.

Great question.....Have any of the Michigan AAA Clubs ever come out? You would think a tournament like the Golden Walleye would attract a couple of them.

observer wrote:What a joke. I'm sure they'll face some tougher competition as the weekend goes on but I think a game with 97 Stealth, or most any other team in the metro, and in this weekends Meltdown Invite, would have been a better test. Also, Team Carolina is an example of an open team in an invite tournament. Shame on the tourney organizers.

How come more Detroit and Chicago teams don't come to Minnesota with more frequency? Why do we have to travel and they don't?

The initial poster asks why the Machine didn't go and that's why. (Although they are going out of town to another tourney or two) They don't have to. Trips of that type can cost between $1000 and $3000 depending if a family drives or flies.

Honey Bake, Little Cezars and Bell Tire are all in Detroit. They are top 10 in the nation teams.. I am sure that the blades won't run through the touney winning all the games 16-0

I'll give you one reason M&G.

Detroit and Chicago families, on prominent club teams, spend between $20,000 and $30,000 for their club hockey experience where we pay between $800 and $1500 for our winter hockey. Probably why we don't see a lot of east coast clubs either.

Gotta love the residence community based model for our winter season.

97's were in the Meltdown last year (96 level) got killed in the championship game vs. machine

do 97 blades have any in-town tourneys this summer - they have at least 2 in canada + detroit - maybe just "too good" for other mn teams?

orange went to detroit last year and now it's a big deal that the blades are going?

low stick wrote:97's were in the Meltdown last year (96 level) got killed in the championship game vs. machine

do 97 blades have any in-town tourneys this summer - they have at least 2 in canada + detroit - maybe just "too good" for other mn teams?

orange went to detroit last year and now it's a big deal that the blades are going?

1. 97's in the championship of the 96 meltown invite last year impressive no matter how bad the championship game was... I do believe the 97 orangies lost in the 97 championship Not a big deal that they (blades) in detroit just wondering why Machine backed out? are they(Machine) playing up in the MN tourney this year or are they going to try to win it at their level?

dogeatdog1 wrote:14 teams in Detroit this weekend where is the Machine? How will the 97 Blades do?
Belle Tire , Minnesota Blades, LittleCaesars Compuware,Washington All Stars , Cougars,Team,Pittsburgh ,Belle Tire Dearbor,TPH, Junior Penguins,IndyWings Oakland Grizzlies, Tri County Hounds Team Carolina

Blades 8
BellTire South 2

BT South is a Tier II AA winter team.

dogeatdog1 wrote:14 teams in Detroit this weekend where is the Machine? How will the 97 Blades do?
Belle Tire , Minnesota Blades, LittleCaesars Compuware,Washington All Stars , Cougars,Team,Pittsburgh ,Belle Tire Dearbor,TPH, Junior Penguins,IndyWings Oakland Grizzlies, Tri County Hounds Team Carolina

Blades 3
Compuware 3

97 Bladees 8-3 in the morning game vs Belle Tire. 8-2 against Compuware in the finals. Showdown in Motown champs.

Congrats to the 97 Blades on their showing in Detroit!

Too bad they needed to travel to compete .....

Blades got beat by MACHINE in the Championship Games 00' 99' 98' 96'

97's won Championship game as well - no Blades to play?

MACHINE SWEEP! ! ! ! !

[quote="noIinteam"]Congrats to the 97 Blades on their showing in Detroit!

Too bad they needed to travel to compete .....

Blades got beat by MACHINE in the Championship Games 00' 99' 98' 96'

97's won Championship game as well - no Blades to play?

MACHINE SWEEP! ! ! ! ![/quote]

I didn't think the 99 Blades were in the championship of the meltdown. What do you mean only$$$inBernieseye?

I don't think the 97 blades needed to travel. I assume they chose to travel in hopes of winning tournament where they would play at least 5 top competitive teams. While the sweep by one club is impressive in a tournament, don't pretent to make it like someone is avoiding the meltdown.

Sorry - my bad - you are correct - the 99 Blades were not in the final
thank you for pointing that out

I believe the Machine skated against the Steelers?

97 Blades are great - just interesting how 97 M went to Detroit last year and now the Blades go and it's the only option

Congrats to the 97 Blades on their Championship in Detroit!

From a non-Blades parent

95,97 and 99 Blades did not play meltdown this weekend.

An interesting thing to point out:

2008 Meltdown-Some Machine teams skip Meltdown and all Blades teams win championships

2009 Meltdown-Some Blades teams skip and all Machines win.

The Meltdown is a good pre-season tournament against decent competition to find out where your team is at, and what you need to work on. At $1400 to enter though, it's gotten very pricey.

When you travel to the more high profile tournaments like the one in Detroit, you get to see real AAA clubs from around the country and can really measure how your team stacks up. Also it's better for development and visibility. You have to be selective in which tournaments you choose so that you keep the cost as reasonable as possible for your families while still keeping the competition level high since kids will develop much more playing solid teams than they will winning 12-0.

Also not all out of town tournaments are truly competitive. Just because a tournament is in Winnipeg does not mean it's worth the trip. Parents ask questions and check out who participates in these tournaments. It's all available on line (past winners/participants, etc). Educating yourself is easy with all the info out there. You really don't want to play for a club that is just interested in collecting local trophies for the trophy case. It's better to play in a tougher tournament and not win (but you also don't want to participate if you can't compete), than bring home a trophy from a marginal tournament with lots of AA teams masquerading as AAA teams. If Honeybaked, Little Caesars, Compuware, East Coast Selects, are playing in a tournament, chances are it will be very competitive and worth the trip.

Doglover you are so correct in your assessment of AAA Tourneys...they have all gotten pricey! The Machine went out to Motown last year with a couple teams and showed well at both the 96 and 97 level. This year they chose to stay in town to play the MELTDOWN and have to come back the next week to participate in their STARS ANS STRIPES TOURNEY with what looks to be a very good field of teams. I'm sure the would have liked to play in Detroit but chose a different route this Spring/Summer due to the fact they moved their tourney up on the schedule. It gets to be a spendy proposition for families to travel all over to play, so local tourneys are very good options for players. It is important that teams/players are getting a good experience when playing in these AAA tourneys and it isn't always about the WINS/LOSSES. Even in these top rated tourneys like the Toronto Prospects, Detroit Motown etc there are always a couple pretenders that gain entrance because they are willing to pay the team fee and fill out the the field. They are usually quickly flushed out and the cream rises to the top in these tourneys.

Congratulations to the Blades team on an impressive showing in Detroit.
Anyone that has had exposure to the Compuware, Little Caesars and Belle Tire teams out of Michigan knows that they are highly rated clubs on a national level.

Congrats to this team! Its good to see a group of MN boys go and win against top national teams.

The Blades were the best team in Detroit. Compuware was the best competition. Detroits teams had national names but the teams rosters were different than the winter teams. Compuware had their winter kids plus 4-5 top Belle Tire players.

The majoity of the teams were average competition w/ teams that played winter AA hockey ( TPH, Oakland Grizzlies, Team Pittsburg, Carolina jr Hurricanes, jr Penguins, Belle Tire South, Indy Wings)

The better teams Belle Tire and Little Ceasers did not have their complete winter rosters. There was a mix. Kids need a break, these teams play a 60-70 game winter season. The Chicago Area and St Louis AAA Spring team rosters are not the same as their winter rosters as well. When you see the Mission or T1 or the Blues its not the same teams in the Spring.