northerngal65 wrote:
It WAS worth it to attend Jr Fest 2010. My daughter was in Pool B and she did get a letter from a D3 school. If your daughter wants to continue to play hockey at ANY college level, I would recomend it. I know they are looked at by the scouts.
I actually liked the format. The majority of the games were very close in scoring and the cross over games were very good as well. It was very fun to watch and it was fun for my daughter to watch both pools. She got a better understanding of what she needs to continue to do and what she can improve on during her senior year of playing high school hockey.
I actually have talked to many parents and although the girls had a lot of fun, they did not like the format. My daughter participated in jr fest this year and ended up getting a lot of looks, but most girls only get looks based on their reputation. There were some very talented players in pool b and some "okay" players in pool a.
I have also talked to many parents (some with daughters in the A pool and some with daughters in the B pool), and most agree that the format is not a fair one. I also spoke to one high school coach who was very much against the two-pool format. He did not think high school coaches should be deciding which girls get looked at by D1 coaches or telling players that they are B players going into the festival.
My personal take on Junior Festival (and the NDP tryout process) is this: These tryouts do not reward the forward who backchecks well, digs the puck out of the corner so her teammate can score, or crashes the net for rebounds. These tryouts do not reward the defenseman who prevents the other team from scoring, blocks out players in front of the net, or makes a nice pass to her forward instead of skating it out of the zone. What it does reward is the flashy skater or the girl who has, along the way, been included in the top group of skaters. Some girls develop later in their career, making it extremely hard to crack that "top" billing as a junior or senior.
The simple fact that the A pool teams did not dominate the B pool teams in cross-over play or the final games tells me that the difference between the majority of players in both pools is minimal. However, by placing a girl in the B pool, the system has in effect removed that girl from consideration by D1 coaches even before she steps on the ice. It is unfortunate.
Very well said!!
There are lots of things I do not like about it; I don't like the fact that just because you are a coach doing the evaluating that you should have more kids in the NDP or Fests because you are a coach and can do that, it just does not look good! These are some of the stories I have heard this year by several people, Evaluators talking about players by names! the players should be numbers and anonymous, evaluators laughing when girls make mistakes and joke about it amongst themselves and others, Its too bad that at times the process looks flawed, and it could be such a good thing.
maybe most of these girls are done after high school. Your beating yourself up thinking that a girl who is good enough for D-1 hasn't been noticed and that junior fest will be her meal ticket. The only thing unfair is that the college coaches watch some brutal hockey to keep tabs on who they are interested in.
There are a number of issues with Jr. Fest. First, most of the committed player's don't participate, so you have a void of top level talent involved in the event. Second, the Jr. Whitecaps for the most part skipped the event as they were told it wasn't as important as the OS Prospects weekend following Jr. Fest. This kept out a number of other talented player's. The original concept of Jr. Fest was solid. After talking with a number of Div. 1 coaches the past couple of weeks I wonder if the number of them attending will drop in the next few years. They weren't overly impressed with the level of play.
hockeylife,mylife wrote:maybe most of these girls are done after high school. Your beating yourself up thinking that a girl who is good enough for D-1 hasn't been noticed and that junior fest will be her meal ticket. The only thing unfair is that the college coaches watch some brutal hockey to keep tabs on who they are interested in.
I certainly am not "beating myself up" over JuniorFest, nor is my daughter. JuniorFest is by no means the be-all, end-all recruiting event. I'm sure some families even debated whether participating in JuniorFest was going to be worth their time and money. However, for MN girls that do not have an opportunity to play in an Eastern tournament, it is one of the few chances to be seen by coaches from out East. In my opinion, being placed in the B pool is not so much about the missed D-1 offer; it is about the missed opportunity.
My daughter played in the Junior Fest and had a blast. Granted she was selected for the B pool and she went in knowing that she would most likely not get any looks by Division I schools, but that did not bother her. However, she went in with the additude that playing hockey in college would be fun and if a Division III school talked to here that would be great. After Junior Fest, She did get some calls from some Division III schools and is looking forward to checking the schools out to see if they fit her carreer goals.
*By the way, Her B pool team won the championship, I was not there but I understand she and her partner that shared the net had a decent tournament.
Our experience with Division 1 recruiting is that while Junior Fest does give exposure to Division 1 schools, if your daughter is not on their radar already, they will not be spending much time looking at her. One way you know if she is on the radar is if she had received any e-mail from them during her Junior year. By this time, the college coaches have the list of players they are going to go after. They use this as one more opportunity to watch them play and solidify their opinions.
Last edited by Thunderbird77 on Fri Jul 23, 2010 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thunderbird77 wrote:Our experience with Division 1 recruiting is that while Junior Fest does give exposure to Division 1 schools, if your daughter is not on their radar already, they will not be spending much time looking at her. The way you know if she is on the radar is if she had received any e-mail from them during her Junior year. By this time, the college coaches have the list of players they are going to go after. They use this as one more opportunity to watch them play and solidify their opinions.
Totally disagree. My daughter only rec'd emails from Minnesota schools before Jr fest. After fest she started getting emails from east teams. Yes, they have a list but will always notice a player who sticks out whether on the list or not. Girls/players get better by the month especially between Jr and Sr seasons.
As I've stated before it's never to late to get noticed. Email all teams you might be interested in. Let them know you're interested and send game tape and your summer/school schedules.
Remember you can only do what you think you can do and will never do what you think you can't do.
Agree that some coaches may not make contact until after JuniorFest. We went through a similar experience. In fact, the first home visit we had was from a school that had never contacted our daughter previously. We asked the coaches we met what led to their interest in our daughter. The coaches talked to our daughter about the different places they had seen her play. I can't remember Junior Fest ever being mentioned. I guess the experience can be different for different players.
Thunderbird77 wrote:Agree that some coaches may not make contact until after JuniorFest. We went through a similar experience. In fact, the first home visit we had was from a school that had never contacted our daughter previously. We asked the coaches we met what led to their interest in our daughter. The coaches talked to our daughter about the different places they had seen her play. I can't remember Junior Fest ever being mentioned. I guess the experience can be different for different players.
I do know that there were a lot of coaches at Jr. Fest in the beginning of the week. But most of those coaches left because they felt as though the pace was too slow