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I thought I could watch online but I guess not.

Please share scores, observations and highlights.

observer wrote:I thought I could watch online but I guess not.

Please share scores, observations and highlights.

I'm watching online right now.

Comment: It's time, Lenny, to back off a little.

12-1 Final. Tough way to open a State Tournament.

This does illustrate well the difference in top teams in Class A from one region of the state vs. other areas.

I hate to say that I actually expected this sort of result. My only question, when considering score prediction, was to what extent score control would be used.

Some could argue that a team shouldn't let up at this point in a season. I am not saying that I agree or disagree, just saying.

State Champ 97 wrote:12-1 Final. Tough way to open a State Tournament.

Would have been a 12-0 final, but New Ulm scored with about 5 seconds to go, right off a faceoff in Breck's end after Breck iced the puck.

P.S. Breck did back off in the 3rd, most noticeably on their shots - you could tell they were purposely putting weak shots right at the New Ulm goalie.

This of course brings up the age-old question of having the "best" 8 teams play at state or having Section champions similar to today. We're all aware of the challenges of determining the "best" 8 in the state. And I like the thought of a small school getting to participate in the State tournament.

However, is it fair that Blake had to watch this game when they clearly would have handled New Ulm (and likely other schools) with ease, or is it fair to Benilde that they had the misfortune of being in the same section as Minnetonka?

I'm not at all a private school booster, just using a couple of examples that came quickly to mind from 6A and 6AA. Including the "best" 8 would make for much better hockey with almost all teams having a legitimate shot (in most years) at winning it all and would lead to higher attendance, but it would prevent the historical small schools from enjoying the experience and perhaps widen the gap between haves and have-nots.

Opinions, anyone?

In Class A there are quite a few good teams from sections 5 & 8 that are watching. Take a look at: http://www.bgoski.com/KRACH_A.htm and http://www.bgoski.com/KRACH_SEC.htm

I guess this is what happens every year when you have geographic sections. There have been a # of things proposed over the years to address this.

I doubt we'd ever get to the point of taking the top 8 teams in the state and assigning them a section, and filling in with the rest after that. The next best thing might be 7 sections with the 7 section runners-up playing for the 8th bid. I hear this is how the boys worked many years ago.

South St Paul up 5-0 after 1.

Will we have a competitive game today?

FlyingWarrior wrote:South St Paul up 5-0 after 1.

Will we have a competitive game today?

I think the last game of the day will be.

FlyingWarrior wrote:South St Paul up 5-0 after 1.

Now 5-2 after two. Sara Carlson has both of Hutch's goals.

From the Hockey Hub:

"Six of the eight Class 1A teams return from last year’s state tournament, including defending champion Warroad and runner-up Breck, while in Class 2A only Edina is back for another title run. Half of the Class 2A field is made up of teams making their state tournament debut: No. 1 seed Minnetonka, Hill-Murray, North Wright County and Rosemount."

If the goal of two classes is to give an opportunity for more of the small schools to participate isn't it a little self defeating that a few schools dominate those class A opportunities every year? Maybe we should see the Quarter Finalist move up for a couple years so new teams can get in. That would have put Breck and Warroad into AA this year. I think the AA tourney would be better with Warroad (No offense to the Riverhawks) and I know section 6AA would have been a better field with Breck.

Plus it might reduce the number of 1st round class A games decided by a ten spot. Seems to me last year Breck and Warroad were something like 45 to 3 in the first two rounds (I didnt look it up so I might be very wrong on that).

Keep in mind that with Breck, they are a AA talented team that won't play AA. Most of the girls on that team come from AA school districts. Benilde is in a similar situation, but plays AA.

Final: SSP 5, Hutchinson 2. Shots were 34-11.

The way it started out I thought it would be another huge blowout like the first game. But give credit to Hutchinson for holding SSP scoreless in the 2nd and 3rd periods and actually outscoring them 2-0.

What is the attendance at the games? Any idea?

I thought SSP was a AA school on hockey? When did they opt down? Didn't they win the AA tournament a few times?

mulefarm wrote:I thought SSP was a AA school on hockey? When did they opt down? Didn't they win the AA tournament a few times?

They moved to Class A either in 2004/05 or 2005/06. They've been in A for at least 6 years.

sinbin wrote:This of course brings up the age-old question of having the "best" 8 teams play at state or having Section champions similar to today. We're all aware of the challenges of determining the "best" 8 in the state. And I like the thought of a small school getting to participate in the State tournament.

However, is it fair that Blake had to watch this game when they clearly would have handled New Ulm (and likely other schools) with ease, or is it fair to Benilde that they had the misfortune of being in the same section as Minnetonka?

I'm not at all a private school booster, just using a couple of examples that came quickly to mind from 6A and 6AA. Including the "best" 8 would make for much better hockey with almost all teams having a legitimate shot (in most years) at winning it all and would lead to higher attendance, but it would prevent the historical small schools from enjoying the experience and perhaps widen the gap between haves and have-nots.

Opinions, anyone?

My opinion:
I will keep repeating myself till it happens:

1 class 16 team tournament!!

I'm old school Section 8, so I do think winning the section tourney should be priority #1.

All 8 section winners in State Tourney seeded 1-8.
All the section runner-ups host a 1 game play-in. ALL the rest of the teams that didn't make the section finals get ranked... the top 8 and section does not matter, you could have more than 1 team or no team from each section go and play 1 game to get in the State Tourney.

I don't know much about other sections but section 8 and section 7 from up North would have great section championships, great 1 game play-in games and very competitive teams sent down to State!!

Small school, large school, private school = 1 Champ

Can't wait to see Hill vs Edina tonight. That is gonna be some matchup. Would love to see the Bona vs Brandt match up just to see those two players light it up. Bona was very impressive last night. NWC goalie played pretty well but got beat on some great moves.