HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

Below is a link to my notes from today's board meeting and some fun conjecture as to what might have been this year had teams opted up and/or opted down.

Enjoy,

TS

http://youthhockeyhub.com/mn-hockey-boa ... es-sunday/

Tony,

"What is certain right now, an association must declare it's teams level to MNH. This declaration MUST come from both the Bantam and PeeWee teams as one unit." ~Your notes from meeting

Roseville A Bantams placed 2nd in the District 2 standings at 12-2 and then placed 7th out of nine teams in PeeWee A.

Highland Park placed 2nd in PeeWee A and then placed 7th out of eight teams in Bantam A with a 1-12-1 record.

Could you imagine if they declared as "One Unit"?? The thrashing the weaker team would get if they declared AA......? Or the Thrashing opponents would get from the stronger team if they declared at the new A(B-1) level? What kids are MNH going to feed to the wolves? Ugly!

Are they not showing us that they just have an agenda for the mega associations that are strong at all levels and have little concern for the rest?

Will you give us your opinion on if this post is accurate?

Another issue could come from the timing when each association has to declare their formation. How does an association know the team strengthen before the season starts? Numbers, previous season finishes, other team strengthen within its district, a couple of transfers from neighboring associations, returning of fire kids?

You will find a lot of people scratch their head asking what heck their association was thinking, for playing in a AA/A, or A/B, after the decision was made.

It is going to be a mess to say the least! Good luck to the decision makers from all the associations!

Bo: I'm sure there are other ones out there in the same pickle. What eventually happens and what I heard this weekend may end up changing. It just seemed to be one of the few things they had a true consensus on.

mn: the DD's all wanted different times when the teams had to report. The original proposal wasOctober 6. My feeling is it may be sooner than that...based on what I heard.

Is the A/AA designation for PeeWee's and Bantams only or does it fall to squirts also?

correct, PeeWee and Bantam only

A reminder that the AA/A designation is for the District,Region and State tournaments only, for Invitational Tournaments and League play the teams are considered as either A Bantam or A Peewee their registration classification.

greybeard58 wrote:A reminder that the AA/A designation is for the District,Region and State tournaments only, for Invitational Tournaments and League play the teams are considered as either A Bantam or A Peewee their registration classification.

You're saying AA and A will play an EQUAL amount of games together in league play?

"Invitational"

How will the "32 Elite Units" be chosen when an association has a 12th ranked A Bantam team and a 76th ranked A PeeWee squad?

greybeard58 wrote:A reminder that the AA/A designation is for the District,Region and State tournaments only, for Invitational Tournaments and League play the teams are considered as either A Bantam or A Peewee their registration classification.

Are you saying all A teams can decide to play in aa, or a in the post-season, and every A team will play in the same league?

Let us say in D6, Edina has 3 A teams, PL has 3, EP and Minnetonka each has 2, how will you plan for the regular season games?

The A Bantam and A Peewee teams are first registered as 'A' with USA/MN Hockey. My best information would be that there would be One "A" Bantam and one "A"Peewee league for each District with an AA Division and an A Division. All AA's will play a home and home and play all other A Division teams once all games count in league standings, the "A" Division will play a home and home with all "A" division teams. Standings would be kept by Division. Check out the District 10 A Bantam schedule and standings for the "A"Bantam league last year.

How and when are they picked????

HEre is my understanding and a best guess using Wayzata/Large assn as a hypothetical example:

Wayzata will have an AA team and A team. Both teams will play in the D3 league. How D3 divides itself and its league schedule is anyone's guess. But as gray points out, D10 and D6 classified their schedules in a manner that allows for the smaller associations to play the big boys only once. How districts work is anyone's guess at this point.

Wayzata's A team also gets the benefit of playing in A tournaments throughout the state as an A team, rather than B1 (or in their case last year, two evenly divided A teams). My guess is MH thinks this will give more competitive balance to the lower level A associations and way more balance to the B1 teams.

The official format comes out later this week...stay tuned.

What associations will choose...triple stay tuned, it's anybody's guess.

greybeard58 wrote:The A Bantam and A Peewee teams are first registered as 'A' with USA/MN Hockey. My best information would be that there would be One "A" Bantam and one "A"Peewee league for each District with an AA Division and an A Division. All AA's will play a home and home and play all other A Division teams once all games count in league standings, the "A" Division will play a home and home with all "A" division teams. Standings would be kept by Division. Check out the District 10 A Bantam schedule and standings for the "A"Bantam league last year.

You'll be swinging the balance of power and disabling once proud traditions.

Andover A Bantams took 2nd and their A PeeWees were 10th out of twelve teams.

Irondale was 3rd in the PeeWee A standings and they didn't even have an A Bantam team.

How would we of been able to find out what a great team Irondale had if we had this new program?

Champlin Park and Anoka had all of their success against the single A teams. Don't you think they will still opt up to AA since they will have to COMPETE against them very soon in their High School conference? They will come at you kicking and screaming, IF, you tell them they can't play the same level of competition in youth.... Player movement will then increase in much larger numbers.

Put the AA standings on top of the A standings in District 10 and you'll SEE that NOTHING really changed.

Torn down from the inside....