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Hi,

Like the title says, I was wondering which are the biggest hockey associations in our beautiful state of hockey.

Does anybody have the rankings of associations by number of kids ?

I know Edina is one of the biggest with close to 1300 kids.

Would Wayzata be the second biggest ?

How about EP and Minnetonka ?

I don't have the numbers, but OMG and White Bear are probably the others in the top 6-8.

O-townClown wrote:I don't have the numbers, but OMG and White Bear are probably the others in the top 6-8.

I highly doubt WBL is in the top 6-8 given that it, for all intents and purposes, no longer has a girls program.

The top 6-8 probably include:

Edina
OMG
Tonka
Stillwater
Eden Prairie
Andover
Blaine

Youth registration list available MN Hockey?

I don't have exact numbers, but will take a shot at it:

Edina by a lot

then

Tonka, Wayzata, Osseo-Maple Grove, Minneapolis, Chaska Chan all with similar numbers

then

EP, Stillwater, White Bear, Rochester, and others

Would be great to see a list of biggest all the way to smallest

People keep listing EP but they have been shrinking a lot lately. For example they only fielded 4 Squirt teams this year, and from what I understand they had to pull 6 or so Mites up to fill the 4th team. At the Mite level they have 2 upper, 2 intermediate, and 4 mini mite teams. That doesn't sound like a temporary downturn at one age level.

I have heard that it's not just hockey but that football numbers are way down as well. Any theories as to what's going on?

Cost, overall time commitment and I would throw in injury potential.

Yes, EP numbers are down. Only 5 PeeWee teams with smaller rosters in addition to the lower Squirt and Mite numbers. Lots of reasons. I think EP (as a community) is getting older with less young families to put skates on. I also think EP has a growing minority population, which may be more difficult to recruit to play hockey. Also has many of the same issues as everyone these days regarding cost, concussions, etc.

With the exception of OMG (still a growing community) and Edina, isn't almost all associations down? I'd love to see some numbers today versus say 5-7 years ago. My guess is growing western and southern burbs cities may have a slight uptick but cities will little room to build are most likely down. It's a snowball effect. If 12-15 year old's aren't outside playing street hockey, younger kids aren't seeing it and begging mom and dad to play. Non hockey families probably hear all the horror stories about the costs and commitment and run the other way. Personally I think associations need to keep pushing "free hockey" for Mites. Get them hooked then start billing them down the road. Figure out a way to make the first couple years cheaper, if not free. It can't be "try hockey free for a day" It needs to be a longer commitment from both the community and the associations then just the one day.

Not too much info there, but I did find one report on 8U recruiting and retention on USA Hockey:http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/docu ... Report.pdf

There is a breakdown for Minnesota. Interesting that there were drops in 11-12 and 12-13 but numbers have gone up a bit since.

I posted about this in another thread, but don't you think weather has a say in this too?

I don't want to get into the politics of global warming, but winters are different than they were 10-15 years ago. In particular, they don't seem as consistently cold so as to allow kids to play pond hockey or on local outdoor rinks.

It's December 8, and if the National Weather Service's projections are anywhere near accurate, my backyard rink won't be ready for use until mid-January. Seeing how local rinks close at end of February, that's a much shorter outdoor ice season than in years past, and I do think that affects kids' interest in the sport.

I think it's a combination of many things...weather, dual working parents, xbox, costs, commitments, race, religion, concussion, the fall of intercity hockey, ESPN lack of coverage, the list could go on and on...All chip away at the numbers...Edina will always be Edina because people from there move back there. I don't think many of the hockey kids who grew up in Bloomington or St Paul or Burnsville move back to their city to raise a family. So wherever these families are today, associations need to get them involved early on in coaching and promoting of the sport. Get them involved even before they have kids old enough to play. They have a ton of knowledge, a ton of passion and they can be a great asset for the communities they now live in

I will see if I can retrieve these numbers.

LHA (Lakeville Hockey) encompasses North and South....if you combine them it would have to be one of the bigger associations/highest numbers as well I would think.

Yo momma so big she's the size of Edina's youth hockey registration.

I believe Moorhead has 4 Bantam teams, 5 PeeWee teams and 6 Squirt teams which I've been told are all firsts at each respective level for having that many teams.

So for LHA (just boys) Lakeville North has 5 bantam teams, Lakeville South has 3. Pee Wees Lakeville North has 4 teams and Lakeville South has 3, then they co-op a C team. Squirts North has 4 teams, South has 3. Not crazy numbers really.

Section 8 guy wrote:I believe Moorhead has 4 Bantam teams, 5 PeeWee teams and 6 Squirt teams which I've been told are all firsts at each respective level for having that many teams.

This is almost the size of the Mounds View Irondale co-op and one more team at each level than Roseville. Well done Moorhead.

jg2112 wrote:

Section 8 guy wrote:I believe Moorhead has 4 Bantam teams, 5 PeeWee teams and 6 Squirt teams which I've been told are all firsts at each respective level for having that many teams.

This is almost the size of the Mounds View Irondale co-op and one more team at each level than Roseville. Well done Moorhead.

Moundsview has a pop of 12,000 New Brighton has about 22000- Moorhead has 40,000 plus pulls from Fargo (over 110,000) not to mention all the other towns in its immediate area. Moorhead with their tradition should have at least that amount, plus any kid with talent from a 50 mile radius ends up there too.

I have found this :

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

It's a description of the expansion project at Pagel Ice Arena for the Minnetonka Youth Association, if you scroll down you will see they put numbers of registered kids for Edina, Wayzata, Minnetonka , EP and Chaska Chan and the number of ice sheets available for each Youth association.

The numbers they quote are :

- Edina : 1280
- Wayzata : 1084
- Minnetonka : 879
- Chaska / Chan : 673
- EP : 582

I don't know if these numbers are accurate but if they are it's pretty shocking to see the number of players in EP so low....

Jackpinesavage wrote:

jg2112 wrote:

Section 8 guy wrote:I believe Moorhead has 4 Bantam teams, 5 PeeWee teams and 6 Squirt teams which I've been told are all firsts at each respective level for having that many teams.

This is almost the size of the Mounds View Irondale co-op and one more team at each level than Roseville. Well done Moorhead.

Moundsview has a pop of 12,000 New Brighton has about 22000- Moorhead has 40,000 plus pulls from Fargo (over 110,000) not to mention all the other towns in its immediate area. Moorhead with their tradition should have at least that amount, plus any kid with talent from a 50 mile radius ends up there too.

Don't forget Shoreview, population 25,000
St. Anthony, population 8,000

So the MV-I co-op has a catchment area near 70,000 people. But the main point is....good job Moorhead. Great to see the game growing in many areas.

jg2112 wrote:I posted about this in another thread, but don't you think weather has a say in this too?

I don't want to get into the politics of global warming, but winters are different than they were 10-15 years ago. In particular, they don't seem as consistently cold so as to allow kids to play pond hockey or on local outdoor rinks.

It's December 8, and if the National Weather Service's projections are anywhere near accurate, my backyard rink won't be ready for use until mid-January. Seeing how local rinks close at end of February, that's a much shorter outdoor ice season than in years past, and I do think that affects kids' interest in the sport.

I won't speak for MN but here is Southern Wisconsin the last 10 years up until this year have been the coldest and snowiest winters we've had since I was a kid. Last year got a little late start but before that we had ice in by November and it stuck all winter for the last decade give or take. But even as a kid I remember a stretch of three years where we had o snow and the winters were mild. I think there is an El Nino cycle effect this year that might be part of it for this year but I disagree on the weather part overall as being the reason for the last decade, it's been every bit if not better for outdoor ice the last decade and I can't imagine MN is much different than us but maybe...

El Nino is in effect this year. Googled it to read up on it. Not looking good for cold weather (which I personally like). The good news is that some scientist are predicting another mini ice age to descend on us in the next 15 years. That should help the outdoor ice.

I like to ice fish. I like hockey. I like snow. Living up north it is better to embrace the season than to complain about it. This year stinks so far. Just doesn't feel like winter.

jg2112 wrote:

Jackpinesavage wrote:Moundsview has a pop of 12,000 New Brighton has about 22000

Don't forget Shoreview, population 25,000
St. Anthony, population 8,000

So the MV-I co-op has a catchment area near 70,000 people.

Actually...

Shoreview - 25,900
New Brighton - 22,000
Mounds View - 12,500
Arden Hills - 9,700
St. Anthony - 8,500
North Oaks - 4,700

Total - 83,300

Frankly, the participation level in the MVI footprint is terrible and getting worse. Outstate communities have had much more consistent participation rates over the years, particularly where hockey is more of a default sport. That used to be the case for both Irondale and Mounds View in the late 70's and early 80's. It's not anymore, though there are small pockets of high participation.

The community I see emerging in the next few years is Andover. There seems to be a hockey net on every other driveway in the newer developments. They currently have six squirt teams. I don't know how big their footprint is, but the city of Andover only has a population of about 32,000.