Winnipeg Preview and Predictions

[YouthHockeyHub]

My predicting hot streak may come to a screeching halt this weekend.

http://www.youthhockeyhub.com/north-ame ... edictions/

Lots of homer MN picks and lots of "they have cool uniforms" picks, too. I do my best with the info that's out there, but 3/6 or .500 would be a good weekend for Tony the Greek.

Enjoy,

TS

[Deep Breath]

TS-

You went a little too much Sid Hartman with the picks. Over the last three years, only one non-Canadian team has won a "Super Elite" level on the boys side of things. While it would be nice to see U.S. teams, especially Minnesota teams, come home with the Champions jerseys, history shows that it just doesn't happen that way.

[YouthHockeyHub]

Good one Deep.

I for sure mixed a little Sid there. Can you imagine Sid trying to pronounce Ty Smilanic's name?

The 01 Orange pick was a reach, but I'd say the 99 Orange have a chance as do the 02 Blades.

Yes, 3 MN winners is a stretch based on past history.

TS

[helightsthelamp]

TS - you wondered what ST as in ST Selects stands for... Nice guess on sticky tape... You must be to modest as it stands for "Super Tony"


Actually Steffen Training Selects!

[YouthHockeyHub]

There are a ton of really great hockey minds named Tony, that's for sure.

[57special]

Looks like the Machine Orange is the only top flight 2000 team in MN. I don't think the Euros would've done any better than the Blades.

Is it that the MN teams don't have enough puck skills, or is it that theCanucks have better skills without the puck?

[snyper12]

Looks like the Machine Orange is the only top flight 2000 team in MN. I don't think the Euros would've done any better than the Blades.

Is it that the MN teams don't have enough puck skills, or is it that theCanucks have better skills without the puck?

Or perhaps it's just a bit of apples and oranges w/respect to how the teams are/were built.

[Deep Breath]

Not sure what is meant by the "how the teams are/were built", but the 2000 Machine accomplished something this weekend that had never been done before in the 12-year history of the Winnipeg event and that is win the same division three years in a row. Also, nice to see another Minnesota team win the top level up in Winnipeg as the 02 Blades won a championship this weekend.

[YouthHockeyHub]

O2 Blades win, 00 Orange win, and 03 Blades take second. Not a bad weekend for our boys up there. I predicted these 3 to win and was chided for homerism. I also chose the 99 Falcons to win and they got 2nd. That's the good with my picks.

My 04 and 01 Champ picks both finished second division.

I thought the 01 Blades did well this weekend, too.

Deep: here's my take on what I think was meant by the OP comment. The overall construction of the 00 Blades and 00 Machine the last 5 years are in direct contrast of one another. The Machine had a coach, a plan, and got better every year. The Blades had just the opposite: a new coach every year, a new plan, and were always susceptible for other teams to take their best players. There are only a handful of original Blades player that remain from their first two years. No disrespect to that team. Each year and each plan was always meant with the best intentions, it's just that they never worked out as planned.

[lets play]

What happen to the 04 machine orange???

[snyper12]

O2 Blades win, 00 Orange win, and 03 Blades take second. Not a bad weekend for our boys up there. I predicted these 3 to win and was chided for homerism. I also chose the 99 Falcons to win and they got 2nd. That's the good with my picks.

My 04 and 01 Champ picks both finished second division.

I thought the 01 Blades did well this weekend, too.

Deep: here's my take on what I think was meant by the OP comment. The overall construction of the 00 Blades and 00 Machine the last 5 years are in direct contrast of one another. The Machine had a coach, a plan, and got better every year. The Blades had just the opposite: a new coach every year, a new plan, and were always susceptible for other teams to take their best players. There are only a handful of original Blades player that remain from their first two years. No disrespect to that team. Each year and each plan was always meant with the best intentions, it's just that they never worked out as planned.

In addition - where are they drawing from for this particular tournament (adding players from throughout Canada?). See game 1 for 00 Blades vs game 5 for 00 Blades - same team but different players for the opponent? It's just not all apple to apples - so to talk about skill development in MN based on some scores in a tournament for one team, seems senseless.

[Deep Breath]

snyper: I stil don't understand what your complaint is? Are you upset that the canadian teams draw from a wider geographical region than the MN teams, for the most part, or are you upset that some of the North American Young Guns didn't want to stick around for a last place game on a Sunday morning and they brought in some fill-in players?

[snyper12]

snyper: I stil don't understand what your complaint is? Are you upset that the canadian teams draw from a wider geographical region than the MN teams, for the most part, or are you upset that some of the North American Young Guns didn't want to stick around for a last place game on a Sunday morning and they brought in some fill-in players?

I'm not complaining. I am saying senseless to talk about skills unless you are comparing apples to apples and my opinion is not the case.

[HockeyDad41]

Can anyone shed some light on the Team Minnesota - Team Brick Alberta matches? I didn't see the two games, and am wondering if this is a situation where they can make some adjustments before Edmonton to close that gap a little.

[B-Ville Hockey Guy]

O2 Blades win, 00 Orange win, and 03 Blades take second. Not a bad weekend for our boys up there. I predicted these 3 to win and was chided for homerism. I also chose the 99 Falcons to win and they got 2nd. That's the good with my picks.

My 04 and 01 Champ picks both finished second division.

I thought the 01 Blades did well this weekend, too.

Deep: here's my take on what I think was meant by the OP comment. The overall construction of the 00 Blades and 00 Machine the last 5 years are in direct contrast of one another. The Machine had a coach, a plan, and got better every year. The Blades had just the opposite: a new coach every year, a new plan, and were always susceptible for other teams to take their best players. There are only a handful of original Blades player that remain from their first two years. No disrespect to that team. Each year and each plan was always meant with the best intentions, it's just that they never worked out as planned.

02 icemen ended up second to the Manitoba Falcons in the AAA portion of the tourney. 5-1 record with very close games. Last MN team standing. I was very proud of our kids! This will be the last time I take a team to this tournament! The officials were terrible and the whole set up of the tourney was poor. They use this weekend to train new officials and for most of the games you have 4 refs on ice. I do not have sour grapes as we ended up winning almost of these games. In one of the games ( Peewee Minor ) there were 35 penalties given out. The game took over 2.5 hours and there were 2 major 2-10 hits from behind called ( one on each team) 5- four minute double minors called and a slew of just wild calls made. Twice the ref blew the whistle for icing on a penalty kill. ( We were on the power play for both of them). We were fortunate that no kids got seriously injured in this tourney as almost every game got out of hand. BAD experience for the kids first checking tourney. The Final game was the best officiating for the tourney and we ended up losing a good game.
I voiced my concerns to the tourney director and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. His comment was that he turned 85 teams away from the tourney. He won't have to worry about turning our team away.

[JSR]

O2 Blades win, 00 Orange win, and 03 Blades take second. Not a bad weekend for our boys up there. I predicted these 3 to win and was chided for homerism. I also chose the 99 Falcons to win and they got 2nd. That's the good with my picks.

My 04 and 01 Champ picks both finished second division.

I thought the 01 Blades did well this weekend, too.

Deep: here's my take on what I think was meant by the OP comment. The overall construction of the 00 Blades and 00 Machine the last 5 years are in direct contrast of one another. The Machine had a coach, a plan, and got better every year. The Blades had just the opposite: a new coach every year, a new plan, and were always susceptible for other teams to take their best players. There are only a handful of original Blades player that remain from their first two years. No disrespect to that team. Each year and each plan was always meant with the best intentions, it's just that they never worked out as planned.

02 icemen ended up second to the Manitoba Falcons in the AAA portion of the tourney. 5-1 record with very close games. Last MN team standing. I was very proud of our kids! This will be the last time I take a team to this tournament! The officials were terrible and the whole set up of the tourney was poor. They use this weekend to train new officials and for most of the games you have 4 refs on ice. I do not have sour grapes as we ended up winning almost of these games. In one of the games ( Peewee Minor ) there were 35 penalties given out. The game took over 2.5 hours and there were 2 major 2-10 hits from behind called ( one on each team) 5- four minute double minors called and a slew of just wild calls made. Twice the ref blew the whistle for icing on a penalty kill. ( We were on the power play for both of them). We were fortunate that no kids got seriously injured in this tourney as almost every game got out of hand. BAD experience for the kids first checking tourney. The Final game was the best officiating for the tourney and we ended up losing a good game.
I voiced my concerns to the tourney director and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. His comment was that he turned 85 teams away from the tourney. He won't have to worry about turning our team away.

Weird, took my 2000 son to this tourney two summers ago, it was his first checking eexperience as well. It was by far the best run and best REFFED tourney I have ever been apart of. Before and since. Nothing has ever compared to how good it was up there. The refs were amazing the way they worked with the kids on the ice and the coaches on the bench, never seen anything like it. Direct contrast to what you are reporting about your experience this year

[Shinbone_News]

O2 Blades win, 00 Orange win, and 03 Blades take second. Not a bad weekend for our boys up there. I predicted these 3 to win and was chided for homerism. I also chose the 99 Falcons to win and they got 2nd. That's the good with my picks.

My 04 and 01 Champ picks both finished second division.

I thought the 01 Blades did well this weekend, too.

Deep: here's my take on what I think was meant by the OP comment. The overall construction of the 00 Blades and 00 Machine the last 5 years are in direct contrast of one another. The Machine had a coach, a plan, and got better every year. The Blades had just the opposite: a new coach every year, a new plan, and were always susceptible for other teams to take their best players. There are only a handful of original Blades player that remain from their first two years. No disrespect to that team. Each year and each plan was always meant with the best intentions, it's just that they never worked out as planned.

Congrats to 01 Blades! Excellent pool play and a semi-final loss to eventual champs South Sask. Selects.

Great parity. From my point of view, in the 01 division almost any one of about a dozen teams could have won it if they'd managed to establish consistency and a little puck luck. 01 Machine missed the championship pool by one goal, and lost their bracket finals by one goal (+1 ENG). Two goals against cost them a lot of bracket territory.

Worth noting that penalties were a huge factor working against, just like last year. Lack of discipline deletes puck luck every time.

Just a couple weeks ago, Machine beat SSSelects in the Stars and Stripes 'ship, which was a very clean game.

01 American Stars, Northern Elite with some hand-picked Twin Cities mercenaries, showed that individual talent can still occasionally beat a well-oiled team.

[YouthHockeyHub]

Shin: thanks for your POV. The Machine's win over SSS convinced me they were the favorite. As you pointed out. I could have flipped a coin on 5 teams to win this one. The Machine played very well the 3-4 weeks leading up.

[Shinbone_News]

O2 Blades win, 00 Orange win, and 03 Blades take second. Not a bad weekend for our boys up there. I predicted these 3 to win and was chided for homerism. I also chose the 99 Falcons to win and they got 2nd. That's the good with my picks.

My 04 and 01 Champ picks both finished second division.

I thought the 01 Blades did well this weekend, too.

Deep: here's my take on what I think was meant by the OP comment. The overall construction of the 00 Blades and 00 Machine the last 5 years are in direct contrast of one another. The Machine had a coach, a plan, and got better every year. The Blades had just the opposite: a new coach every year, a new plan, and were always susceptible for other teams to take their best players. There are only a handful of original Blades player that remain from their first two years. No disrespect to that team. Each year and each plan was always meant with the best intentions, it's just that they never worked out as planned.

02 icemen ended up second to the Manitoba Falcons in the AAA portion of the tourney. 5-1 record with very close games. Last MN team standing. I was very proud of our kids! This will be the last time I take a team to this tournament! The officials were terrible and the whole set up of the tourney was poor. They use this weekend to train new officials and for most of the games you have 4 refs on ice. I do not have sour grapes as we ended up winning almost of these games. In one of the games ( Peewee Minor ) there were 35 penalties given out. The game took over 2.5 hours and there were 2 major 2-10 hits from behind called ( one on each team) 5- four minute double minors called and a slew of just wild calls made. Twice the ref blew the whistle for icing on a penalty kill. ( We were on the power play for both of them). We were fortunate that no kids got seriously injured in this tourney as almost every game got out of hand. BAD experience for the kids first checking tourney. The Final game was the best officiating for the tourney and we ended up losing a good game.
I voiced my concerns to the tourney director and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. His comment was that he turned 85 teams away from the tourney. He won't have to worry about turning our team away.

This is odd to me. You're saying the reffing was terrible, but they called TOO many penalties when the games were getting out of hand??? Usually that means they're doing as much as they can to limit the damage and keep kids safe. Sounds like they did everything short of taking their sticks away and showing them how to play. Maybe what you mean is that the tourney shouldn't have allowed checking at 02, and I can get behind that. But not the refs' fault.

I do agree that they seemed pretty aggressive in the games that I saw, but I think that's way better than letting games get out of hand. Then it's a matter of calling with consistency toward both sides, which I think they did pretty well. Bad calls, when they happened, tended to go both ways.

I agree with the OP that this was a very well run tournament and the reffing was as good as anywhere, certainly no worse. Not too often you see three officials on the ice, and we had that for the majority of our games. Six eyes better than four, even if one of them is a trainee.

We saw quite a few double minors for head contact that mostly seemed warranted -- I wish this would get called more often, not less.

One other odd observation -- lots of kids thrown out of the face-off circle. half a dozen every game. Also, stricter enforcement of home-team advantage on line changes. To me, that seemed like smarter and better reffing than usual.

[B-Ville Hockey Guy]

O2 Blades win, 00 Orange win, and 03 Blades take second. Not a bad weekend for our boys up there. I predicted these 3 to win and was chided for homerism. I also chose the 99 Falcons to win and they got 2nd. That's the good with my picks.

My 04 and 01 Champ picks both finished second division.

I thought the 01 Blades did well this weekend, too.

Deep: here's my take on what I think was meant by the OP comment. The overall construction of the 00 Blades and 00 Machine the last 5 years are in direct contrast of one another. The Machine had a coach, a plan, and got better every year. The Blades had just the opposite: a new coach every year, a new plan, and were always susceptible for other teams to take their best players. There are only a handful of original Blades player that remain from their first two years. No disrespect to that team. Each year and each plan was always meant with the best intentions, it's just that they never worked out as planned.

02 icemen ended up second to the Manitoba Falcons in the AAA portion of the tourney. 5-1 record with very close games. Last MN team standing. I was very proud of our kids! This will be the last time I take a team to this tournament! The officials were terrible and the whole set up of the tourney was poor. They use this weekend to train new officials and for most of the games you have 4 refs on ice. I do not have sour grapes as we ended up winning almost of these games. In one of the games ( Peewee Minor ) there were 35 penalties given out. The game took over 2.5 hours and there were 2 major 2-10 hits from behind called ( one on each team) 5- four minute double minors called and a slew of just wild calls made. Twice the ref blew the whistle for icing on a penalty kill. ( We were on the power play for both of them). We were fortunate that no kids got seriously injured in this tourney as almost every game got out of hand. BAD experience for the kids first checking tourney. The Final game was the best officiating for the tourney and we ended up losing a good game.
I voiced my concerns to the tourney director and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. His comment was that he turned 85 teams away from the tourney. He won't have to worry about turning our team away.

This is odd to me. You're saying the reffing was terrible, but they called TOO many penalties when the games were getting out of hand??? Usually that means they're doing as much as they can to limit the damage and keep kids safe. Sounds like they did everything short of taking their sticks away and showing them how to play. Maybe what you mean is that the tourney shouldn't have allowed checking at 02, and I can get behind that. But not the refs' fault.

I do agree that they seemed pretty aggressive in the games that I saw, but I think that's way better than letting games get out of hand. Then it's a matter of calling with consistency toward both sides, which I think they did pretty well. Bad calls, when they happened, tended to go both ways.

I agree with the OP that this was a very well run tournament and the reffing was as good as anywhere, certainly no worse. Not too often you see three officials on the ice, and we had that for the majority of our games. Six eyes better than four, even if one of them is a trainee.

We saw quite a few double minors for head contact that mostly seemed warranted -- I wish this would get called more often, not less.

One other odd observation -- lots of kids thrown out of the face-off circle. half a dozen every game. Also, stricter enforcement of home-team advantage on line changes. To me, that seemed like smarter and better reffing than usual.

The big reason that the games got out of hand is that they were inconsistent in calling the penalties. tons of after the whistle shots not called. Lots of big blow up hits not called and then they would call a ticky tack penalty for no apparent reason. The Game that had 35 penalties was laughable. Even the kids had no clue on how to hit without getting called. We ended up telling our kids to play no check hockey. Worked for a bit as we won that game but totally wrong way to teach kids the game. One of the reasons I was looking forward to the tourney was letting the 02 team see what the hitting game was about. For what it is worth there were other games that I watched that they were just as bad one ref in a 99 game could not skate and fell multiple times during the game.

[Gryff]

02 icemen ended up second to the Manitoba Falcons in the AAA portion of the tourney. 5-1 record with very close games. Last MN team standing. I was very proud of our kids! This will be the last time I take a team to this tournament! The officials were terrible and the whole set up of the tourney was poor. They use this weekend to train new officials and for most of the games you have 4 refs on ice. I do not have sour grapes as we ended up winning almost of these games. In one of the games ( Peewee Minor ) there were 35 penalties given out. The game took over 2.5 hours and there were 2 major 2-10 hits from behind called ( one on each team) 5- four minute double minors called and a slew of just wild calls made. Twice the ref blew the whistle for icing on a penalty kill. ( We were on the power play for both of them). We were fortunate that no kids got seriously injured in this tourney as almost every game got out of hand. BAD experience for the kids first checking tourney. The Final game was the best officiating for the tourney and we ended up losing a good game.
I voiced my concerns to the tourney director and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. His comment was that he turned 85 teams away from the tourney. He won't have to worry about turning our team away.

This is odd to me. You're saying the reffing was terrible, but they called TOO many penalties when the games were getting out of hand??? Usually that means they're doing as much as they can to limit the damage and keep kids safe. Sounds like they did everything short of taking their sticks away and showing them how to play. Maybe what you mean is that the tourney shouldn't have allowed checking at 02, and I can get behind that. But not the refs' fault.

I do agree that they seemed pretty aggressive in the games that I saw, but I think that's way better than letting games get out of hand. Then it's a matter of calling with consistency toward both sides, which I think they did pretty well. Bad calls, when they happened, tended to go both ways.

I agree with the OP that this was a very well run tournament and the reffing was as good as anywhere, certainly no worse. Not too often you see three officials on the ice, and we had that for the majority of our games. Six eyes better than four, even if one of them is a trainee.

We saw quite a few double minors for head contact that mostly seemed warranted -- I wish this would get called more often, not less.

One other odd observation -- lots of kids thrown out of the face-off circle. half a dozen every game. Also, stricter enforcement of home-team advantage on line changes. To me, that seemed like smarter and better reffing than usual.

The big reason that the games got out of hand is that they were inconsistent in calling the penalties. tons of after the whistle shots not called. Lots of big blow up hits not called and then they would call a ticky tack penalty for no apparent reason. The Game that had 35 penalties was laughable. Even the kids had no clue on how to hit without getting called. We ended up telling our kids to play no check hockey. Worked for a bit as we won that game but totally wrong way to teach kids the game. One of the reasons I was looking forward to the tourney was letting the 02 team see what the hitting game was about. For what it is worth there were other games that I watched that they were just as bad one ref in a 99 game could not skate and fell multiple times during the game.

B-ville - if you were looking for your kids to get a "good experience" in their first checking hockey tourney - then IMO that is EXACTLY what they got - good "experience"! If you wanted them to just have a "good time" that may be another thing. The one thing that your young team can most assuredly count on is that reffing will be INCONSISTENT at BEST and that each game the kids and the coaching staff will have to figure out what you can and can't get away with! As your team gets experience playing in different parts of the country and Canada you will find that each area has its own "twist" on what gets called and what doesn't. It sounds like you have an NHL type of expectation on consistency with the calls but you have to remember that each town, state, province and county has their own quirks and you should just get accustomed to it unless you want to just limit your team to scrimmages with refs you bring in. Remember, there aren't any reffing review boards or league governing body or a Stevie Ys out there to police this stuff! BIG tourneys require a lot of refs so you are bound to get some completely under-qualified individuals out there in stripes. You can also bet that the most experienced refs are being used for the older and the Super Elite levels in tourneys such as the NAHC, Not saying that it's fair because I completely understand that AAA teams pay the same entry fee and spend just as much money on the hotels as the Super Elite teams and older teams but it is what it is and it's not gonna change.

Sorry that you your believe your team bad experience - I see it differently having older kids that have played for the last seven years at the NAHC. The "experience" they gained there in Winnipeg has been invaluable regardless of "good", "bad", "terrible" or "inconsistent" reffing. I hope your kids and coaches take something away from the weekend too!

One other thing that I'll have to completely disagree with you that the NAHC is a poorly run event - Bryan Frykas puts on a first class event and draws teams from an area so much larger than any other tournament it's not even comparable to another. He is really in-tune with who these teams are and does a fantastic job putting together competitive age classes and divisions. Probably not the classiest comment from Brian if he basically told you to jam it because there are 85 teams behind you waiting to get in but it's the truth! Maybe you caught him at a bad time right after the Zamboni driver shut down the Ice at SouthDale all Saturday afternoon and evening!!!

Hang in there! Nowhere to go but up!!!

[B-Ville Hockey Guy]

This is odd to me. You're saying the reffing was terrible, but they called TOO many penalties when the games were getting out of hand??? Usually that means they're doing as much as they can to limit the damage and keep kids safe. Sounds like they did everything short of taking their sticks away and showing them how to play. Maybe what you mean is that the tourney shouldn't have allowed checking at 02, and I can get behind that. But not the refs' fault.

I do agree that they seemed pretty aggressive in the games that I saw, but I think that's way better than letting games get out of hand. Then it's a matter of calling with consistency toward both sides, which I think they did pretty well. Bad calls, when they happened, tended to go both ways.

I agree with the OP that this was a very well run tournament and the reffing was as good as anywhere, certainly no worse. Not too often you see three officials on the ice, and we had that for the majority of our games. Six eyes better than four, even if one of them is a trainee.

We saw quite a few double minors for head contact that mostly seemed warranted -- I wish this would get called more often, not less.

One other odd observation -- lots of kids thrown out of the face-off circle. half a dozen every game. Also, stricter enforcement of home-team advantage on line changes. To me, that seemed like smarter and better reffing than usual.

The big reason that the games got out of hand is that they were inconsistent in calling the penalties. tons of after the whistle shots not called. Lots of big blow up hits not called and then they would call a ticky tack penalty for no apparent reason. The Game that had 35 penalties was laughable. Even the kids had no clue on how to hit without getting called. We ended up telling our kids to play no check hockey. Worked for a bit as we won that game but totally wrong way to teach kids the game. One of the reasons I was looking forward to the tourney was letting the 02 team see what the hitting game was about. For what it is worth there were other games that I watched that they were just as bad one ref in a 99 game could not skate and fell multiple times during the game.

B-ville - if you were looking for your kids to get a "good experience" in their first checking hockey tourney - then IMO that is EXACTLY what they got - good "experience"! If you wanted them to just have a "good time" that may be another thing. The one thing that your young team can most assuredly count on is that reffing will be INCONSISTENT at BEST and that each game the kids and the coaching staff will have to figure out what you can and can't get away with! As your team gets experience playing in different parts of the country and Canada you will find that each area has its own "twist" on what gets called and what doesn't. It sounds like you have an NHL type of expectation on consistency with the calls but you have to remember that each town, state, province and county has their own quirks and you should just get accustomed to it unless you want to just limit your team to scrimmages with refs you bring in. Remember, there aren't any reffing review boards or league governing body or a Stevie Ys out there to police this stuff! BIG tourneys require a lot of refs so you are bound to get some completely under-qualified individuals out there in stripes. You can also bet that the most experienced refs are being used for the older and the Super Elite levels in tourneys such as the NAHC, Not saying that it's fair because I completely understand that AAA teams pay the same entry fee and spend just as much money on the hotels as the Super Elite teams and older teams but it is what it is and it's not gonna change.

Sorry that you your believe your team bad experience - I see it differently having older kids that have played for the last seven years at the NAHC. The "experience" they gained there in Winnipeg has been invaluable regardless of "good", "bad", "terrible" or "inconsistent" reffing. I hope your kids and coaches take something away from the weekend too!

One other thing that I'll have to completely disagree with you that the NAHC is a poorly run event - Bryan Frykas puts on a first class event and draws teams from an area so much larger than any other tournament it's not even comparable to another. He is really in-tune with who these teams are and does a fantastic job putting together competitive age classes and divisions. Probably not the classiest comment from Brian if he basically told you to jam it because there are 85 teams behind you waiting to get in but it's the truth! Maybe you caught him at a bad time right after the Zamboni driver shut down the Ice at SouthDale all Saturday afternoon and evening!!!

Hang in there! Nowhere to go but up!!!

I might have been over the top on the poorly run event. I did have a good experience and the games started on time. Winnipeg on the other hand leave something to be desired. Traffic Horrible. I had two kids playing in the tourney. (Felt like I was driving in circles and stopping every 2 minutes at traffic lights getting to the rinks. Hotels..... rules galore that are not conducive to hockey parents.(We got a hospitality room for two nights and 1 had to clear out each night and 2 they would not allow alcohol in the room) You can chide me for wanting an adult beverage if you would like...


I too have been at this tourney for 6 years and have seen the refs getting worse. The fact that the kids got hit was not the issue! It was the way the refs and tourney acted with the feedback. I will say that I approached the rink director at one game and asked him to watch the third period and I believe they did. That didn't change the experience and the next game was as bad as that one. I am sure that Mr. Frykas gets a great $ deal on the reffing when using his tourney as a training ground but we pay a lot of $ to have consistency and the training should not make a bad experience for a team. Again I have been round the block and I have a 97 that played many years up there that has played in Toronto/Thunderbay/Michigan/and other places. Just saying the past few years in Winnipeg have deteriorated and might have put me over the top this year. I know that he has a bunch of teams waiting to get in and pulling out for next year will not hurt him but the feedback will hopefully help him maintain a high quality product for others that chose to compete.