Mandatory Level Declarations

Discussion of Minnesota Youth Hockey

Moderators: Mitch Hawker, east hockey, karl(east)

Should Minnesota Hockey mandate how associations declare team levels?

Poll ended at Fri Feb 26, 2016 10:31 am

Yes, too many teams sandbag
14
56%
No, this wouldn't help improve parity
11
44%
 
Total votes: 25

Jeffy95
Posts: 891
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:45 am

Post by Jeffy95 » Fri Feb 05, 2016 11:21 am

JSR wrote:
Jeffy95 wrote:
JSR wrote:
Jeffy95 wrote:
JSR wrote:
Jeffy95 wrote:
JSR wrote:
Jeffy95 wrote:
JSR wrote:Honestly I don't get why teams must have strict adherence to playing whatever level they are part of. You could actually deem levels based on association size just as described above but that designation would ONLY be for state tournament purposes. Otherwise regardless of what your designation is I don't see why MN Hockey makes such a big deal out letting teams just find and play teams that will be good games for all involved.

In Wisconsin we designate based on association size. We do it a little differently. So our largest associations are designated as Division1, then we have Division 2, then Division 3 and Division 4 is smallest. With in each division you have "A" teams, and B teams and possibly C teams. The largest associations might have one A team, a few B teams and a C team or whatever. So if you are a the top squirt team in your association in a division 1 association you are called 1A, if you are a top team in your association in division two you would be called 2A. If you are the second team or "B' team in a division two association you are called 2B etc.. etc... The number is your division and the letter is indicative of where you fall inside your association.... Now these classifications really mean nothing except for state tournament playoffs, that's it. Otherwise you can literally choose to play whoever you want whenever you want as long as both teams agree to play. So a squirt 1A team can play a squirt 4A team. A squirt 1B team can play a Squirt 2A team. A squirt 2C team can play a squirt 2 B team and so on and so forth.... and guess what. It works great, no one complains because it leaves it up to the coaches on both sides to know their teams, know the landscape and schedule appropriately. DO you get the occasional lopsided match, especially early in the year, yep and guess what, those two teams usually cancel their reciprocal and both go find a different team to fill in that is more appropriate for their level. Its not rocket science. I seriously don't get why we get our panties in a wad over these stupid designations when it comes to scheduling etc.... Believe it or not it polices itself pretty much and if you ever have a rogue team that is clearly trying to something bad then the Region director (aka or district director equivalent) steps in, handles it. No big deal and everyone goes back to behaving and being normal again.... again the idea you guys can't wrap your heads around something simple like that is mind boggling to me. It's only complicated if adults make it complicated because trust me, it's not complicated for the kids...
MN Hockey does allow scrimmages across designations under some circumstances. You have to ask your director for permission but if you give them a good reason, such as that the teams are evenly matched, they will most likely approve it. It's the invitational tournaments that they are strict about. Under no circumstances will they allow a MN A team to play a MN B team in an invitational tournament, even if it happens in WI or another state.
You made my point,. You make it too difficult for no real good reason
Sending an e-mail is difficult?
You shouldn't need "permission" to begin with... and yea honestly sending an email asking for permission is too difficult and should not need to be done
There is a perfectly good reason for why it's set up this way. If sandbagging is a problem now (which judging by all the posts on here, it definitely is) it would be a lot worse if you could just play anyone during the season. It would be pretty easy to designate yourself a B team if you could play A and AA teams all season to prepare yourself for the run to the B State Championship. I wish High School did the same thing, outside of conference play. It would force teams like Hermantown and Breck to move up.
You missed the point entirely. YOU don't get to designate yourself. Your designation is forced upon you but who you play is not. Further, we have virtually zero sandbagging in Wisconsin because no one wants to play 10-0 games on purpose and in rare times they do they do not schedule another game with them. If a B team and a A team are a good fit for playing a competitive game against eachother then there is ZERO reason they shouldn't play eachother. It's good for everyone. Further, there is no sense in sandbagging because you are given your designation as either an A, B or C team and it's based on club size. And that designation only means something come state tourney/regional play off time. You can't "sandbag" anything for that as that is also dictated to you. I think you need to re-read everything, this doesn't lead to more sandbagging it gets rid of it almost 100%. Your system encouraged sandbagging etc... by leaving the wrong things up to the associations. We left the right things up to our assocations and took the other stuff away and that is one problem we don't have
My response was to your first sentence and regarding the way the current MN Hockey system is set up. Nothing to do with WI, I didn't even read the rest.
If you are not going to read it then don't respond. It makes you look very foolish
My response was only to point out that you were wrong on MN teams not being able to play across designations. They can. I didn't read the rest because comparing MN and WI Youth Hockey is pointless. It's Apples and Oranges. What works in one will not necessarily work in another.

Section 8 guy
Posts: 540
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2012 9:04 pm

Post by Section 8 guy » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:32 pm

Exactly. All opinions are certainly good and welcomed. That said, I just don't see myself spending time on a message board for hockey in another state giving thoughts on how they should do things. Every state is different and has different dynamics. What's the point? And how would I even know what would work well in a different state?

JSR
Posts: 1673
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 5:26 pm

Post by JSR » Mon Feb 08, 2016 4:17 am

Section 8 guy wrote:Exactly. All opinions are certainly good and welcomed. That said, I just don't see myself spending time on a message board for hockey in another state giving thoughts on how they should do things. Every state is different and has different dynamics. What's the point? And how would I even know what would work well in a different state?
Translation : "We know everything, there is nothing we can learn from anyone else ever, we are the best so we don't need to listen to anyone or try and learn and grow"

Jeffy95
Posts: 891
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:45 am

Post by Jeffy95 » Mon Feb 08, 2016 6:06 am

JSR wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:Exactly. All opinions are certainly good and welcomed. That said, I just don't see myself spending time on a message board for hockey in another state giving thoughts on how they should do things. Every state is different and has different dynamics. What's the point? And how would I even know what would work well in a different state?
Translation : "We know everything, there is nothing we can learn from anyone else ever, we are the best so we don't need to listen to anyone or try and learn and grow"
LOL, you need to find a hobby dude. You're way too obsessed with Minnesota.

Section 8 guy
Posts: 540
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2012 9:04 pm

Post by Section 8 guy » Mon Feb 08, 2016 7:15 pm

I think what I really said was......I know nothing about the dynamics of Hockey in Wisconsin, or any other state, so how could I even begin to understand the dynamics of hockey in the state or what they should do to improve it.......with a slight tinge of.......And why would I even want to?

Section 8 guy
Posts: 540
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2012 9:04 pm

Post by Section 8 guy » Mon Feb 08, 2016 7:22 pm

BTW......did TEO take his Mandatory declarations system and go home?

Still very curious to hear some takes on how widespread the problem really is......

The Exiled One
Posts: 1788
Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:34 am

Post by The Exiled One » Tue Feb 09, 2016 1:02 am

Section 8 guy wrote:BTW......did TEO take his Mandatory declarations system and go home?

Still very curious to hear some takes on how widespread the problem really is......
Still here waiting for more relevant points to address.

observer
Posts: 2225
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:45 pm

Post by observer » Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:27 am

2 sandbagging teams have been mentioned. Big deal! Let them enjoy some success to help revitalize their programs with new excitement. Sorry your team lost to them. Your plan would create many more unbalanced situations. Those two teams will likely opt to play at a higher level next year if the talent on the teams below is the same or better.

Move on.

Jeffy95
Posts: 891
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:45 am

Post by Jeffy95 » Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:36 am

The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:BTW......did TEO take his Mandatory declarations system and go home?

Still very curious to hear some takes on how widespread the problem really is......
Still here waiting for more relevant points to address.
Minnesota Hockey is actually working on it. By late Spring they hope to have a proposal ready to submit to JSR for final approval. :lol:

The Exiled One
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Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:34 am

Post by The Exiled One » Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:54 am

observer wrote:2 sandbagging teams have been mentioned. Big deal! Let them enjoy some success to help revitalize their programs with new excitement. Sorry your team lost to them. Your plan would create many more unbalanced situations. Those two teams will likely opt to play at a higher level next year if the talent on the teams below is the same or better.

Move on.
My team is actually one of the sandbaggers. They don't plan on moving up.

JSR
Posts: 1673
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 5:26 pm

Post by JSR » Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:27 am

Jeffy95 wrote:
The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:BTW......did TEO take his Mandatory declarations system and go home?

Still very curious to hear some takes on how widespread the problem really is......
Still here waiting for more relevant points to address.
Minnesota Hockey is actually working on it. By late Spring they hope to have a proposal ready to submit to JSR for final approval. :lol:
typical response I'd expect from someone like you.....

unlike you I try to learn as much as I can so I can help my sport locally as much as I can. I'm in it for the sport not just myself or my kid, I know that's a hard concept to understand for folks like yourself

Jeffy95
Posts: 891
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:45 am

Post by Jeffy95 » Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:58 am

JSR wrote:
Jeffy95 wrote:
The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:BTW......did TEO take his Mandatory declarations system and go home?

Still very curious to hear some takes on how widespread the problem really is......
Still here waiting for more relevant points to address.
Minnesota Hockey is actually working on it. By late Spring they hope to have a proposal ready to submit to JSR for final approval. :lol:
typical response I'd expect from someone like you.....

unlike you I try to learn as much as I can so I can help my sport locally as much as I can. I'm in it for the sport not just myself or my kid, I know that's a hard concept to understand for folks like yourself
Come on, lighten up Junior. Where's your sense of humor? I don't care who you are that was funny right there! :D

Section 8 guy
Posts: 540
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Post by Section 8 guy » Tue Feb 09, 2016 6:42 pm

The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:BTW......did TEO take his Mandatory declarations system and go home?

Still very curious to hear some takes on how widespread the problem really is......
Still here waiting for more relevant points to address.
I asked above for you to quantify how many teams at both the A level and B level in both Bantams and PeeWees that you feel are sandbagging and need to go about things differently. It would be helpful to understand how widespread you feel the problem actually is. No need to name names. Just looking for the scope of the problem is all.

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Wed Feb 10, 2016 4:15 pm

Section 8 guy wrote:
The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:BTW......did TEO take his Mandatory declarations system and go home?

Still very curious to hear some takes on how widespread the problem really is......
Still here waiting for more relevant points to address.
I asked above for you to quantify how many teams at both the A level and B level in both Bantams and PeeWees that you feel are sandbagging and need to go about things differently. It would be helpful to understand how widespread you feel the problem actually is. No need to name names. Just looking for the scope of the problem is all.
Before I crunch the numbers, how many sandbaggers would there need to be for you to consider it a problem as well? I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it if the facts don't carry any weight anyhow.

Section 8 guy
Posts: 540
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Post by Section 8 guy » Wed Feb 10, 2016 5:16 pm

So let me get this straight..........with all of this talk of empirical data, regression theory, data points and analytics.........you didn't even bother to define the scope of the problem before you initiated the process?

C'mon man! Are you serious?

Section 8 guy
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Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2012 9:04 pm

Post by Section 8 guy » Wed Feb 10, 2016 5:42 pm

I laid out what I see. I see one Bantam A team that my guess is had decent reasoning behind the decision to play B vs A based on how their team fared two years ago playing PeeWee A hockey. I've seen them play. I don't think they would fare all that well playing Bantam A hockey but one could reasonably say they should have based on results to this point.

I also see two pretty easy to spot west metro associations that show up pretty consistently in the top 5 at A and B that should probably do some things differently. Beyond that......I don't see a lot that tells me we need a top down government approach system overhaul.

I certainly don't pretend to see all these teams play so there absolutely could be a lot more than that that I'm missing. If there is, it would be helpful to the discussion if you could define how many you think there are......naming names not necessary. If there isn't.......then I would tend to fall back to the original point that we are better off dealing directly with the relatively small number of offenders than risk forcing teams into a situation where they can't be competitive and they know it before the season even starts.

I love this framework as a guideline but don't love it as a forced rule. I would agree completely though that an association with 6 teams at one level.....5 even....should have a AA team.

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Thu Feb 11, 2016 2:59 am

Section 8 guy wrote:So let me get this straight..........with all of this talk of empirical data, regression theory, data points and analytics.........you didn't even bother to define the scope of the problem before you initiated the process?

C'mon man! Are you serious?
Actually, I've done a lot of analysis. I just wanted to know if you were willing to consider it before I shared it. I think I have my answer.

zooomx
Posts: 463
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Post by zooomx » Thu Feb 11, 2016 3:53 am

The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:So let me get this straight..........with all of this talk of empirical data, regression theory, data points and analytics.........you didn't even bother to define the scope of the problem before you initiated the process?

C'mon man! Are you serious?
Actually, I've done a lot of analysis. I just wanted to know if you were willing to consider it before I shared it. I think I have my answer.
In the end, there are too many variables to have a forced rule for what leagues associations should place their teams.

From what I understand, it was talked about at the MN Hockey meeting and the responsibility was put upon the District Directors to monitor team classifications more closely and work with associations to make sure teams are classified in a way that ensures more competitive balance in league play. It will never be "fair"enough, as every district has a completely different make up. Some associations will sandbag for a short term "lift" for their program (trophies...yeah!), and some will make the long term decision to better challenge their skaters. In the long run, the long term decision will feed higher quality skaters to the high school team. The short team decision will stifle development.

Section 8 guy
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Post by Section 8 guy » Sat Feb 13, 2016 2:29 am

Coiuld MN Hockey adopt this is a guideline........then if there do appear to be shenanigans the DDs have a basis for discussion with the offending associations.....or other associations have a basis to go to the DD and request that another association be addressed?

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Tue Feb 16, 2016 8:48 am

Section 8 guy wrote:Coiuld MN Hockey adopt this is a guideline........then if there do appear to be shenanigans the DDs have a basis for discussion with the offending associations.....or other associations have a basis to go to the DD and request that another association be addressed?
Fair compromise. Deal.

elliott70
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Post by elliott70 » Tue Feb 16, 2016 9:30 am

The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:Coiuld MN Hockey adopt this is a guideline........then if there do appear to be shenanigans the DDs have a basis for discussion with the offending associations.....or other associations have a basis to go to the DD and request that another association be addressed?
Fair compromise. Deal.
To a degree, this already exists as the DD can assign teams to the appropriate level.
The local assn. can register their team where they want but that designation can be changed by the DD.

The Exiled One
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Post by The Exiled One » Tue Feb 16, 2016 5:11 pm

elliott70 wrote:
The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:Coiuld MN Hockey adopt this is a guideline........then if there do appear to be shenanigans the DDs have a basis for discussion with the offending associations.....or other associations have a basis to go to the DD and request that another association be addressed?
Fair compromise. Deal.
To a degree, this already exists as the DD can assign teams to the appropriate level.
The local assn. can register their team where they want but that designation can be changed by the DD.
Still need a standard to reference.

Section 8 guy
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Post by Section 8 guy » Tue Feb 16, 2016 7:04 pm

Is there any further oversight to make sure that the DDs are handling any complaints appropriately?

elliott70
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Post by elliott70 » Wed Feb 17, 2016 2:36 am

The Exiled One wrote:
elliott70 wrote:
The Exiled One wrote:
Section 8 guy wrote:Coiuld MN Hockey adopt this is a guideline........then if there do appear to be shenanigans the DDs have a basis for discussion with the offending associations.....or other associations have a basis to go to the DD and request that another association be addressed?
Fair compromise. Deal.
To a degree, this already exists as the DD can assign teams to the appropriate level.
The local assn. can register their team where they want but that designation can be changed by the DD.
Still need a standard to reference.
I agree.

elliott70
Posts: 15425
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Location: Bemidji

Post by elliott70 » Wed Feb 17, 2016 2:37 am

Section 8 guy wrote:Is there any further oversight to make sure that the DDs are handling any complaints appropriately?
Yes, two methods.

1 Can be taken immediately by filing a grievance with MH.

2 DD are voted in by the local assn. every 3 years.

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