Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Discussion of Minnesota Girls High School Hockey

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j4241
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by j4241 » Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:10 pm

Is that really the best USA hockey has to offer across 05 06 and 07...? Yikes.

j4241
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by j4241 » Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:17 pm

I guess they're missing Joy Dunne, who is probably the best player in this group, but I'm not sure she'd stand out compared to the top Canadians. The US has a handful-plus kids who really don't belong on the ice against this Canadian team, and are missing a top line that can create offense consistently. I would imagine they will give a lot of other kids a look after this showing.

girlshockey4ever
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by girlshockey4ever » Sat Aug 20, 2022 7:30 pm

Complete lack of puck support by USA in each game. They didn't look like a team. They didn't look like a group of girls that wanted to win for each other. Here's a thought. None of these coaches coach high school girls. They coach 22 year old women. There is a big difference between 15 years old and 22 years old. Maybe the coaches can't relate to the girls. The girls certainly didn't play hard for them.

bodyup88
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by bodyup88 » Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:57 am

Well, this team is coached by the same coach who went 3-30 last season, including 0-18 on the road.

bodyup88
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by bodyup88 » Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:30 am

In her three year tenure with Holy Cross, her progression of wins is 5,4 and 3. Three year record of 12-68-6. Maybe there's a better candidate.

j4241
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by j4241 » Sun Aug 21, 2022 10:48 am

It's hard for me to place much blame on the coaching. Not sure Jared Bednar or Jon Cooper would have had much better luck given the talent gap. But yes, it doesn't seem like a hard-headed analysis of the best possible coaching staff focused on winning is USA Hockey's priority. I don't know what LaChappelle was like as a player, but she's not been terribly successful as a coach. I think the assistants are probably both solid choices. Liz Keady was a strong collegiate player at Princeton and has only one year of head coaching experience at Dartmouth after stints as an assistant at BU and Harvard, where she helped identify and develop some Olympians. Lindsay Berman was a pretty strong collegiate player and played professionally for a number of years, in addition to being an assistant at very strong Northeastern program. (Down the depth chart, beyond the named coaching staff, they also had Whitney Colbert on site as one of the principal USA hockey scouts - someone who scored 12 points in 68 games as a D3 forward, has a losing record as a high school coach, and coached D3 Hamline to a modestly above 500 record last year. Not sure how she's earned a spot at the table to influence national team selection.)

Depending on to what extent they were involved in selection, that might be more on them. (If it were up to me, I'd build a different process for the high performance selection process. May expand on this in a future post.) But this team is missing a top line, and Joy Dunne probably isn't enough to close the gap. Her strength is playing a slower, power forward style game, and I don't think that's what was missing. There are also three forwards that aren't national team level skaters by a long shot, and several other forwards that are of the small, not very strong variety, which wasn't at all effective against Canada. The team speed gap was wide. The D is really troubling, though. I think both Minnesotans played reasonably well, and I thought Kim wasn't bad, but the other four were all really mistake prone off the rush and with the puck, and got pinned in their zone over and over. Two of those four had no business playing at that level. The goaltending was fine - definitely not the issue with this team.

USA hockey is an insular organization, mostly patting themselves on the back for what an awesome job they do. Making changes to the kids would require them acknowleding mistakes in how they evaluated kids. Not sure that's their strong suit. But I'm sure they'll talk themselves into swapping out a couple. A performance this bad will force them to, and in this case swapping out the kids can let them pretend it was the kids fault.

girlshockey4ever
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by girlshockey4ever » Sun Aug 21, 2022 11:24 pm

As for the the coaching....Did anyone think that maybe we shouldn't have college coaches coaching high school girls? College coaches are used to coaching 22 year old women. Now they are being asked to coach 15 year old girls. That's a 7 year difference. I don't have a psychology degree but I'm pretty sure there is a difference between a 13 year old and a 6 year old. Perhaps a person who has coached high school athletes their whole life should be tapped to coach this team of ALL HIGH SCHOOL PLAYERS.

j4241
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by j4241 » Mon Aug 22, 2022 8:20 am

I think that's a great point. Some do have that experience - I think Keady coached Phillips Academy Andover early in her career, for example. But there's no doubt lots of joy (and therefore hockey performance) has been sucked out of hockey by coaches delivering a product designed for older athletes. And of course, that ignores the coaches involved putting the thumb on the scale in favor of their recruits, further undermining the quality of the selection process.

massalsa
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by massalsa » Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:14 pm

I did not watch any games. Bring in coaches that are not recruiting HS kids to their NCAA schools and are not friends with the Canadian National team staff and players.

I nominate a psychologist (it will be a tough camp for a bunch of the kids who have always dominated and some that do not always play well with others) to be the head coach, K Jungles to coach the forwards, and E Hendrickson to coach the D (the best D skills coach my kid ever had). Give that staff 2 weeks with an elite group of players and they will win.

Funtimes1991
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by Funtimes1991 » Tue Aug 23, 2022 11:24 am

When I look at the coaching I go back to the games in June and include those as well. That team was an immensely talented team that outclassed Canada in their first meeting. However since that time the team seems to have stagnated and Canada improved greatly. Then you put the August games into it with anew roster, and it did not appear that the coaching staff had an answer for anything Canada was doing. It will be interesting what USA hockey does. Will it change out any players? Would be easy for them to put the blame on the kids, but when in reality it would be on USA hockey as they were the ones that picked them. Those might have been the best players, but they may not have been the right players. The USA players did not respond well to the physical play from Canada. Was interested to see this match up and what the Covid shutdown may have done to the Canadian players development. It appears to have not hurt them for sure. My vote would be for a new coaching staff and see how the players do then.

Iceburg
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by Iceburg » Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:48 pm

USA Hockey is moving the girls development camps from St. Cloud to the campus of Miami of Ohio. I will miss the viewing opportunities, especially the Select 18 camp. ](*,)

InThePipes
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by InThePipes » Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:55 pm

Iceburg wrote:
Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:48 pm
USA Hockey is moving the girls development camps from St. Cloud to the campus of Miami of Ohio. I will miss the viewing opportunities, especially the Select 18 camp. ](*,)
Does anyone know why? I assume it must be related to $ in some fashion as all things are.

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by PhunnsieMcHockeyDad » Thu Dec 22, 2022 7:05 pm

I'll say the Miami campus is a little more centrally located and the campus is an upgrade from SCSU. Newly renovated dorms and the Arena has two sheets and is pretty tricked out. The campus area is really nice and safe - plenty of food and stuff is walkable. It seemed like the kids in St. Cloud were trapped in the dorms, maybe they wanted to give them some freedom.

InThePipes
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by InThePipes » Fri Dec 23, 2022 7:42 am

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad wrote:
Thu Dec 22, 2022 7:05 pm
I'll say the Miami campus is a little more centrally located and the campus is an upgrade from SCSU. Newly renovated dorms and the Arena has two sheets and is pretty tricked out. The campus area is really nice and safe - plenty of food and stuff is walkable. It seemed like the kids in St. Cloud were trapped in the dorms, maybe they wanted to give them some freedom.
Thanks for the info on the Miami campus. You're right, they were trapped on campus, but I also thought that was by design in order to not allow 100-120 kids ages 14-15 to roam around the streets without adult supervision?

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by PhunnsieMcHockeyDad » Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:43 pm

InThePipes wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 7:42 am
PhunnsieMcHockeyDad wrote:
Thu Dec 22, 2022 7:05 pm
I'll say the Miami campus is a little more centrally located and the campus is an upgrade from SCSU. Newly renovated dorms and the Arena has two sheets and is pretty tricked out. The campus area is really nice and safe - plenty of food and stuff is walkable. It seemed like the kids in St. Cloud were trapped in the dorms, maybe they wanted to give them some freedom.
Thanks for the info on the Miami campus. You're right, they were trapped on campus, but I also thought that was by design in order to not allow 100-120 kids ages 14-15 to roam around the streets without adult supervision?
I don't know what their motivations are - the Miami campus is an upgrade from SCSU and offers a little more flexibility in terms of getting out of the dorms. I would assume any excursions would be supervised, just throwing around ideas....

jg2112
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by jg2112 » Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:59 pm

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:43 pm
InThePipes wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 7:42 am
PhunnsieMcHockeyDad wrote:
Thu Dec 22, 2022 7:05 pm
I'll say the Miami campus is a little more centrally located and the campus is an upgrade from SCSU. Newly renovated dorms and the Arena has two sheets and is pretty tricked out. The campus area is really nice and safe - plenty of food and stuff is walkable. It seemed like the kids in St. Cloud were trapped in the dorms, maybe they wanted to give them some freedom.
Thanks for the info on the Miami campus. You're right, they were trapped on campus, but I also thought that was by design in order to not allow 100-120 kids ages 14-15 to roam around the streets without adult supervision?
I don't know what their motivations are - the Miami campus is an upgrade from SCSU and offers a little more flexibility in terms of getting out of the dorms. I would assume any excursions would be supervised, just throwing around ideas....
Maybe the St. Cloud women's program asked for this change? I know my daughter and a number of her teammates specifically ruled out SCSU as a college choice after they attended HP camps. Dorm food, dorms, and other facilities were all mentioned as reasons not to go there.

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by PhunnsieMcHockeyDad » Mon Dec 26, 2022 8:38 am

Also - Miami would make a lot of sense if a school was considering adding a D1 Women's program. Close enough to MN and Chicago that they could attract talent and would make a good addition to the WCHA, maybe one day giving Ohio State a nearby rival. Beautiful campus and hockey facilities, and a really good school. Maybe they're priming the pump for recruiting by stepping up and taking these events?

Timber545
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by Timber545 » Mon Dec 26, 2022 1:13 pm

jg2112 wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:59 pm

Maybe the St. Cloud women's program asked for this change? I know my daughter and a number of her teammates specifically ruled out SCSU as a college choice after they attended HP camps. Dorm food, dorms, and other facilities were all mentioned as reasons not to go there.
Both of my daughters felt the same way after spending time at those camps. Given the financial problems plaguing SCSU, I also wouldn't be surprised if, like North Dakota, they eliminate the Women's team altogether.

jg2112
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by jg2112 » Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:30 pm

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad wrote:
Mon Dec 26, 2022 8:38 am
Also - Miami would make a lot of sense if a school was considering adding a D1 Women's program. Close enough to MN and Chicago that they could attract talent and would make a good addition to the WCHA, maybe one day giving Ohio State a nearby rival. Beautiful campus and hockey facilities, and a really good school. Maybe they're priming the pump for recruiting by stepping up and taking these events?
Apropos of nothing, Miami(OH) does have a women's ACHA D1 (club) team, and a former Eden Prairie standout (Dani Benson) is on the roster.

PhunnsieMcHockeyDad
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Re: Spring HP Rosters - By the numbers (and schools)

Post by PhunnsieMcHockeyDad » Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:12 am

Update - Minnesota Hockey HP Girls' Summer Camps have been relocated to St. Olaf for 2023. I believe the Boys are still in St. Cloud.

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