Time to renew the Rapids/Greenway rivalry

curtiscurve · Post by **curtiscurve** » Sat Feb 01, 2014 9:46 am

Last nights loss to VIB highlights the exact reasons Grand Rapids should hold off from scheduling games for history's sake. No matter what, GR is in a no win situation playing I Falls, Greenway, Eveleth or other teams they are expected to beat by a hand full of goals. If they win, people will say they either didn't win by enough or they ran up the score if they win by too much. If they lose, well then it becomes def-con 1, because how does the mighty Thunderhawks lose to a small class A range school. If Grand Rapids drops down to 7A or any of these Range school move up to 7AA, then I'm all for it. Otherwise, Grand Rapids should schedule 7AA schools at least once, keep Hibbing and VIB for 1 game each then round out their schedule with other top tier teams throughout the state. I would love to see the IRC back to its glory days, but until that happens, Grand Rapids has to do what is best to prepare them for the section 7AA tournament, and that is NOT accomplished by scheduling games for the sake of old rivalries.

greenway1969 · Post by **greenway1969** » Sat Feb 01, 2014 11:00 am

Coldzone you have nailed it. You cannot use past history as a predictor of future outcomes for high school hockey. I was guilty of that with Greenway. A better indictor is how the youth programs are competing with each other. At this point, Greenway youth teams are competitive with Rapids. I don't disagree that Rapids should schedule as many AA teams as possible, but competition will be available 5 miles down the road very soon.

north_bear · Post by **north_bear** » Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:20 pm

curtiscurve wrote:Last nights loss to VIB highlights the exact reasons Grand Rapids should hold off from scheduling games for history's sake. No matter what, GR is in a no win situation playing I Falls, Greenway, Eveleth or other teams they are expected to beat by a hand full of goals. If they win, people will say they either didn't win by enough or they ran up the score if they win by too much. If they lose, well then it becomes def-con 1, because how does the mighty Thunderhawks lose to a small class A range school. If Grand Rapids drops down to 7A or any of these Range school move up to 7AA, then I'm all for it. Otherwise, Grand Rapids should schedule 7AA schools at least once, keep Hibbing and VIB for 1 game each then round out their schedule with other top tier teams throughout the state. I would love to see the IRC back to its glory days, but until that happens, Grand Rapids has to do what is best to prepare them for the section 7AA tournament, and that is NOT accomplished by scheduling games for the sake of old rivalries.

Exactly!!! Well said.

Bigcat99 · Post by **Bigcat99** » Sat Feb 01, 2014 6:33 pm

north_bear wrote:
curtiscurve wrote:Last nights loss to VIB highlights the exact reasons Grand Rapids should hold off from scheduling games for history's sake. No matter what, GR is in a no win situation playing I Falls, Greenway, Eveleth or other teams they are expected to beat by a hand full of goals. If they win, people will say they either didn't win by enough or they ran up the score if they win by too much. If they lose, well then it becomes def-con 1, because how does the mighty Thunderhawks lose to a small class A range school. If Grand Rapids drops down to 7A or any of these Range school move up to 7AA, then I'm all for it. Otherwise, Grand Rapids should schedule 7AA schools at least once, keep Hibbing and VIB for 1 game each then round out their schedule with other top tier teams throughout the state. I would love to see the IRC back to its glory days, but until that happens, Grand Rapids has to do what is best to prepare them for the section 7AA tournament, and that is NOT accomplished by scheduling games for the sake of old rivalries.
Exactly!!! Well said.

X2