Minnesota Hockey state meeting - Moorhead

[PanthersIn2011]

Lakeville would not be complaining as loud if they were set to play D8 metro teams (Eagan, Woodbury, Rosemount, etc.) as opposed to Mankato and D4 teams

Is this not the case? I thought the "final" proposal had Lakeville playing in the North division, which was made up completely of D8 teams.

See, for example, the District 4 website: http://mnhdistrict4.pucksystems.com/

[elliott70]

Lakeville would not be complaining as loud if they were set to play D8 metro teams (Eagan, Woodbury, Rosemount, etc.) as opposed to Mankato and D4 teams

Is this not the case? I thought the "final" proposal had Lakeville playing in the North division, which was made up completely of D8 teams.

See, for example, the District 4 website: http://mnhdistrict4.pucksystems.com/

Yes, Lakeville will be in the D8 north division.

[SEMetro]

Is that a recent change? The LHA website has the powerpoint presentation LHA gave to MH this week-end, and in the powerpoint Lakeville is in the Central Division which is listed as Lakeville, Mankato, St. Peter, Waseca, Farmington, Northfield, New Prague, Faribault and Montgomery.

[elliott70]

Is that a recent change? The LHA website has the powerpoint presentation LHA gave to MH this week-end, and in the powerpoint Lakeville is in the Central Division which is listed as Lakeville, Mankato, St. Peter, Waseca, Farmington, Northfield, New Prague, Faribault and Montgomery.

Their power-point was not updated for the change from the August ??? meeting.
The three (Pres, VP and district rep) did avery nice job in their presentation (maybe over-dresseed ).
I do not remember if they were aware of the change prior to the meeting, but still desired a change to D6 when questioned about the re-positioning to north D8 division.

[SEMetro]

I do not remember if they were aware of the change prior to the meeting

That would be odd if they were unaware.

Most (all) of the associations in the D8 North Division are within 30 minutes of Lakeville depending on traffic and are about the same size or bigger than Lakeville - when you consider: (1) that Lakeville separates its boys youth teams by high school so it really competes as two different associations; and (2) SSP and IGH coop. However, I'm sure LHA would love to avoid going to Dodge County, Winona or Rochester for all its teams - not just A and B PW/BM.

[elliott70]

I do not remember if they were aware of the change prior to the meeting

That would be odd if they were unaware.

Most (all) of the associations in the D8 North Division are within 30 minutes of Lakeville depending on traffic and are about the same size or bigger than Lakeville - when you consider: (1) that Lakeville separates its boys youth teams by high school so it really competes as two different associations; and (2) SSP and IGH coop. However, I'm sure LHA would love to avoid going to Dodge County, Winona or Rochester for all its teams - not just A and B PW/BM.

I am sure they would. Most everyone I know would like to reduce the miles they are putting on their vehicles.
More car pooling .....
2 Dads and 4 players or
2 Dads 1 player and a goalie ... in the minivan.

[greybeard58]

If an association was really serious about switching a District why wait so long. It leaves an impression that because some things did not go their way now we want to switch. Had they been really planning for a while the issue should have been on the Annual meeting agenda in April or at the latest the Summer meeting in June. Yet they chose June 23 the Saturday on the Mn Hockey meeting to send a letter to District 8 according to a document posted on their site.

[whockeyguy]

f D-8 does not want Lakeville to leave then they should not, to go the back door route is still a joke and MN Hockey is a bigger joke to even allow ithemselves to listen to it without it going thru the proper channels,, ,, but Now all we will hear about is REDISTRICTERING,, well thats been going on for the last 20 years or so and nobody in MN Hockey has the BALLS to do anything about it ,,,,, TALK IS CHEAP and after 20 years that cheap talk gets expensive,,, I ask everybody out here do you really think when it come to a community that may have to leave a district for another, that there wont be a battle, and then MN Hockey will do the usual , TABLE IT,,,, Redistrictering will only happen if they give more power to District directors and take the votes away from those old cronies that stay around in those vp jobs,,,,,,,,,yes I sympothize with Lakeville for always hearing about redistrictering, but the back door is weak sorry Elliot didnt mean for you to get the private message

[goldy313]

To the best of my knowledge Lakeville has been trying to get out of District 8 for a few years now, the "merger" with Distict 4 just put the icing on the cake so to speak.

It looks like they're trying to please everyone which is impossible. Rochester will always complain and travel is just that, travel, people have to realize that when they sign up for hockey traveling is part of it. (And be honest, if you're playing A or B hockey in a large association money isn't really a big factor) Either go the way of the MSHSL and just figure that redistricting will occur every few years - you can't please everyone, but much like the weather it will change soon. If the pinnacle for most kids is high school hockey, maybe following the MSHSL regions would be a fair solution. Or use the American Legion baseball example and classify programs by size, this doesn't prevent smaller teams from playing larger ones but come playoffs they're seperate. They use 10 large districts and 8 small districts, by most accounts in the baseball world this is a fair and equitable system. http://www.tricitybaseball.org/mnalb.htm Their system isn't perfect for hockey but it rewards tougher districts with more state tournament bids than weaker or smaller districts thereby not punishing large districts and keeping travel down.

[Rocket78]

goldy313, Rochester teams do not have a problem traveling and it is the SE metro teams that whine about the 70 mile drive South. Zmolek and other Rochester organizers traveled to the D8 meetings to object to the interleague idea. In fact Rochester used to be in D4 but spent a number of years trying to move to D8. D8 accepted Rochester primarily because they had so many C travel teams that it was advantageous for D8 and D4 did not have traveling C leagues.

Please note that although I live near Rochester I am not a big fan of how they set up their teams. I only have to get one more kid through the system and I can spend the rest of my time watching the games as a fan and not as a parent.

[goldy313]

Merger/interleague play, same thing, try telling Northfield it's not a merger during their 225 mile drive to Luverne. The only difference comes in playoffs when you revert back to the old district alignment. Which is bad in and of itself, the Metro division is so much better than the other two it's silly.

Rochester complained when they were in 4, they complain in 8, they'll always have a gripe with someone. If I were in D8 I'd complain too, you have 4 geographic misfits in the largest district in the state. Anyone with any sense can look at a map and see the logical thing is to put the 4 misfits back in D4 and split D4 into 2 seperate disticts at I35, but Rochester won't let that happen because they're "too good" for Owatonna and Albert Lea so this was the compromise. So, by fighting so hard to stay in D8 Rochester probably is in a worse situation than they would have been had they moved to D4. Ironic, sometimes the enemy of good is better.

When my kids played Rochester was in D4 and I remember traveling to Luverne on a Sunday to play league games, it was awful - though the spaghetti dinners after at the VFW were nice.

Hindsight is 20/20 but RYHA should have stayed in D4 and split into 3 seperate associations at that time and continued their C league as a "house" league. They were fielding 9-10 bantam teams at that time, again this year they may be lucky to put 7 on the ice.

[elliott70]

to go the back door route is still a joke and MN Hockey is a bigger joke to even allow ithemselves to listen to it without it going thru the proper channels

I believe Lakeville went through the proper channels.

The fact they had to do this is our (MN Hockey board) fault for not being more demanding of ourselves to address all these types of problems and establish an orderly and logical method of redistricting every (insert number) few years.

WE (District Directors) were on course and then with changes in personnel got bogged down.

[whockeyguy]

so if D-8 said no to the change, so then lets bypass them right to MN Hockey, why have a district board, just let Mn Hockey deal with everything, does this mean that Mn Hockey will listen to every association that wants to change, but start haveing more meetings, cause the line will be long.,, But you said it best on redistrictering, it got personal , but with who, i believe the directors had a handle on it but, who and where dit it get personal. Maybe if its personal that there is a conflict of interest with people,.and if there is this will go nowwhere again as it has in the past 15 years, TIMES are changing , its about time Mn Hockey gets with it and relizes it before there is another organization that gets together and says the heck with this, ,,,If 30 or so of the top metro assocaitions just said were done with this and get together for them selves , well Mn Hockey its all over, Time is not on your hands,

[elliott70]

so if D-8 said no to the change, so then lets bypass them right to MN Hockey, why have a district board, just let Mn Hockey deal with everything, does this mean that Mn Hockey will listen to every association that wants to change, but start haveing more meetings, cause the line will be long.,,

They went to the D8 board and to the D8 director and to teh Maroon VP.
They were told they should come to the Board.
They did. No fault on them.

Yes, it could be a can opener (this issue and methodology), but at the same type it may be the impetus for providing logic to an ongoing problem. WE can and should solve this over the next 9 months.

Dialog has again begun among the DD's and I believe we can do it.

But I am open to comments suggestions, but NOT just put so and so here and these guys over here.

What I want is policy, a written document that can be applied every (insert #) three years and this is our districts.
That is eadch district ahs X number of associations (minimum/maximum type range); each district will have X number of A level teams; average travel will be (again a variant depending on where in the state you are OR for the core teams with one association exception or and other thought.
Consideration for other factors can be put in but we have the factors prioritized possibly weighted.
Etc.....

Then apply this to the current set-up and move associations, add districts, retract distracts, BUT DO WHAT WE NEED TO DO.

INPUT is welcome - Lee has given us a thread and suck it at the top here.
Or if someone wants to put in time at meetings adding to the ccommittee is possible.

[TriedThat2]

Elliott,
Correct me if I'm wrong, (I'm new here) but won't this type of request open the flood gates for MN Hockey. Every Association what wants to move will be requesting agenda time.

[elliott70]

Elliott,
Correct me if I'm wrong, (I'm new here) but won't this type of request open the flood gates for MN Hockey. Every Association what wants to move will be requesting agenda time.

Yes, it could, if they have gone to their district board, district director and cognizant Vice President.
But, yes, that is the method deemed appropriate by the MH board.

But if we can put a policy together; then that option will not be available because it will be addressed.
IF......... WE CAN DO THAT.

[SEMetro]

Elliott: I don't think it is all that hard to get a formula/system. First step is getting raw data. It seems to me you guys are going to need:

(1) a map with location of the main arena for all associations (something like this):

http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/googlemap.as ... 0&dclass=A;

and also

(2) association size information (# of members/# of teams) (something like this):

http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/enrollments07.asp

Get someone to gather it and post it on the MH website.

Then it becomes a matter of making circles.

The last issue is whether the circles overlap in some areas of the state (if you decide you want to line up similarly-sized associations for competitive reasons in certain districts).

[elliott70]

Elliott: I don't think it is all that hard to get a formula/system. First step is getting raw data. It seems to me you guys are going to need:

(1) a map with location of the main arena for all associations (something like this):

http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/googlemap.as ... 0&dclass=A;

and also

(2) association size information (# of members/# of teams) (something like this):

http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/enrollments07.asp

Get someone to gather it and post it on the MH website.

Then it becomes a matter of making circles.

The last issue is whether the circles overlap in some areas of the state (if you decide you want to line up similarly-sized associations for competitive reasons in certain districts).

Gathering the information has been the easy side.
Agreeing on the formula ahs not been.
But I will use both the sites you have here - looking at them now.
Thanks.

[GoldenBear]

Great information SEMetro....I wouldn't put Elmquist Home School with Eden Prairie ....seriously, thanks for these links.

[wannagototherink]

I would like to see MH go to a format that loosely resembles what the MSHSL does. Have 8 regions and each sends one team to the state tournament every year.

Require everyone to play home and away games with everyone in the region for seeding purposes. Seed based on these games for the Region tournament.

I'm sure there are flaws with this system, but really any scenario is going to have flaws. I think it could make for interesting playoffs, and should give a true showcase of the top teams at the state tournament.

[SEMetro]

MSHSL has 16 sections (2 classes).

[justletemplay]

The comment about the old cronnies (VP') who dont know what's going on....
I believe the DD's should have more power, the upper positions should administer what the DD's need for their district and whats best for all districts. Do we need a new President? Is Jorgenson not the right type of person ( he has done a good job with sponsors), are the VP's who are living in the 70's and only looking out for themselves as a power trip be replaced? I think it's about time there is a major shake up!
I know I can do a better job than most of those guys, yes they have a lot of experience and knowledge but they aren't using it for the sake of making MNH the best state to play in.
We need people who don't have an agenda to get involved, learn what's really going on and volunteer to get rid of the common practices that are going on now.