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Just Wondering,

What high school conference would be considered the toughest in the state, as far as competitiveness and talent?

I understand they are all good, Just curious.

goaliepad wrote:Just Wondering,

What high school conference would be considered the toughest in the state, as far as competitiveness and talent?

I understand they are all good, Just curious.

My vote would be the Lake, I know people will say too small, but I think it's perfect as there are no easy games, and most the teams attract high level opponents in their non-conf schedule - as you can see by the Krach SOS. The other thing I would say about the Lake is most of the 5 teams look to be strong for the foreseeable future (good numbers, strong youth programs). That can't be said for all conferences, and it's hard to argue with 3 of the 4 title game participants be from lake conference.

goaliepad wrote:What high school conference would be considered the toughest in the state, as far as competitiveness and talent? ...

Ask elkpower. He is quite knowledgeable on the topic, and surely knows which one is the toughest, most competitive, and talented. I think he had another thread on this topic.

One could make a strong argument for the Lake. In the past 3 years - two state championships, two second-place finishes, and one third place finish. 40% of the teams have made it to state each of the past 3 seasons. All conference teams ranked in the top 20 at some point this season. Last place Wayzata defeated Tonka and EP gave Tonka a close game this season. From top to bottom, you simply can't take a night off like you can in all other conferences. Yes, much of the Lake's strength is due to its small size, but they're playing the hand they've been dealt very well. Youth programs are generally strong and bode well for future success, too.

How about the SEC. In the past 6 years - 3 championships, 1 runner-up, one 3rd place, one 4th place, one 6th place. If you do the math on these stats, the SEC is 9-6 in the state tourney in the last 6 years.

How do we define the question? Is it the conf with the most top-10 teams overall in the state (or - to be fair - maybe I should say largest % as some conf have more teams than others)? Is it the one that has the best average ranking overall? Two totally different ways to look at it - for example.

When I think of "toughest" - I don't think of the "most top 10 or x" only approach. I look at the conf top-to-bottom.

My bias is clearly shown by the handle, but for sake of good conversation this is purely by the numbers. It’s impossible to compare the Lake to the other three if you look at depth with only half of the teams. In order to do that, you’d have to take the top 5-7 from each league and average from there. They don’t get any ‘free’ wins though, which also has to be taken into account.

Lake (5) – 16 average
NWSC (10) – 26 avg with all, 14.8 with top 5, 16.6 with top 7
SEC (10) – 30.9 avg with all, 14.2 with top 5, 20.85 with top 7
SSC (10) – 30.5 avg with all, 17.2 with top 5, 22 with top 7

State Tournament:

Lake – 1st, 3rd
NWSC –
SEC – 2nd, 6th
SSC – 4th, T-7th

Sections (Champs … Finals … Semis):

Lake – Edina, Tonka … --- … EP, Hopkins
NWSC – --- … ER, Blaine … Anoka, Andover
SEC – Roseville, Mound … --- … Hastings, Park, Still, WBL
SSC –LVN, Eagan … LVS, AV … Jeff


Lake – All 5 top 25 teams, toughest conference schedule, State Champion and Third Place, 2 Section Finals, 4 Section Semi’s, No easy wins, averages high because no bad teams

NWSC – No teams in State, 2 Section Finals, 4 Section Semi’s, best averages of big conferences, Better top five than Lake

SEC – State Second and Sixth Place, 2 Section Finals, 6 Section Semi’s, Best top 5 average

SSC – State Fourth and T-Seventh Place, 4 Section Finals, 5 Section Semi’s


Looks like the Lake takes the ‘cake’. NWSC is toughest top to middle, but no tourney teams and an average sections performance. SEC good state representation, lot of section semi’s but majority bowed out early. SSC had the best Sections performance with double the amount of section finals as the other three, but state was not as kind (LVN vs. Tonka hurts).

Let the debaters have at it.

I would respectfully submit that looking at the most recent 3 year is more meaningful than looking at 4-6 years ago. In the world of hockey, that's a bit of ancient history. Then, the question begins to turn into which conference has been the toughest historically, which is a much different question that which conference is the toughest 'now'. Not sure of the definition of 'now'. The question of historically tough conferences would certainly be an interesting discussion as well.

Interesting numbers from southsuburban. You're looking at the top 5 of each of the conferences and comparing them, which seems like apples-to-apples, but it presents a bias against the Lake conference because of its small number of teams. I.e., the other conferences get to eliminate their weakest teams from the calculation, but the Lake does not get that luxury. In order to be fair, one could also do a comparison of the bottom 5 teams of each conference and the Lake would easily emerge as the strongest. And of course, you could also do a comparison of all the teams in each conference. My point here is that it is very difficult to do a comparison between conferences because of the great difference in number of teams, so I do agree with your similar assessment. Maybe it's not quite impossible to do a fair comparison, but it certainly is very difficult. At the end of the day, it does make for a more interesting discussion, IMHO.