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In a couple weeks I will add a separate "Big Games Contest" thread for the upcoming Holiday Tournaments, but I thought it would be a good idea to have a separate, more general thread on anything related to the match-ups and games. In the past several years the tournaments that have hosted many of the top-ranked teams have been:

1. The Eagles Mid-Winter Meltdown (Eden Prairie)
2. The Kaposia Classic Invitational (South St. Paul)
3. The ABRA Invitational (Edina)

I was able to find the brackets for the first two - here are the links showing the match-ups, dates and game times:

1. http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/docu ... _var13.pdf
2. http://hockey-girls.secondary.sspps.sch ... id=2280988

A little digging revealed that the Edina tournament has a new sponsor, and this year it will be called "Walser's Big Breakaway". The participating teams will be:

Edina
Hopkins
Apple Valley
Stillwater
Grand Rapids
Irondale
Lakeville South
Warroad

but other than Hopkins playing Grand Rapids in the first round none of the other quarterfinal games are showing up on either the Hub or MGHCA sites. Anyone know if a bracket is available anywhere for this tourney?

The Schwan Cup is still going strong but the field for the girls divisions is not as strong as it once was. Traditionally the Blue Division has had the higher ranked teams but this year only Achiever Academy and St. Paul United are currently ranked, #11 and #14 respectively in Class A:

http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/docu ... racket.pdf

Feel free to post your thoughts on any of these or any other upcoming Holiday Tournaments - always fun to go see a few games between Christmas and New Years.

Received a PM containing a link to the All Star Sports Holiday Classis which will be held at the New Hope Ice Arena December 26-28:

http://www.armstrongcooperhockey.org/pa ... son=113277

As of today there are two ranked teams in this one, host Armstrong/Cooper at #15AA and perhaps the tournament favorite, #1A Red Wing.

The tentative bracket for the tourney is; (not yet official)
Lakeville south/Stillwater
Grand Rapids Greenway/Hopkins
Apple Valley/Warroad
Edina/Irondale

Anyone have any info on the Centennial tournament?

[quote="MNHockeyFan"]Anyone have any info on the Centennial tournament?[/quote
Next weekend?

Sure would like to see a Roseville v HM semi-final in the Kaposia Classic. Those two teams have met in the past 3 Section 4 Finals and never get to play a regular season game against each other. Sure would help with seeding...

Seeding for all such tournaments surely is a random process, isn't it?

Nevertoomuchhockey wrote:Next weekend?

In past years it's always been held between Christmas and New Years, so there's no reason to believe that it won't again this year.

I did receive a PM advising the teams that are in it and the first round match-ups that will be played on December 26th:

Upper Bracket
2pm - Dodge County vs. Wayzata
4pm - Buffalo vs. Moorhead

Lower Bracket
6pm - North Wright County vs. White Bear Lake
8pm - Centennial vs. Elk River

Semi's on 12/27 and finals on Saturday the 28th.

Hope to include this tourney in the Holiday Tournaments "Pick the Winners Challenge" that will be posted in a couple of weeks.

Edited 12/5/13 updating information, based on a second received PM.

sinbin wrote:Seeding for all such tournaments surely is a random process, isn't it?

Why would it be random, I don't know of any HS level holiday tournament that has done random draws, some invite conference teams and do a early round matchup to use as conf game (Cent v ER), some let teams choose who they would prefer to play, and who not to play, and some set them up based on good match ups or producing an interesting winners bracket. These are typically used as some sort of fundraiser for the host team as they are a lot of work to host, so it's in the best interest to get a good winners bracket to get some decent gates at the games.

Sorry, my sarcasm doesn't come across very well in print. I tried to show that with the smile. I agree exactly with what you say, but I've seen many a tournament director in both youth and HS hockey swear that they created a random draw when, if you do the math, the odds are greatly stacked against them telling the truth. They're in it to make money and to give the home team the best chance of going as far as possible in the tournaments (which is fine, but they should not be so disingenuous). This is often at the cost of early-round match-ups between top teams when, everything else being equal, those top teams should theoretically be playing in the championship, not knocking one of them out in Round 1. That being said, there are still some fun match-ups to watch.

Misterright wrote:The tentative bracket for the tourney is; (not yet official)
Lakeville south/Stillwater
Grand Rapids Greenway/Hopkins
Apple Valley/Warroad
Edina/Irondale

Above matchups are correct - the full bracket has now been posted here:

http://www.edinaschools.org/cms/lib07/M ... racket.pdf

Look for the "2013-14 Holiday Tournaments - Pick the Winners Challenge" contest thread to be posted in the next couple of days!

Looks like the EP and Edina tourneys have some reasonably fair draws.

Also here is the bracket for the Centennial Tournament which I will also include in our contest this year:

http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/docu ... racket.pdf

Coon Rapids has a tournament too

So does Burnsville

Lots of holiday tournaments coming up, but in the contest I will be hosting, four of them will keep me plenty busy!