elliott70 wrote:HShockeywatcher wrote:elliott70 wrote:HSHW
Apparently you have not been following....
Monticello is and has been a AA school for hockey.
MAMl requested to play at a lower level.
Monticello is a solid community and school district.
They have a decent youth program.
They pull in some quality players from their coop schools.
They recruited a Euroean player of a high quality.
They are trophy hunters.
So Bo questions their motives.
Some or all of this can be argued,
What from this thread would get you to think I'm "not following" these things? I'm well aware of the things that are being claimed here; I'm asking for numbers to back them up. When person A makes a claim, person B refutes it and person A has nothing to back it up and just says that we can disagree, that doesn't further the conversation or help inform others. I've seen person A make claims about the "best players" on the team, person B say "these players from the top of scoring are from Monticello" and nothing back to that.
In your opinion, should River Lakes, Minneapolis, Monticello, Minnehaha, New Ulm, Winona, LSHSPTCUC, Faribault and Dodge County (and Como last year) all be AA because "They have AA numbers?" Or should there be consideration for some of them about why they are forming their programs?
Well, that is my question.
How does MSHSL decide these? What is the criteria?
If it is just because you have not been successful, seems not enough to allow.
Minneapolis is easier to understand because of economics, diverse population, low youth hockey numbers, and so on.
But Bo (not trying to speak for him, but my perspective) believes MAML is playing the system.
The numbers to back them up are pretty self-evident.
Strong economic community and school system, strong youth program numbers.
Their numbers put them in the AA category.
So, was their request to play down proper? Was granting it right? Is their recruiting (if true), proof of trophy hunting?
There is enough on surface to question how the decision was made.
As to the others, how is that decision made?
As for football, not sure how that plays in, but to my knowledge you don't see move downs to a smaller class.
My contention/refute (whatever you want to call it) in general for
years has been the
why in these schools forming the co-ops, especially as I grew up in Minneapolis. We aren't talking about situations where a AA school like Osseo has a co-op, presumably, so students from a nearby school have a place to play, we are generally talking about multiple Class A sized schools coming together so they can each form a team.
Right now, the cut off for AA is 1181. If, for example, two schools with enrollments of 600 each have 12 high school aged skaters and can't put teams together by themselves then come together to have one team, does it make sense that they are now in AA because of the total enrollments of the schools? I don't think so. And, based on the number of co-ops with total "enrollments" over 1181, it seems to not be the standard that teams are in AA.
None of the cooperative teams that I have listed have AA enrollments on their own.
As for the other opinions expressed, I've been trying to gather information to understand those. I have seen a program that has been the subject of huge lopsided section defeats for years. In an article, we found they haven't won a quarterfinal game in many years. Until recently, I had no idea they were a co-op team and it turns out that none of the teams in the co-op have AA enrollments alone. As an outsider, from the limited information I have, it appears that the program does not have the numbers it once had; 6 years ago they had 13 Annandale skaters on varsity and last year they had 18 Annandale skaters in their youth program. It's not a lot to go off, but I can understand not wanting their teams to go into sections and have to play in the lopsided games they have had.
I've also known many different ADs over the years. Yes, they are people too and want to win too and there are definitely abuses that go on, but, in general, they are educators who want to do what benefits children. When co-ops are formed
less kids get to make the team. Multiple ADs aren't going to come together to form teams and end up with half as many kids participating in athletics. There seems to be a longstanding relationship here, but, in a vacuum, I'd assume that if this co-op could be broken to allow more students to participate in athletics, that would happen.
Agreed that football isn't analogous here. As has been touted here for years, "hockey is different." A school with 50 boys can have a football team that is competitive, heck some of these coops are made up of schools that are really good at football but can't field hockey teams. To my knowledge, boys hockey has more opt ups than almost all other sports combined. Hockey is different.
Anyway, just my two cents. I'd love to be more informed...
