Icebreakers

[Nevertoomuchhockey]

Who's going to Duluth? After I don't know how many years it seems all of our games will actually be IN Duluth! I'll wave to you guys getting off on the Carlton and Cloquet exits. And then buy ya a beer in Canal later.
Assuming we win, of course.
Predictions???

[zambonidriver]

Anyone playing the Fargo Freeze Make sure their goalie is a girl they played a boy in the Fargo tournament

[Nevertoomuchhockey]

If no one even wants to talk about THIS tournament, the girls forum must be officially dead.

[Nevertoomuchhockey]

Anyone playing the Fargo Freeze Make sure their goalie is a girl they played a boy in the Fargo tournament

What happened? DQ?

[BluehawkHockey]

If no one even wants to talk about THIS tournament, the girls forum must be officially dead.

It appears to me that girls hockey has started a steady decline. As an example, look at the girls teams in District 10. At every level, there are now co-op teams. I think every association but Centennial has a co-op at 1 level or another. 5/6 years ago, I don't think there were any co-ops at any level. Many associations in D10 used to have their own A and B teams with Blaine and Centennial having 2 B teams. There used to be a lot of U14 A and B teams in the state, in the last few years, there have barely been enough teams to have a B level.

I think it is already having an affect on the girls HS programs. There are a lot of the teams in Northwest Suburban that are losing a lot of seniors. With the dropping youth numbers, filling those slots is going to get more difficult.

Irondale has 9 Seniors and 7 Juniors. They've been co-oping for several years at the youth level because of low numbers.

Coon Rapids has 8 seniors and 5 juniors. They've been co-oping for several years at the youth level because of low numbers.

Spring Lake Park has 12 seniors and 2 juniors. They've been co-oping for several years at the youth level because of low numbers. I've heard a rumor that they may only have a varsity next year.

What can or should be done to draw more girls into hockey and keep them there?

[zambonidriver]

Anyone playing the Fargo Freeze Make sure their goalie is a girl they played a boy in the Fargo tournament

What happened? DQ?

[Nope got away with it their tournament cost us the championship round even though we beat them we didn't shut them out like shakopee did]
[/quote]

[zambonidriver]

Numbers are a big issue. On the girls side we are seeing the expense of hockey The blue collar suburbs families just can't afford the rising expense of the game. I believe the lack of number is a direct correlation to the recession that hit a bout 7 or 8 years back people just couldn't afford to enroll their kids in the game numbers are down on both the boys and girls sides.
Specialization and year round sports is another issue every sport except football trains year round. Just last sunday my daughter went directly from her hockey game to soccer practice. I have a plan it is already happening at the private catholic schools in St. Paul.
1. Have school teams.
2. Nominal fee to cover school Jersey
3. Play outside During Jan and Feb
4. Have combined boys and girls teams
5. Grades 1-2 3-4 5-6
6. Just play the other schools in your town.
7. Play 1 day a week after school.
8. Minimal practice
9. Have a bean feed at the end of season
10.DON'T CUT. If you have big numbers just mak another team and keep the teams equal/
at least you would get kids playing the game then they could decide if they want to continue on.

[jg2112]

Numbers are a big issue. On the girls side we are seeing the expense of hockey The blue collar suburbs families just can't afford the rising expense of the game. I believe the lack of number is a direct correlation to the recession that hit a bout 7 or 8 years back people just couldn't afford to enroll their kids in the game numbers are down on both the boys and girls sides.
Specialization and year round sports is another issue every sport except football trains year round. Just last sunday my daughter went directly from her hockey game to soccer practice. I have a plan it is already happening at the private catholic schools in St. Paul.
1. Have school teams.
2. Nominal fee to cover school Jersey
3. Play outside During Jan and Feb
4. Have combined boys and girls teams
5. Grades 1-2 3-4 5-6
6. Just play the other schools in your town.
7. Play 1 day a week after school.
8. Minimal practice
9. Have a bean feed at the end of season
10.DON'T CUT. If you have big numbers just mak another team and keep the teams equal/
at least you would get kids playing the game then they could decide if they want to continue on.

Zamboni, if we lived anywhere other than Minnesota your specialization statement would be incorrect. Most states in the south have spring football practices / scrimmages. Almost every sport specializes now for the athlete who wants to do so. It's disheartening but the reality of what happens when folks realize money can be made from year-round training.

[zambonidriver]

But we are in Minnesota, Texas actually has a football class for their high school players. I think Minnesota hockey should allow the club teams to play in the winter. Then you take away a lot local association politics.
The high school league needs to help also. One way would be to get rid of the period rule so coaches would not need to rob associations to fill their JV teams.
Then high schools can carry 6 lines and 10 d of kids who are varsity ready or really close and then the other kids who are not that close could play 14 u and develop. Buy doing that you wouldn't have varsity coaches dipping into the youth programs to keep their kids at home. With our older girls the rule was to tryout for the high school you had to be a 9th grader. Stillwater actually started the change when they allowed a 7th grade goalie to play. Hill really added to the problem with allowing Hannah Brandt to play as an eighth grader after that every coach a least on the east side felt they had to follow suit. Now you have 7th and eighth graders on JV teams playing 25 games as opposed to 45 games at 12's and 50-60 at 14's.
I totally understand why parents are moving the kids up to high school early the main reason being expense.
I think 13-14 year olds are still a little you to be mixing with 17-18 year olds
Just my thoughts.

[ZamMan91]

But we are in Minnesota, Texas actually has a football class for their high school players. I think Minnesota hockey should allow the club teams to play in the winter. Then you take away a lot local association politics.
The high school league needs to help also. One way would be to get rid of the period rule so coaches would not need to rob associations to fill their JV teams.
Then high schools can carry 6 lines and 10 d of kids who are varsity ready or really close and then the other kids who are not that close could play 14 u and develop. Buy doing that you wouldn't have varsity coaches dipping into the youth programs to keep their kids at home. With our older girls the rule was to tryout for the high school you had to be a 9th grader. Stillwater actually started the change when they allowed a 7th grade goalie to play. Hill really added to the problem with allowing Hannah Brandt to play as an eighth grader after that every coach a least on the east side felt they had to follow suit. Now you have 7th and eighth graders on JV teams playing 25 games as opposed to 45 games at 12's and 50-60 at 14's.
I totally understand why parents are moving the kids up to high school early the main reason being expense.
I think 13-14 year olds are still a little you to be mixing with 17-18 year olds
Just my thoughts.

I would agree that the dwindling numbers at the high school level is hurting the youth numbers. My daughter played high school as an 8th grader last season on a team with very low youth numbers through a co-op with her private school. She changed schools (because of problems in the private school) and programs and is now playing U14 in a very deep association whose high school team is in the Northwest Suburban Conference. My daughter tried out for the high school team but was told by the coach that unless you were considered a top 2 line player for varsity as 9th grader that he would rather have you play U14. There are currently only two 9th graders on the high school team and they are playing top line minutes and among the team's top scorers. This is obviously an ideal situation but unfortunately far from the norm. Playing U14 this season you can see which programs have the stronger and deeper high school teams by looking at the make up of their U14 team. A lot of high school teams are having to take the younger (8-9th grade) players to fill their high school rosters which leaves a younger less experienced U14 team.When I have asked my daughter if she would rather be playing varsity this year on a team (the team she played on last year) with struggling numbers and less experienced players or playing U14 this season, she said the U14 team. In the long run I think this will benefit my daughter by having to "earn" a spot on the high school (varsity) team instead of having it given to her because of numbers. I would also agree with "zambonidriver" that it is a tough transition to make at age 13 to be playing against 17-18 year olds. I wish that parents/kids would not be in such a big hurry to play high school and spend the extra time developing in youth hockey. It's better to play on a competitive U14 team than a non-competitive high school team.

[zooomx]

But we are in Minnesota, Texas actually has a football class for their high school players. I think Minnesota hockey should allow the club teams to play in the winter. Then you take away a lot local association politics.
The high school league needs to help also. One way would be to get rid of the period rule so coaches would not need to rob associations to fill their JV teams.
Then high schools can carry 6 lines and 10 d of kids who are varsity ready or really close and then the other kids who are not that close could play 14 u and develop. Buy doing that you wouldn't have varsity coaches dipping into the youth programs to keep their kids at home. With our older girls the rule was to tryout for the high school you had to be a 9th grader. Stillwater actually started the change when they allowed a 7th grade goalie to play. Hill really added to the problem with allowing Hannah Brandt to play as an eighth grader after that every coach a least on the east side felt they had to follow suit. Now you have 7th and eighth graders on JV teams playing 25 games as opposed to 45 games at 12's and 50-60 at 14's.
I totally understand why parents are moving the kids up to high school early the main reason being expense.
I think 13-14 year olds are still a little you to be mixing with 17-18 year olds
Just my thoughts.

I would agree that the dwindling numbers at the high school level is hurting the youth numbers. My daughter played high school as an 8th grader last season on a team with very low youth numbers through a co-op with her private school. She changed schools (because of problems in the private school) and programs and is now playing U14 in a very deep association whose high school team is in the Northwest Suburban Conference. My daughter tried out for the high school team but was told by the coach that unless you were considered a top 2 line player for varsity as 9th grader that he would rather have you play U14. There are currently only two 9th graders on the high school team and they are playing top line minutes and among the team's top scorers. This is obviously an ideal situation but unfortunately far from the norm. Playing U14 this season you can see which programs have the stronger and deeper high school teams by looking at the make up of their U14 team. A lot of high school teams are having to take the younger (8-9th grade) players to fill their high school rosters which leaves a younger less experienced U14 team.When I have asked my daughter if she would rather be playing varsity this year on a team (the team she played on last year) with struggling numbers and less experienced players or playing U14 this season, she said the U14 team. In the long run I think this will benefit my daughter by having to "earn" a spot on the high school (varsity) team instead of having it given to her because of numbers. I would also agree with "zambonidriver" that it is a tough transition to make at age 13 to be playing against 17-18 year olds. I wish that parents/kids would not be in such a big hurry to play high school and spend the extra time developing in youth hockey. It's better to play on a competitive U14 team than a non-competitive high school team.

The thing that worries me the most about the health of Minnesota Hockey, both boys and girls, is the fact that short term thinking has been trumping long term planning for years. Families really only look out for their own kid and often push for the short term warm fuzzy of their kid being in the high school program. My daughter will be a 9th grader next year, and I would really struggle to see her play HS hockey over our strong u14 program.

Regarding coops- associations are just plain lazy. If numbers are trending smaller on the girls side, well, lets just coop with a neighboring association for girls hockey. The harder, and smarter, thing to do is look long term and recruit, recruit, recruit. But no, lets look at the short term and "if we partner with our neighbors, we can have a really good A team, and will have enough girls for a B team". Boils down to someone more worried about winning today, versus building a program for the future. On top of that, usually the weaker of the two merging associations often stops recruiting beginners, and sends less and less talent to the coop each year.

IMO If an association sports 2-3 boys teams at each level, that same association has the capacity to build a girls program which has 2 girls teams at each level. Takes some time, but all programs were built from the ground up at some time. Our program has U14A, U12A&B, U10A&B and a ton of U8/U6 skaters, and we are a town of 12,000 ppl. Aggressive recruiting for girls beginners starting 8 years ago, is really showing some great results.

[zooomx]

But we are in Minnesota, Texas actually has a football class for their high school players. I think Minnesota hockey should allow the club teams to play in the winter. Then you take away a lot local association politics.
The high school league needs to help also. One way would be to get rid of the period rule so coaches would not need to rob associations to fill their JV teams.
Then high schools can carry 6 lines and 10 d of kids who are varsity ready or really close and then the other kids who are not that close could play 14 u and develop. Buy doing that you wouldn't have varsity coaches dipping into the youth programs to keep their kids at home. With our older girls the rule was to tryout for the high school you had to be a 9th grader. Stillwater actually started the change when they allowed a 7th grade goalie to play. Hill really added to the problem with allowing Hannah Brandt to play as an eighth grader after that every coach a least on the east side felt they had to follow suit. Now you have 7th and eighth graders on JV teams playing 25 games as opposed to 45 games at 12's and 50-60 at 14's.
I totally understand why parents are moving the kids up to high school early the main reason being expense.
I think 13-14 year olds are still a little you to be mixing with 17-18 year olds
Just my thoughts.

I would agree that the dwindling numbers at the high school level is hurting the youth numbers. My daughter played high school as an 8th grader last season on a team with very low youth numbers through a co-op with her private school. She changed schools (because of problems in the private school) and programs and is now playing U14 in a very deep association whose high school team is in the Northwest Suburban Conference. My daughter tried out for the high school team but was told by the coach that unless you were considered a top 2 line player for varsity as 9th grader that he would rather have you play U14. There are currently only two 9th graders on the high school team and they are playing top line minutes and among the team's top scorers. This is obviously an ideal situation but unfortunately far from the norm. Playing U14 this season you can see which programs have the stronger and deeper high school teams by looking at the make up of their U14 team. A lot of high school teams are having to take the younger (8-9th grade) players to fill their high school rosters which leaves a younger less experienced U14 team.When I have asked my daughter if she would rather be playing varsity this year on a team (the team she played on last year) with struggling numbers and less experienced players or playing U14 this season, she said the U14 team. In the long run I think this will benefit my daughter by having to "earn" a spot on the high school (varsity) team instead of having it given to her because of numbers. I would also agree with "zambonidriver" that it is a tough transition to make at age 13 to be playing against 17-18 year olds. I wish that parents/kids would not be in such a big hurry to play high school and spend the extra time developing in youth hockey. It's better to play on a competitive U14 team than a non-competitive high school team.

oops. double post.

[zambonidriver]

What really really need is girl coaches for the girls to interact with. Boys programs were built back in the day where if you wanted to play you found a a pair of skates rolled up some newspapers for shin pads and played with choppers for gloves and you went to the rink because it was really the only place you could go. Today just to go play shinny you need to be fully equipped. I didn't get my first pair of breezers until I was a peewee just played in sweat pants. (and I was a goalie) I never wore a helmet when skating for fun. We need to recruit because of the changes in sport. Associations should not charge at all for until peewees. Most associations have huge fund balances. and could make it very easy to make it affordable for working class people.

[lrugland]

Anyone playing the Fargo Freeze Make sure their goalie is a girl they played a boy in the Fargo tournament

No they did not . Fargo played their normal girl goalie for all the games in the Fargo tourney. I talked with the Fargo coaches after that game and all was good. They did not get way with anything.

[lrugland]

Back to topic. This tourney has great organization BUT has crazy rules and advancment. I can see the decline in the Duluth tourney starting next year. No one wants this format. NO ONE!

[Nevertoomuchhockey]

Back to topic. This tourney has great organization BUT has crazy rules and advancment. I can see the decline in the Duluth tourney starting next year. No one wants this format. NO ONE!

Don't they have like a 10 team waiting list for every level though?

[lrugland]

Back to topic. This tourney has great organization BUT has crazy rules and advancment. I can see the decline in the Duluth tourney starting next year. No one wants this format. NO ONE!

Don't they have like a 10 team waiting list for every level though?

No idea, but I did hear that 4 teams that were there this year may not be returning next year. No reason to pay $1500 to play the same teams you play during the year over and over again.

On a second note, if you look at how the 12UA teams were seated going into Championship Sunday only one ONE team ended higher place after the games. That was the game between 11 and 12. All other higher seated teams won their games on Sunday. That was pretty crazy based on how the teams were ranked.

I am happy were went this year but once again, $1500 for 4 games is crazy.

[goaliedad31]

Fargo is becoming the new Duluth. Duluth always draws good teams because of its reputation, but nobody seems to like how it is run. Fargo is well run, has pin trading, draws some different teams. I predict in a few years Fargo will be the bigger draw -- and no I am not affiliated with Fargo in any way.

[goaliedad31]

Anyone know the results. The website doesn't have any information. Can't even find what teams were up there.

[Driving2Hockey]

Tournament is a joke. The Wayzata 12UA team has gone 9-0 the past 2 years and NEVER played in a semi or championship. How do you not lose or tie a game in 2 years and not have a chance to play the team that won it?

The tournament cares about one thing and that is making money. They care nothing about running a good and fair tournament.

That being said, I blame the associations who keep sending their teams back to this awful event. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I believe most teams have finally had enough. Goodbye Icebreaker Tournament.

P.S. Only in Duluth do they call it seated. It was same way in the program. The team that sits first must get the higher seed. Too funny.

[jg2112]

Tournament is a joke. The Wayzata 12UA team has gone 9-0 the past 2 years and NEVER played in a semi or championship. How do you not lose or tie a game in 2 years and not have a chance to play the team that won it?

The tournament cares about one thing and that is making money. They care nothing about running a good and fair tournament.

That being said, I blame the associations who keep sending their teams back to this awful event. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I believe most teams have finally had enough. Goodbye Icebreaker Tournament.

P.S. Only in Duluth do they call it seated. It was same way in the program. The team that sits first must get the higher seed. Too funny.

Eh, this is why every youth association runs tournaments. The best part of having my child play in the Choice League this season is that I don't need pull her out of school to drop $500 in Rochester or Breezy Point (no offense, nice towns, but if I want a vacation I want to choose where I go) and stay in a run down hotel room for four hockey games scheduled at crazy hours.

If I was running a youth association and cared about the finances of my members, I would rent a bus, go to Duluth / Rochester, play 2-3 games in a day, and let my players sleep in their beds that night. I know a few associations that do this.

[lrugland]

Anyone know the results. The website doesn't have any information. Can't even find what teams were up there.

12UA

1st Roseau
2nd Andover
3rd Wayzata
4th Edina
5th Fargo
6th Woodbury
7th Cottage Crove
8th OMG
9th Thunvder Bay
10th Whitebear Lake
11th Cloquet
12th Proctor/Hermantown

[goaliedad31]

A couple of good upsets - Roseau over Andover and Wayzata over Edina. Shows that a lot of girls teams are of similar caliber. Roseau has been a sleeper team so far this season. They have some good skaters and a very good goalie. Wayzata hasn't lived up to its potential but looks like it could be peaking at the right time. Shakopee is another team that has been off the radar but could make some noise at the end of the season.

[Lace'emUp]

Back to topic. This tourney has great organization BUT has crazy rules and advancment. I can see the decline in the Duluth tourney starting next year. No one wants this format. NO ONE!

Don't they have like a 10 team waiting list for every level though?

No idea, but I did hear that 4 teams that were there this year may not be returning next year. No reason to pay $1500 to play the same teams you play during the year over and over again.

On a second note, if you look at how the 12UA teams were seated going into Championship Sunday only one ONE team ended higher place after the games. That was the game between 11 and 12. All other higher seated teams won their games on Sunday. That was pretty crazy based on how the teams were ranked.

I am happy were went this year but once again, $1500 for 4 games is crazy.

100% agree with lrugland. Duluth is a fun place to hang out, but they're always messing with the tourney format, EVERY year. I don't know what it was this year, but a couple years back they had 8 pools of 3 at 12A. Yes, 24 teams. That's crazy. So 5 or 6 of these pools are fairly week - meaning one strong team and 2 weak teams. Several top teams blow out their 2 pool round opponents. 1st place pool teams went into a championship bracket of 8. The problem is that there's no consolation side to the bracket. So you have teams like Roseau, Eagan, etc, paying $1500 for two weak games, and one competitive game. But since they lost in the 1st round of bracket play, they go home. $1500 for only THREE games. That is nuts. We stopped going after that.

[HockeyDad2015]

If there was a template on how to destroy your tournament, The Duluth Icebreaker has found it.
Put the 3 best teams in your tournament all in the same pool, then have no bracket play on Sunday. Seed them based on goals given up.
Good luck in the future Duluth Icebreakers!
Fact, Wayzata, Andover, Edina and Park Cottage Grove will not be back again!