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It would be nice if LPH would recognize the "little guy" every once and while. There are deserving candidates who carried their teams (Hunter, Klatt, Herzog) who happen to play for teams that are .500 or below. I guess what LPH is telling those kids is that they should have transfered to a school that has more overall talent. Sad.

I also thought that this was a HS award and not a college potential award.? I guess not. They should rename the award for senior goalie with the most college potential. Then some of us would not have to waste our time.

Good luck to the 5 candidates. Since most of them have only faced about 250 shots this season they should be fresh when the banquet comes around.

breezers wrote:Another thing is ask any good goalie coach what does GAA mean. Apparently Let's Play Hockey doesn't know. Goals Against Average is how a team performs NOT the goalie, the goalie performance is based on save percentage

I agree completely! I have always believed that if you are judging a goalie on statistical results then the best measurement for judging a goalie’s true ability is save percentage. Goals Against Average (GAA) should be thrown out the window!

I hate to say it but with the lack of parity in Girls Hockey there will always be lopsidedness in the GAA. As a comparison, you look at the Kennedy’s goalie Kari Hunter who see’s 40 to 70 shots per game and then comparing it to EP’s Maddie Burke who sees between 15 to 30 shots per game. Obviously the GAA will be substantially different in favor of EP’s goalie Burke. However if you compare the two goalies using Save Percentage (SV%), Maddie is .937 and Kari is .925.

And, since Burke is our EP goalie, I feel I must point out that Burke has a better Save Percentage, & Goals Against Average then the 2 Eagan Ms. Goalie Candidates who play in the same conference. And opn top of it all, Hunter (who has no support defensively) has a better SV% then Altmann.

Here are the Save Percentages of the Top 5 Finalists I got from the MGHCA web page:

Justice - .957 SV%
Gallagher - .954 SV%
Piper - .935 SV%
Grogan - .932 SV%
Altmann - .923 SV%

I am not saying the 2 Eagan Gal’s don’t belong as finalists, but how do you pass on Burke (EP - .937 SV%), Alwin (Hastings - .946 SV%), Carpenter (Centennial - .939 SV%), etc… if the Ms. Goalie is based on their Senior Year performance. Which it must be if Kate Gallaher (who moved in her senior year) made the top 5 Finalists.

Just doesn’t seem right!

Roman Legion wrote:I also thought that this was a HS award and not a college potential award.? I guess not. They should rename the award for senior goalie with the most college potential. Then some of us would not have to waste our time.

Good luck to the 5 candidates. Since most of them have only faced about 250 shots this season they should be fresh when the banquet comes around.

Shouldn't come as too much a surprise as the Ms Hockey and Ms Goalie awards are voted on by college coaches.

hard to argue with your point breezer

The talent of the goalies in this years senior class certainly seems to be exceptional. There are a lot of senior goalies who have had outstanding careers and will leave a huge void too fill for their respective teams next year. With as many qualified candidates as there were this year it's too bad the people doing the nominating did not appear too place more effort on researching the candidates.

Save % is a huge factor in a goalies numbers How ever the rebounds pre vented is a bigger factor. For instance when Grogen was in Vermont she allowed 4 rebounds in 6 shots and allowed Little Caesers to beat the very dominating Jr white caps 4-0, shots were 35- 8 jr white caps. Or when the White caps lost to the Ice cats at Shattuck 8- 4 and out shot the Ice Cats 2-1. If the Jr White Caps would have had goaltening like the Ice Cats (Burke,EP, Klatt,Woodbury) Or Walser BLue (Carpenter Centennial, Daniel Justice Alex) they would have won both the Vermont tourny and Shattuck, Must have been a really dominating US performance for a US win with the tenders they had IMHO. The White Caps were unbelievable with the puck, supurb players. They should have won every game this summer and fall. The popularity vote really showed with the Jr White caps Goalies!!!!! About a 50% save Maybe!!!

Funny you should mention it, All the talk about National developement and how dominating Grogan has been, Carpenter was the East 1988-89 goalie with Mickey Jobman of Cretin, for phase 2 and shut out The west and north that year as a sophomore, Grogan was in the younger class! Had she not had a shoulder injury she would have Given her and her name a run for the money.

I hope all the Goalie Hype doesn't distact Eagan from from another state birth. They Have had the BEST Goalies for years and havn't done a thing!!!!!! Plumm won a state Championship with Stillwater( Walser),
Burke a state Championship with EP (Ice Cats). I know they are the best so this year it will be GROGEN OF EAGAN. They aren't ranked any higher or lower than Plumm was for Stillwater!!!

keepitreal wrote:Shouldn't come as too much a surprise as the Ms Hockey and Ms Goalie awards are voted on by college coaches.

Are College Coaches truly the only ones who vote for Ms. Hockey and Ms. Goalie? If that were the case, that would really surprise me? Because how many College Coaches visit (or see) every hockey player in the state?

Back to my example of Kari Hunter of Kennedy, how many College Coaches have actually seen her play? My guess is that most of the nominating College Coaches have not. Probably not because of her lack of ability, but more because she doen’t see any press or plays on a losing team. There is no motivation for College Coaches to attend one of the Kennedy games when instead the College Coaches can go to a BSM, EP, Eagan, Roseville, etc. game and see a multitude of talent in one sitting.

An argument can be made that they must visit (or see) all players in the State because they found Annie Schleper who plays for a team that most have never heard of. This is a gal who has her head on right for not transferring to a more predominant school so she could get more exposure. And as I understand it, she and an EP defensemen are thought of as 1 & 2 in the State defensively!

So back to my original question. Is it really true that only College Coaches have a vote into who Ms. Hockey and Ms. Goalie will be? Is there somewhere on the web that provides nominating and voting policies and procedures? It would be nice to know definitively who decides these outcomes… especially since the Hockey Community makes such a “Big Deal” over this!

BREEZER-you make a terrific point with the goals against argument. being that this is a goalie award the team in front of you shouldnt effect your chances of winning this award except for how that goalie has helped that team in front of them. either way GAA is a horrible stat and save % is the way to go when judging a player on stats.

Another thing to look at is the nonconference schedule each team plays. I would argue that hunter (kennedy goalie) should be in this top 5. if she had transferred to say burnsville or stillwater where they win games and dont have a golalie there is no doubt in my mind that she would be in the top 5, if not the winner. when you compare conference schedules of eagan and kennedy they are obviously the same and hunter is seeing probably 75% more shots in her season then either eagan goalie. but its hard to compare their overall stats when eagan plays roseville, blake, breck, hopkins, new prague in tehir non conference schedule.

Ontheroadagain-you also make a very valid point about carpenter but when looking at goalies or any other players also look at the loyalty they have to their team. I give altman and grogen a lot of credit for sticking with their teams and having to make up with lack of hs ice time on summer teams. i believe she's from chicago lakes and played for forest lake AND centennial? also remember grogen tried out at phase 2 with a TORN MCL! carpenter's shoulder injury must have been pretty serious
Also when the whitecaps played the ice cats in shattuck grogan was not there and nikki harralson played that game. hard to put the blame on grogan for that one in my opinion

all in all i agree that this class of goalies is arguably one of the best to come out of minnesota. between the 5 finalists, burke, klatt, carpenter, hunter...its really too bad there isnt more award to give out.

JustAGuy wrote:

keepitreal wrote:Shouldn't come as too much a surprise as the Ms Hockey and Ms Goalie awards are voted on by college coaches.

Are College Coaches truly the only ones who vote for Ms. Hockey and Ms. Goalie? If that were the case, that would really surprise me? Because how many College Coaches visit (or see) every hockey player in the state!

...or so it was said in last year's thread by Roman Legion.

The criteria for Ms Hockey and Ms Goalie are an annual point of contention as a quick search of the prior year's threads will show. LPH no longer has the criteria and description of the voting panel listed, but for Ms. Hockey at least, it used to say it was judged a panel of college coaches and LPH writers. I would assume some HS coaches contribute and it's true the coach must nominate their player for these honors.

holyhockey wrote:Between the 5 finalists, burke, klatt, carpenter, hunter...its really too bad there isnt more award to give out.

Not to mention Richards, Haralson, Herzog, Kassa, Lenz, etc. A great class no matter how you measure it.

when you compare conference schedules of eagan and kennedy they are obviously the same and hunter is seeing probably 75% more shots in her season then either eagan goalie. but its hard to compare their overall stats when eagan plays roseville, blake, breck, hopkins, new prague in tehir non conference schedule.

Actually, Kennedy plays only a "one-half" Lake schedule. Kennedy sees the stronger teams in the Lake (e.g., Burnsville, Eagan, Eastview, Eden Prairie) only once. Sometimes Kennedy schedules a Lake team like Rosemount for a second non-conference game.

I know it's a bit too late, but if you look at her numbers, and the unbelieveable game-saving stop against Eastview on Saturday, Hastings' Devon Alwin deserves a little more credit than she has (not) gotten.

It's a disgrace that Carpenter (and Burke) were not named to the 2008 Ms. Goalie top finalist! We have all heard on this thread all of their accomplishements...save percentage & goals against...won't reiterate on that point! Not only is Carpenter a very accomplished well rounded person-she had the brains to realize that the academics at CENTENNIAL would be more of a benefit to her in the long run than attending Forest Lake High School. Centennial is a first class-award winning school district. So please so not bring up the "loyalty" to their schools/teams. Loyalty to your school/team is not going to get you an A in college chemistry! Which in fact Carpenter will need considering she is going into the Pharmacy field!

UWhockey88 wrote:It's a disgrace that Carpenter (and Burke) were not named to the 2008 Ms. Goalie top finalist!

I am not sure if I would use the term “disgrace”... maybe shame would be more appropriate.

If Carpenter and Burke had been named as finalists, then that would have meant that 2 of the current 5 finalists would not have been named, which then in turn would have generated postings by others that their goalie was disgraced.

It is just too bad that there were so many great candidates for this honor!

However, I still am not sure how this award and the Ms. Hockey award are selected. There have been some posts that state something along the lines of “…well, HOCKEYGURU posted last year that it was college coaches who choose…” or a posting along the lines of “…well, I have heard through others that it is College Coaches….” But no one has stepped forward and said “This is how the nomination and voting process works and this is why I know for a fact it is done this way”

Is it just a couple guys at Let’s Play Hockey whose ears are easily bent in the direction of who’s talking to them? Or is there actually a systematic process?

I am not saying the system is flawed, I just (and it sounds like others) would like to know how the decision is made and who makes it?

Pretty simple question I would think. But maybe the process is so flawed that Let’s Play Hockey doesn’t want people to know how they come to the decision.

JustAGuy wrote:But maybe the process is so flawed that Let’s Play Hockey doesn’t want people to know how they come to the decision.

Or LPH actually does have a set criteria of how they go about picking a winner, and it isn't really flawed but they choose to not release the details on how it actually works. Their thinking may be if they did make their system public, their choice of the winner would only lead to more second guessing than we have now.

Just another possibility -

MNHockeyFan wrote: Or LPH actually does have a set criteria of how they go about picking a winner, and it isn't really flawed but they choose to not release the details on how it actually works. Their thinking may be if they did make their system public, their choice of the winner would only lead to more second guessing than we have now.

Just another possibility -

and a very good possibilty........

Just for the record, again, I am not second guessing their choices for Ms. Hockey and Ms Goalie. Just would like to know how the whole process works. It's just my nature I guess!

I just hope it's not the 2 guys in a room with bent ears.......

JustAGuy wrote:

MNHockeyFan wrote: Or LPH actually does have a set criteria of how they go about picking a winner, and it isn't really flawed but they choose to not release the details on how it actually works. Their thinking may be if they did make their system public, their choice of the winner would only lead to more second guessing than we have now.

Just another possibility -

and a very good possibilty........

Just for the record, again, I am not second guessing their choices for Ms. Hockey and Ms Goalie. Just would like to know how the whole process works. It's just my nature I guess!

I just hope it's not the 2 guys in a room with bent ears.......

Or maybe they just have all of the names of the chosen goalies in a hat and pull them out!

With all the discussion and speculation on this, I'm wondering has anyone called Let's Play Hockey and asked them what the process is? I can't believe it is such a secret that they wouldn't give out that information.
It's long distance from here, so if anyone calls be sure to post the info!

Ok, curious.

Why are their 10 Ms. Hockey finalists and only 5 Ms. Goalie finalists?

Simply numbers as there are less goalies than other positions?

SportsMa wrote:Ok, curious.

Why are their 10 Ms. Hockey finalists and only 5 Ms. Goalie finalists?

Simply numbers as there are less goalies than other positions?

I'd venture a guess that is why. There are 1500 F & D's listed on the Coaches website, and just a little over 200 goalies. I'm not privvy to any inside info, but have heard that the list to vote on for goalies after the recommendations come in from the coaches has 10 names on it. Who narrows it to 10, I haven't a clue. What happens after that - ? I'd like to hear more about it as well. Some one call LPH and get some facts!!

mnpuckmaster wrote:I know it's a bit too late, but if you look at her numbers, and the unbelieveable game-saving stop against Eastview on Saturday, Hastings' Devon Alwin deserves a little more credit than she has (not) gotten.

Oh yeah, she set a team record with nine shutouts (so far) this season.

I agree with you, before the end of the year I commented on Alwin's play. Seen her play a few games and both StillH20 games. She has skills and unfortunately is overlooked. When it comes down to it, you do have to have talent, but you also need the exposure and and engine to get your name out there. For what it's worth she's a good player.

For anyone interested in reading more about Danielle Justice from our today's local paper: http://www.echopress.com/articles/index ... ion=Sports

To no one's surprise, Alyssa Grogan is Ms Goalie 2008:

LPH Story

Congratulations to her!