2015 State Tournament - Pick the Winners Challenge!

spars46 · Post by **spars46** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:51 am

2015 Class A Girls Hockey Tournament
Class A – Upper Bracket
Hutchingson 1 vs. #2 Blake 7
Alexandria 2 vs. #3 Red Wing 4

Semifinal Winner: Blake

Class A – Lower Bracket
New Ulm 0 vs. #1 Thief River Falls 9
#5 Hibbing/Chisholm 2 vs. #4 South St. Paul 3

Semifinal Winner: TRF

Class A State Champion: Blake

Class A Third Place Winner: Red Wing
Class A Consolation Winner: Hibbing

2015 Class AA Girls Hockey Tournament
Class AA – Upper Bracket
Eastview 1 vs. #2 Hill-Murray 5
Buffalo 3 vs. #3 Edina 4

Semifinal Winner: Edina

Class AA – Lower Bracket
Andover 1 vs. #1 Minnetonka 5
#5 Blaine 1 vs. #4 Lakeville South 2

Semifinal Winner: Tonka

Class AA State Champion: Tonka

Class AA Third Place Winner: Hill Murray
Class AA Consolation Winner: Blaine

Silent But Deadly · Post by **Silent But Deadly** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 9:15 am

2015 Class A Girls Hockey Tournament
Class A – Upper Bracket
Hutchingson 0, #2 Blake 8
Alexandria 1, #3 Red Wing 6

Semifinal Winner: Blake

Class A – Lower Bracket
New Ulm 0, #1 Thief River Falls 7
#5 Hibbing/Chisholm 1, #4 South St. Paul 2

Semifinal Winner: Thief River Falls

Class A State Champion: Blake

Class A Third Place Winner: Red Wing
Class A Consolation Winner: Hibbing/Chisholm

2015 Class AA Girls Hockey Tournament
Class AA – Upper Bracket
Eastview 1, #2 Hill-Murray 4
Buffalo 1, #3 Edina 3

Semifinal Winner: Hill-Murray

Class AA – Lower Bracket
Andover 1, #1 Minnetonka 4
#5 Blaine 2, #4 Lakeville South 3

Semifinal Winner: Minnetonka

Class AA State Champion: Hill-Murray

Class AA Third Place Winner: Edina
Class AA Consolation Winner: Blaine

speedskater · Post by **speedskater** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 9:51 am

Class A – Upper Bracket
Hutchinson vs. #2 Blake (Blake 7-1)
Alexandria vs. #3 Red Wing (Red Wing 6-2)

Semifinal Winner: Blake

Class A – Lower Bracket
New Ulm vs. #1 Thief River Falls (Thief River 7-2)
#5 Hibbing/Chisholm vs. #4 South St. Paul (South St. Paul 2-1)

Semifinal Winner: Thief River Falls

Class A State Champion: Blake

Class A Third Place Winner: Red Wing
Class A Consolation Winner: Hibbing

2015 Class AA Girls Hockey Tournament
Class AA – Upper Bracket
Eastview vs. #2 Hill-Murray (Hill Murray 6-2)
Buffalo vs. #3 Edina (Edina 5-1)

Semifinal Winner: Edina

Class AA – Lower Bracket
Andover vs. #1 Minnetonka (Tonka 4-1)
#5 Blaine vs. #4 Lakeville South (Lakeville South 3-2)

Semifinal Winner: Minnetonka

Class AA State Champion: Edina

Class AA Third Place Winner: Hill Murray
Class AA Consolation Winner: Blaine

Hansenbrother · Post by **Hansenbrother** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 9:53 am

2015 Class A Girls Hockey Tournament
Class A – Upper Bracket
Hutchingson vs. #2 Blake Blake 7-2
Alexandria vs. #3 Red Wing Redwing 5-3

Semifinal Winner: Blake

Class A – Lower Bracket
New Ulm vs. #1 Thief River Falls TRF 9-1
#5 Hibbing/Chisholm vs. #4 South St. Paul SSP 3-2

Semifinal Winner: TRF

Class A State Champion: TRF

Class A Third Place Winner: Redwing
Class A Consolation Winner: Hibbing/Chisholm

2015 Class AA Girls Hockey Tournament
Class AA – Upper Bracket
Eastview vs. #2 Hill-Murray HM 4-2
Buffalo vs. #3 Edina Edina 3-2

Semifinal Winner: HM

Class AA – Lower Bracket
Andover vs. #1 Minnetonka Minnetonka 5-0
#5 Blaine vs. #4 Lakeville South Blaine 3-1

Semifinal Winner: Blaine

Class AA State Champion: HM

Class AA Third Place Winner: Minnetonka
Class AA Consolation Winner: Lakeville South

panpan111 · Post by **panpan111** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:38 am

2015 Class A Girls Hockey Tournament
Class A – Upper Bracket
Hutchingson 0 #2 Blake 8
Alexandria 2 #3 Red Wing 4

Semifinal Winner: Blake

Class A – Lower Bracket
New Ulm 1 #1 Thief River Falls 6
#5 Hibbing/Chisholm 3 #4 South St. Paul 2

Semifinal Winner: Thief River Falls

Class A State Champion: Thief River Falls

Class A Third Place Winner: Red Wing
Class A Consolation Winner: Alexandria

2015 Class AA Girls Hockey Tournament
Class AA – Upper Bracket
Eastview 2 #2 Hill-Murray 5
Buffalo 2 #3 Edina 3

Semifinal Winner: Hill-Murray

Class AA – Lower Bracket
Andover 0 #1 Minnetonka 4
#5 Blaine 3 #4 Lakeville South 5

Semifinal Winner: Minnetonka

Class AA State Champion: Hill-Murray

Class AA Third Place Winner: Lakeville South
Class AA Consolation Winner: Blaine

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:33 pm

Early results from today's Class A afternoon session:

Hutchinson 0
#2 Blake 9

All of us had this one correct and a great job by u12dad to hit the correct score for an extra two points.

Alexandria 0
#3 Red Wing 3

All except one of us had the correct outcome. I won't say who missed this one, other than to say that his extraordinary prediction in the first game was negated by his less-than-stellar prediction in this game.

A 23-way tie for 1st place, with the person in last place only 1 point behind. Still plenty of hockey to be played and plenty of points to be earned. Good luck going forward.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:55 pm

Here's a frequency distribution (or what the arithmophobes might prefer to call a "list") of selections by our distinguished panel:

Class A

Upper Semi
24 Blake

Lower Semi
24 TRF

Champion
18 Blake
6 TRF

3rd Place
18 Red Wing
3 Hibbing
2 SSP
1 Alec

Consolation
9 Hibbing
6 SSP
4 New Ulm
3 Alec
1 Hutchinson
1 Red Wing

Class AA

Upper Semi
12 Edina
12 H-M

Lower Semi
21 Tonka
2 Blaine
1 Lakeville S

Champion
13 Tonka
7 H-M
4 Edina

3rd Place
10 H-M
8 Edina
2 Blaine
2 Lakeville S
2 Tonka

Consolation
12 Blaine
4 Buffalo
4 Eastview
3 Lakeville S
1 Andover

Good luck to all participants.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:20 pm

sinbin wrote:Here's a frequency distribution (or what the arithmophobes might prefer to call a "list")....

Sure looks like a list to me! Can you add some graphs or pictures or something?

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:47 pm

Having just watched the 1st period of the New Ulm/Thief River Falls game - which is a scoreless contest so far - it would appear that most of us, me included, totally underestimated the skill level of the Eagles. While the Prowlers have dominated in terms of shots on goal, New Ulm is moving the puck very well and has had a number of great scoring chances.

Highly doubtful that my 8-1 score prediction will get me any bonus points, and in fact who wins this game is still very much in doubt.

Also have to give kudos to Pete Wagoneer who is announcing these games on www.Prep45.com - great job!

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 7:15 pm

Thief River really picked it up in the 2nd period and now leads 3-0.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:28 pm

MNHockeyFan wrote:Thief River really picked it up in the 2nd period and now leads 3-0.

Final was 5-1. The Prowlers dominated the 2nd and 3rd periods and finished with a 58-9 shot advantage! New Ulm's Karlie Ries did very well in keeping the Prowlers to just five.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:52 pm

After one it's 1-0 Hibbing/Chisholm over the South St. Paul Packers. Hibbing/Chisholm also leads in the SOG Dept. by a 10-5 margin.

Of our 24 prognosticators, a slight majority (13/24) have Hibbing/Chisholm, the No. 5 seed, winning this game.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Feb 18, 2015 9:33 pm

The Packers maintain their one goal lead, now 2-1 after two periods of play. Two evenly matched teams going at it!

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 12:54 am

February 18 evening Class A scores, a pair of identical 5-1 scores.

TRF 5
New Ulm 1

We were unanimous in predicting a Prowler victory, but Nimrod distinguishes himself by hitting the correct score and taking a lead on the pack.

South St. Paul 5
Hibbing/Chisholm 1

A slight upset according to our illustrious panel as we had HC over SSP by a 13-11 edge. And those who did pick the Packers, all predicted a 1-goal game, so the score certainly did surprise us all. No correct game scores, but the start of separation of contestant scores.

Speaking of which, Nimrod used his correct score to spring into the lead, leaving the rest of us green (day) with envy. Plenty of action yet to come with the AA games on tap later today.

14 Nimrod
12 FishEye, goalie.coach.retired, Hansenbrother, hugo_lucas, nu2hockey, rwb1351, Silent But Deadly, sinbin, spars46, speedskater
9 36Guy, Knight7, massalsa, mnhockey3535, MNHockeyFan, Nordic, panpan111, rascalbrock, ShakestheClown, Sparlimb, topshelfblue, wolfman
8 1 other

Sparlimb appears to be lurking in the weeds, biding his time, and waiting to strike when the rest of us least expect it. Good luck to all.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 1:12 am

AA predictions by game and team today:

24 Hill-Murray
0 Eastview

24 Edina
0 Buffalo

24 Tonka
0 Andover

18 Lakeville South
6 Blaine

I thought the final game here may have been more closely contested by our panel. In any event, the winner of this game will find themselves one game away from playing for the state championship.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:20 pm

The afternoon session games ended as expected, but not without just a small measure of drama.

In game #1, Hill-Murray took care of business, defeating Eastview 6-1. H-M used a balanced scoring attack to secure the victory. We were unanimous in predicting a Pioneers win. While some of us were less than a minute away from securing two bonus points, a very late H-M goal made it 6-1 instead and gave bonus points to MNHockeyFan, topshelfblue, and 36Guy.

The second game had Edina defeating Buffalo 3-1. Buffalo took a lead early in the 3rd, Edina tied it shortly thereafter and then scored a power-play goal with 1:41 remaining to take the lead and an empty-netter with 18 seconds remaining iced it for the Hornets. Again, we were unanimous in this prediction, with wolfman, massalsa, and Silent but Deadly picking up correct score bonus points.

With two games remaining this evening in the AA quarterfinals, the leaderboard looks like this:

20 Nimrod, Silent But Deadly
18 FishEye, goalie.coach.retired, Hansenbrother, hugo_lucas, nu2hockey, rwb1351, sinbin, spars46, speedskater
17 36Guy, massalsa, MNHockeyFan, topshelfblue, wolfman
15 Knight7, mnhockey3535, Nordic, panpan111, rascalbrock, ShakestheClown, Sparlimb
14 1 other

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:20 pm

Also in the Class A Consolation round today, it was:

Alexandria 6, Hutchinson 3
Hibbing/Chisholm 3, New Ulm 2 (OT)

So Alex and H/C play for the Consolation Final on Saturday at Ridder with a 10AM start - worth 4 points to those here who guessed the winner.

Sparlimb · Post by **Sparlimb** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:02 pm

So about my home team that I was blathering on about...

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:31 am

sinbin wrote:Here's a frequency distribution (or what the arithmophobes might prefer to call a "list") of selections by our distinguished panel:

Class A

Upper Semi
24 Blake

Lower Semi
24 TRF

Champion
18 Blake
6 TRF

3rd Place
18 Red Wing
3 Hibbing
2 SSP
1 Alec

Consolation
9 Hibbing
6 SSP
4 New Ulm
3 Alec
1 Hutchinson
1 Red Wing

Class AA

Upper Semi
12 Edina
12 H-M

Lower Semi
21 Tonka
2 Blaine
1 Lakeville S

Champion
13 Tonka
7 H-M
4 Edina

3rd Place
10 H-M
8 Edina
2 Blaine
2 Lakeville S
2 Tonka

Consolation
12 Blaine
4 Buffalo
4 Eastview
3 Lakeville S
1 Andover

Good luck to all participants.

Including the above to show our final picks in one place.

In the AA evening session yesterday, things went as expected. The first game had Minnetonka blanking Andover 5-0. The Skippers enjoyed a 25-4 shot advantage over the Huskies. We were unanimous in our prediction while mnhockey3535, massalsa, and hansenbrother correctly predicted the score to earn 2 bonus points.

In the day's final game, Lakeville South's Morse scored a natural hat trick to lead the Cougars to a 3-1 victory over Blaine. 18 out of 24 were correct in this prediction, but no correct scores.

In Class A Consolation games yesterday, we had:

Alexandria 6 Hutchinson 3. Hutchinson took a 3-1 lead into the 3rd, but the Cardinals flew past over the Tigers, with 5 3rd-period goals. Bartels had a hat trick for Alec.

Hibbing/Chisholm 3 New Ulm 2 (OT). Hibbing/Chisholm nipped New Ulm in OT 3-2. The Bluejackets outshot the Eagles 50-37, so great job by both netminders and certainly a fun game to watch.

The selections for the Consolation champion are as follows, so about half of our panel still has an opportunity to pick up 4 points.

A Consolation
9 Hibbing
6 SSP
4 New Ulm
3 Alec
1 Hutchinson
1 Red Wing

The overall leaderboard looks like this:

26 Silent But Deadly
25 massalsa
24 FishEye, goalie.coach.retired, nu2hockey, rwb1351, sinbin, spars46, speedskater
23 36Guy, Hansenbrother, mnhockey3535, MNHockeyFan, Nimrod, topshelfblue
21 hugo_lucas, Knight7, Nordic, panpan111, ShakestheClown
20 u12dad, wolfman
18 2 others

As we hit the semis, things begin to get more interesting, at least on the Class 2AA side. For Class A, there is indeed no predictive drama as we unanimously picked Blake and Thief River Falls. Red Wing and South St. Paul, however, will certainly have something to say about this when they hit the ice in a few hours.

In Class 2AA, we are evenly split between Hill-Murray and Edina, a dozen prognosticators apiece. Only one brave predictor has Lakeville South advancing over Minnetonka, but if they do so, it would certainly cause great scoring upheaval. Recent years have featured some epic AA semi-final games, so we'll see what the X holds in store for tonight.

Silent but Deadly has executed laser precision in his picks so far. Will massalsa turn up the heat today and force Silent to miss his mark? Or will one of the horde of predictors lurking close behind at 23 and 24 points use a feint to throw off both leaders and charge into the lead?

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Fri Feb 20, 2015 10:21 am

Also a few more stats on correct scores, now that going forward they will no longer figure into the point totals:

Both classes combined, there were 8 quarterfinal games
We have 24 contestants
That's a total of 192 score predictions
There were 11 correct scores
Percent correct: 5.7%
Making the odds for predicting a correct score about 1 in 17.5

massalsa, with two correct scores and now sitting in 2nd place just one point off the lead, is the only contestant to get more than one game score correct.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Fri Feb 20, 2015 10:46 am

About the same odds as picking heads or tails correctly on a coin flip 4 times in a row.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Fri Feb 20, 2015 2:41 pm

In Class AA Consolation play today it was:

Eastview 3, Buffalo 2
Blaine 3, Andover 0

With four points at stake in our contest*, Eastview and Blaine advance to the Consolation Championship at 12PM tomorrow at Ridder.

*Unfortunately I had Buffalo winning the Consolation title

but can take some "consolation" in the fact that the Bison did outshoot the Lightning 33-17.

goalie.coach.retired · Fri Feb 20, 2015 3:57 pm

MNHockeyFan wrote:In Class AA Consolation play today it was:

Eastview 3, Buffalo 2
Blaine 3, Andover 0

With four points at stake in our contest*, Eastview and Blaine advance to the Consolation Championship at 12PM tomorrow at Ridder.

*Unfortunately I had Buffalo winning the Consolation title but can take some "consolation" in the fact that the Bison did outshoot the Lightning 33-17.

It's amazing the impact of a hot goalies this time a year. Hopefully you get 3 games.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Sat Feb 21, 2015 2:48 pm

A very abbreviated update since I've been out all day and soon back to X to watch live.

Hill-Murray took advantage of a late 5-minute penalty to score the game-winning power play goal with 4:12 remaining to win 2-1. Edina had a later power play opportunity, but couldn't net the equalizer. H-M outshot Edina 47-19, so kudos to the Hornets netminder for keeping her team alive. 12 out of 24 got this outcome correct, so this game was the great delineator.

Tonka topped Lakeville South 5-1, using a balanced scoring attack. The Cougars actually outshot the Skippers 28-27, but Minnetonka made the most of their opportunities.

Both finals should be fantastic today!

The leaderboard looks like this. Good luck in today's games.

46 Silent But Deadly
44 goalie.coach.retired
43 36Guy. MNHockeyFan, topshelfblue
41 Knight7, Nordic, panpan111
40 massalsa
39 FishEye, nu2hockey, rwb1351, sinbin, spars46, speedskater
38 Hansenbrother, mnhockey3535, rascalbrock, Sparlimb
36 hugo_lucas, ShakestheClown
35 2 others
33 1 other

Sparlimb · Post by **Sparlimb** » Sat Feb 21, 2015 11:00 pm

Had only 2 of us picked HM this time, I'd have a chance to win again. But seeing how the cat was out of the bag and my bad choice of picking Blaine as 3rd place winner, I'm out.