Three Class hockey

[Goose21]

The strength/success of high school programs and their local associations suggests that are and could be 3 levels of competition. I know I am in the minority, but allow me to make my case>

As Elliott points out, the top 20 AA consists of basically the same core of large suburban schools, privates, traditional big school powers, and a couple outstate teams. In a 3 class system, these programs would continue to compete against other high end programs at the AAA level. I think a 32 team playoff format would provide for some great hockey.

AA hockey would consist of those programs who play good hockey, but don't quite have the resources and talent to match-up against the perennial powerhouses year in and year out. This class could consist of the remaining AA programs, AA opt-ups, and the top A. Again, at tournament time there is a more competitive field that should draw interest.

At class A we have everybody else. Granted, this class won't be a big draw for fans, but that not what it is really about. This provides true small school players and programs a more realistic opportunity to pursue the dream of playing in the state high school tournament.

I think 3 classes could not only provide a more competitive tournament, but also allow more teams and communities to participate.

[kniven]

32 in AAA
48 in AA
80 in A

Class A elsewhere not in X except championship which would be televised.

Class AA in 8 sections - winner to state on Wed Fri & Sat

Class AAA 32 seeded and play to games then final 8 to state

I like it! Yea the same ole teams in every year. If A was pure now, I would probably enjoy it a lot more than AA. Same ole metro powers/greed. Small town hockey where the top in constant motion. Small town. That's me. I've never really cared about anything but the kids.

[kniven]

On another thread, 'community based' suggested a third class in hockey for the 'power teams'.
I may not be quoting exactly but pull out the super large metro schools, some privates and the outstate perennial powers. Place them in AAA or such, similar to footballs Class 6A.

Any thoughts on this?

I've heard lots of folks talking about moving all high school hockey to community based getting it out of the schools and moving it to community teams like youth puck. Then you can do whatever you want.

[SPUDNUT]

WOW - sounds like Elliott poked a moose in the ass with a sharp stick on this one !

Way to wake everyone up -

[elliott70]

WOW - sounds like Elliott poked a moose in the ass with a sharp stick on this one !

Way to wake everyone up -

I am sitting just outside Northome, it was a black bear.
But I did see a moose. But I would not poke it. A bear, damn straight.

Oh and EP is the best team in the state right now. Followed by Hermantown.
But if we throw Class C in there LOW is my choice.

[Sparlimb]

I have another thought. Add a third class and allow any interested school the ability to field two teams. One in AAA and one in AA.

That would be interesting (but basically Junior Gold).

[GoldyGopher]

Move Hermantown and Breck to AA. Problem solved.

[Clarkkent]

Moving privates to one section will never ever happen.

[Clarkkent]

32 in AAA
48 in AA
80 in A

Class A elsewhere not in X except championship which would be televised.

Class AA in 8 sections - winner to state on Wed Fri & Sat

Class AAA 32 seeded and play to games then final 8 to state

How many sections in AAA?

There would be no sections. Stated above was top 32 seeded. So 1 would play 32, 2 would play 31 etc. until the final 8 play for state. Great idea!

[goldy313]

No.

Most of the really large schools reside in only 4 sections; 2, 4, 5, and 6. If you are Irondale or Tartan you may have a beef. The other 4 sections seem closer in size, the difference between the top and bottom enrollments in 1AA is 500 kids.

Maybe aligning the sections with more equitable enrollments would be an idea, give the top enrollment schools 4 sections of 6 or so teams, keep section 7 and 8 relatively the same, and put the rest in 1AA and 2AA with a larger amount of teams....10-12. The schools that opt up are placed in the large school sections or based on geography like Duluth Marshall.

[Jeffy95]

Move Hermantown and Breck to AA. Problem solved.

It's hard to argue with this. There would still be a couple of Metro privates left but not destination schools for hockey players like Hermantown and Breck. I really do believe that would solve the problem.

[greenwayraider]

Move Hermantown and Breck to AA. Problem solved.

It's hard to argue with this. There would still be a couple of Metro privates left but not destination schools for hockey players like Hermantown and Breck. I really do believe that would solve the problem.

Much better solution. The only problem with Single A is Hermantownot and Breck being so much better than 95% of the rest of the schools. Public schools will go through the cycle so you'll see a lot of different teams at state. Might as well just give everybody trophy if you start adding more classes.

[GoldyGopher]

Move Hermantown and Breck to AA. Problem solved.

It's hard to argue with this. There would still be a couple of Metro privates left but not destination schools for hockey players like Hermantown and Breck. I really do believe that would solve the problem.

Much better solution. The only problem with Single A is Hermantownot and Breck being so much better than 95% of the rest of the schools. Public schools will go through the cycle so you'll see a lot of different teams at state. Might as well just give everybody trophy if you start adding more classes.

Class A is very enjoyable to watch at the X, with the exception of Breck and Hermantown. It's nice to see those random towns that you don't hear of send a team down to the X for the first time in however long. When you get 2 teams like that which have had such dominance it really makes the Class A games very unwatchable. It's not fun for the fans and I struggle trying to find how it could be for the players of Hermantown and Breck. Great you expected to be in the championship and your first 2 games you outscored your opponents 17-2. What's the point of that? They beat AA teams regularly (some of the top teams). There are far smaller schools with less success at class A moving up to compete with big teams as they have the talent to do so. Hermantown is absolutely a no-brainer to move to AA and Breck can follow. The problem really is fixed from there, for now. Always going to be a team that is on the border, but the 2 currently at debate still playing in class A is embarrassing.

[karl(east)]

I'm acutally quite skeptical of the "just move Hermantown and Breck up and it solves everything" argument. It would be nice if one little tweak would make everything great, but talent levels aren't even over time, and the class system creates incentives for teams to do certain things to strengthen their positions. It may work temporarily, and in 7A because of the dynamics of that section, but, over time, the cream will rise to the top.

I don't think it was coincidental that SPA suddenly became good right after STA went to AA. Maybe they're next, maybe it's Minnehaha instead; if Breck goes up, maybe Blake or Providence Academy is next. And it's not just private schools, as the Hermantown experience shows. Clear the field ahead of them, and Mahtomedi probably builds on its existing depth and starts to pull in some transfers, and before long we're having this same argument all over again. It doesn't take a genius for a parent (or an enterprising coach/AD) to see the opportunity. These are the sorts of incentives you get in a multi-class system.

Lee pointed out earlier today that there's only one point difference between the top 11 AA teams in PS2. But even if we throw out Hermantown, there's a much larger gap between #1 and #11 in Class A. That larger gap in Class A is pretty consistent, year in and year out. Talent is not evenly distributed, so the advantage a team gets from having one D-I player (or a group of high-quality high school players) can create instant separation. There's a big concentration at the bottom (the many teams out there with no high end talent), and there are diminishing returns as you stockpile more and more. (The benefit a team draws from having a 10th D-I player is much smaller than the benefit derived from the second.)

I think that will be true no matter how many classes there are. Not only that, with more classes, the bar for domination is lower. In a three class system, you might only need 2 or 3 D-III players yearly in the lowest class to become a consistent power. Again, not hard for a team or two to set up a little pipeline and take control.

I also don't think banning opt-ups would solve anything. This is because most, if not all, of the opt-ups would end up in the Class A sections that are strong already (2A, 4A, 7A, 8A). If you think Breck or Mahtomedi against New Ulm sounds bad, wait until the 3A rep gets Hill-Murray or Grand Rapids in the first round...

For the most part, I'm fine with the system we have now. Now that 1AA is consistently fielding very competitive teams, the only bad first round AA State match-ups come when some Cinderella crashes the party, which is fun for different reasons. Class A has some yawners in the first round based on geography; some mild tweaks might help this, though I'm also a big believer in having it be an actual "state" tournament that lets teams from all over the state have a chance. A one-class Tourney has a certain allure, but I'm a realist, and I also think A hockey has done important work in expanding the game in certain parts of the state. But any system has its flaws, and the STA/Hermantown problem is baked into the one we have.

(I also may be in the minority here, but at this point, I don't think Breck should move up, at least not if we're applying a consistent standard. The talent level they put out there just isn't the same as the D-I factories that STA and now Hermantown have created. They get a decent concentration of consistently good players, but rarely do they have more than 2 or 3 D-I players, and on the one or two teams they've had that do, they tend to be a bunch of kids who go to high academic East Coast D-I schools, not the consistent NCAA powers who get the high-end recruits. *At this point,* I don't see that imbalance as damaging or making a mockery of section playoffs/the first two rounds at State, like STA was a few years back.)

[WendyClark]

Just disgusting to think 3 classes in high school hockey

2 classes is 1 to many

[HShockeywatcher]

Is there enough schools playing hockey to support this? Baseball has 3 classes but wouldn't seem to make sense in hockey.

It ultimately depends on what the goal is. The football coaches were not happy with disparity in size of players and teams and wanted another class. They did that and ended up with a 32 team class. Their playoffs are one game shorter, but they don't have silly 1/8 games like other classes.

Knowing that we have teams like Roseau that have won titles of late and teams like Rapids and Hermantown that are both top 15 teams in the state, I think "hockey people" all around need a consensus about what they are looking for in a tournament and a class. There are a similar number of opt ups in hockey as there are in the rest of the sports in the state combined. Do we want a 3 class tournament where the best team in the state could be in the Class A champion, or do we want a tournament where the top class champion is the best team?

Personally, I think teams should be put into classes by some metric like how many students at their school played organized hockey the year before with no opting.

[MNHockeyFan]

I agree with all the good points Karl made. Bottom line I think is that there is no compelling reason for the MSHSL to fix what isn't broken. A few cracks maybe, but it's not broken.

[HShockeywatcher]

I also don't think banning opt-ups would solve anything. This is because most, if not all, of the opt-ups would end up in the Class A sections that are strong already (2A, 4A, 7A, 8A). If you think Breck or Mahtomedi against New Ulm sounds bad, wait until the 3A rep gets Hill-Murray or Grand Rapids in the first round...

The thing I think is often overlooked is what this would do to the fields and possibly where kids would end up going to school. Without opt ups you end up with two good tournaments instead of the varsity and jv tournaments. Knowing there wasn't stigma about the class you are in seems like it could affect where children choose schools when hockey is a factor.

Since there is precedent for a sport doing things differently, what if hockey were to determine classes in a different manner? I don't think I have the perfect formula, but we see big schools with small numbers and small schools with big numbers; wouldn't it make sense if classes resembled the program size and not school size?

[karl(east)]

I also don't think banning opt-ups would solve anything. This is because most, if not all, of the opt-ups would end up in the Class A sections that are strong already (2A, 4A, 7A, 8A). If you think Breck or Mahtomedi against New Ulm sounds bad, wait until the 3A rep gets Hill-Murray or Grand Rapids in the first round...

The thing I think is often overlooked is what this would do to the fields and possibly where kids would end up going to school. Without opt ups you end up with two good tournaments instead of the varsity and jv tournaments. Knowing there wasn't stigma about the class you are in seems like it could affect where children choose schools when hockey is a factor.

Since there is precedent for a sport doing things differently, what if hockey were to determine classes in a different manner? I don't think I have the perfect formula, but we see big schools with small numbers and small schools with big numbers; wouldn't it make sense if classes resembled the program size and not school size?

I'm not convinced that it would make the stigma disappear. Maybe in a vacuum, yeah, but reputations linger, and while the later rounds might get a little better, geography suggests we'd still have those first round blowouts. And while it's hard to say what it would do to player movement, I doubt the end result would be particularly happy for those smaller Greater MN Class A schools, who, (if I'm reading this thread right) are the ones who find the current arrangement most unfair.

I do think there are merits to exploring program size as the determining factor. There are issues that would need to be sorted out, like what you do with privates or with youth associations that don't match HS lines, but it makes a lot of sense.

The other thing mentioned in this thread that I support fully: getting rid of conferences, which are even more useless now that they don't exist for football reasons. We discussed this on the podcast a few weeks ago, but maybe this can be the start of something. And yes, for section seeding's sake, make everyone in a section together play at least once a year.

[elliott70]

...And while it's hard to say what it would do to player movement, I doubt the end result would be particularly happy for those smaller Greater MN Class A schools, who, (if I'm reading this thread right) are the ones who find the current arrangement most unfair.

"The gap from the bottom of AA to the top of AA has grown significantly"

The thread was started based on the disparity of AA...


Over the last 5 years, 33 different teams have made it to the section finals. 20 different teams have made it to the X.
The other half of AA teams have not sniffed the X.
Is that a good reason to consider a super class, I don't know but it is a good discussion.

[Sparlimb]

...And while it's hard to say what it would do to player movement, I doubt the end result would be particularly happy for those smaller Greater MN Class A schools, who, (if I'm reading this thread right) are the ones who find the current arrangement most unfair.

"The gap from the bottom of AA to the top of AA has grown significantly"

The thread was started based on the disparity of AA...

I don't agree with that assertion. I'd argue we're not here to hand out participation certificates to every team. So it should take a special season to break through to state. Lots of teams have those seasons though. Look at Tartan, who got a 2 year reprieve from 3AA at the time, and went to state twice and played a whale of a semi-final one of the years. Woodbury went not that long ago and had a strong team. Farmington last year. How about the Century team that beat Hill. They were a solid team that had one of those years. Bemidji has been the flavor in 8AA the last few years after many years of mediocrity. Even in the loaded western suburbs, the best team seems to swing every year between Edina, Wayzata, EP and Tonka. I think the opportunity is there, in every section to be the upset team to represent at state and do well.

What actually has hurt the lesser ranked teams ability to go as far at state is the seeding process. It gives us better games, but generally the same teams as well. Harder for a team like Moorhead to sneak by 3 straight metro powerhouse teams...

[thestickler07]

Back to one class.

Lee

Can't emphasize this enough - the answer is not more trophies.

[jeffpv]

Two classes, and:

* Private schools must play AA (I can't believe this isn't a requirement already);
* Two or more class A State Final appearances in a four-year span (which starts at the first Finals appearance) means that that school must subsequently move up to AA for four years; they then have the option of moving back down at the end of those four years, should they prefer.

IMO these two moves would help matters.
I do not think that three classes makes much sense for hockey.

[elliott70]

One class - all of us 'older' guys dream of it. It will never happen unless a lot of schools drop hockey and none of us want that.
So forget it.

Two classes - it is what we have and will likely have for a long time unless a bunch of schools decide they want to have hockey OR there is a ground swell among those playing now and request it. Could it be tweaked to make it better?

If so, then a third class may happen and if so, what would we like it to look like?

So two questions to consider, tweak what is there or add to it.

[BP]

Two classes, and:

* Private schools must play AA (I can't believe this isn't a requirement already);
* Two or more class A State Final appearances in a four-year span (which starts at the first Finals appearance) means that that school must subsequently move up to AA for four years; they then have the option of moving back down at the end of those four years, should they prefer.

IMO these two moves would help matters.
I do not think that three classes makes much sense for hockey.

The bottom line---the state high school league makes a lot of money the way it is set-up now, and it's not going to change anytime soon. The Class A semi's have like 12-13K at the game now.

I'm much a believer like Karl to drop the conferences. Kids could care less. Play everyone in your section, then schedule other games or do a district thing like football.

In regards to making all private schools play AA, that will NEVER happen. People have to get past that idea. Yes, there are some that can play at that level that are currently in A. But there are a bunch that can't. If you do that, then you have to make EVERY sport of all private schools play at the highest level AND no public schools would be allowed ANY open enrollment. If you did it only in hockey, the state high school league would have a lawsuit on their hands. You can't ever do it. Could you imagine a 1A or 2A private school having to play EP or Wayzata in football? Same thought of having 1-16 Legacy Christian Academy having to play EP or Edina. Good luck with that ever getting passed. Should some of the private schools in MN play AA? Absolutely. But there are a handful that shouldn't and aren't even close....and probably won't ever. You also have to know that some of these schools survive because of kids/parents want the combination of sports and good academics. Kids who can't play at Edina, EP, Wayzata, Tonka, etc go to these schools to be able to play Varsity athletics, because they have been playing their whole lives and want to finish play at a Varsity level. If tsome of the really small schools were at the highest level in everything, those schools would be soooo low in enrollment and they'd have to close the doors (and that includes hockey powers like Hill, BSM, STA, Breck, Blake, Holy Family, etc - they aren't great in all sports). Is that what we want because some people think all private schools should play AA? Schools closing, less opportunities for kids in classroom and sports, etc. Let's think about the whole thing here....not just hockey. That said, I think it should remain two classes. Like Karl said, there is no real system that would work. May work for a few years, but not over the long haul. Leave it alone.