HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

For the periods:

I would like to see 16 minute periods in all playoff games. Also, running time after 5 goals would probably be sufficient. I am not sure that needs to be changed or not, but I am just tossing it out there.

O-townClown wrote:Why does Minnesota Hockey use July 1 instead of the school cut-off, which I believe is September 1? Is it because kids often are held back at kindergarten if they just miss the date, opting to be the oldest in their class versus the youngest?

It is setup this way so most classmates (ie 8th and 9th grade bantams) are on the same team. If MN Hockey changes to Jan 1st, an early year player (95 birth year) and a late year player (94 brith year) would/could be on differnt teams, yet be in the same grade academically. Make sense?

RL, no. You've just explained why Minnesota moved off birth year in an attempt to answer my question on why July 1st is used versus the school cut.

All good input.............

1. Keep the age groups based on school classes, adjustment to age date should be restructured to allow for kids to play within their grade level, allowing to opt up and opt down, currently I believe they can only opt up. Since the youth prgrams are a feeder for the high school programs, if a school recognizes a June 25, 1993 birthday as an eighth grader and bantams is recognized as 8th and 9th graders; a kid with that birthday should be allowed to opt for bantams again instead of his bantam eligibility being used up when he goes into the ninth grade.

2.Get rid of the "unfairplay" point. Penalty already puts a team at a disadvantage. The system is allowing coaches to choose their teams based on size and physical play and it also changes the way they coach, in a negative way (see below for explanation). The intent of the fair play point is good but coaches and players have adjusted and are abusing this ability to gain a point in the standings and thats just plain wrong and teaches kids the wrong things.

3.The standards of play are the standards of play, they do not change based on size!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This has to be enforced and addressed with officials at all levels, see below for explanation.

The combination of the fair play point and the standards of play has created a system that punishes a larger player forcing him to alter the way he plays at a young age, in turn affecting his development and hurting him when he gets older (i.e. don't hit you'll get a penalty, resulting in kids not learning that part of the game until they get older and they have spent there youth years learning to not do something and then they finally have to do it all at once). It also hurts the smaller players they are being taught to use there sticks more against bigger players and put themselves in positions to draw penalties, basically a smaller player can do whatever they want to bigger player because he won't fall down and they get away with it because the larger stronger player can fight through it. These players are going to come out unprepared when the playing field levels and people catch up to each other in the size department.

1) Drop the 4 hour wait in between games.
2) Address the population changes, and redistrict.

One more thing, take steps to reduce the number of whistles during a game. Best examples are to go back to touch up offsides and to add in touch up icing, especially at the upper levels. The kids will be skating more, there will be more flow. Take the puck out of the referees hands and put it back onto the kids sticks. Then add more time to the periods.

O-townClown wrote:RL, no. You've just explained why Minnesota moved off birth year in an attempt to answer my question on why July 1st is used versus the school cut.

Sent you a pm.

I believe (I could be wrong) that USA Hockey was July 1st up until a few years ago. They may have changed to Jan 1st to avoid confusion s to Advanced 14-17? MN Hockey decided to leave it as it was to keep the kids in the same school class.

Elliott should know when USA Hockey changed.

Is that what you wanted?

Tag up rule for offsides. Way too mnay whistles in youth hockey. Canadians got it figured out.

Keep Age cut off as is in Minnesota to keep grades together.

Restore Regional playoff back to pool winners getting 2 shots at getting to state.

fromthecrease wrote:All good input.............

1. Keep the age groups based on school classes, adjustment to age date should be restructured to allow for kids to play within their grade level, allowing to opt up and opt down, currently I believe they can only opt up. Since the youth prgrams are a feeder for the high school programs, if a school recognizes a June 25, 1993 birthday as an eighth grader and bantams is recognized as 8th and 9th graders; a kid with that birthday should be allowed to opt for bantams again instead of his bantam eligibility being used up when he goes into the ninth grade.

What do you mean by "using up his bantam eligibility"? Its up to the local association to govern "move up" players and if a peewee age moves up early to bantams, he can still play three years of bantams.

I do like the idea of touch up offsides. The touch up icing, I am not in favor of. What you end up with is two kids racing for the puck at full speed into a wall. There is way too much of a chance of serious colision and injury by doing it. It works in the NHL, because if I go rail somebody into the boards on an icing play, Boogeyman is coming out my next shift to stomp me into a pile on the ice for what I did, obviously I don't want that so I avoid the colision. A bantam player can't do that.

Elliott.

My only strong feeling is the Fair Play point. It has run its course and it is time for it to go. It was a solution that was seeking a problem that did not exist in MN hockey. You need to go and tell Dr. Aynsley Smith and the Mayo Clinic that MN Hockey can run its own program, and that their money can be better spent elsewhere, ie. scholarships.

If this is such a great program, why is no one else doing it? To my knowledge, MN is the only state that uses FPP. I also have to laugh at the HS, and college coaches that support it. I wounder if they would support it if they had to use it, my guess is no.

Bottom line, the team that wins... wins.

RLStars wrote:

O-townClown wrote:RL, no. You've just explained why Minnesota moved off birth year in an attempt to answer my question on why July 1st is used versus the school cut.

Sent you a pm.

I believe (I could be wrong) that USA Hockey was July 1st up until a few years ago. They may have changed to Jan 1st to avoid confusion s to Advanced 14-17? MN Hockey decided to leave it as it was to keep the kids in the same school class.

Elliott should know when USA Hockey changed.

Is that what you wanted?

MN Hockey had changed from Sept 1 to match USA Hockey date of July1.
The next year January 1 became the date.
MN Hockey decided to not chnage and not change back to Sept 1 becasue of all the confusion in changes that had/were being made. Teh decision was to re-visit the Sept 1 date a couple of years later. We have not re-visited that change until now (actually started 12/8/07 as part of the discussion), but we are considering teh date of cut-off now.

Hope that helps.

DumpandChase1 wrote:Elliott.

My only strong feeling is the Fair Play point. It has run its course and it is time for it to go. It was a solution that was seeking a problem that did not exist in MN hockey. You need to go and tell Dr. Aynsley Smith and the Mayo Clinic that MN Hockey can run its own program, and that their money can be better spent elsewhere, ie. scholarships.

If this is such a great program, why is no one else doing it? To my knowledge, MN is the only state that uses FPP. I also have to laugh at the HS, and college coaches that support it. I wounder if they would support it if they had to use it, my guess is no.

Bottom line, the team that wins... wins.

Agreed, but have yet to garner enough support.

Get RID of the Regional pool play format. The double elimination format used previously was much fairer, exciting, and you either earned your spot in state or you did not. The pool play format leaves way too many teams wondering why they did not get a chance to play for a berth in the "big dance" when their pool play results were equal if not better than other teams that got to participate in the "play-in" game. You should get to the state tournament by wins and losses, not by the luck of the draw regarding what pool you ended up in, and what mathematical calcuation determined that you must go home.

ND uses the FPP too.

The FPP has cut down on the penalties. The problem I have is the checking from behind / boarding call. It is too inconsistent from ref to ref. I have seen an obvious check from behind commited by a home team that was called a boarding because the ref didn't want the team to lose their FPP. You find another ref that gives a game DQ for a hit that wasn't half as bad (Invitational tournament game, no FPP involved) Both games were in the same town, two different refs, two different philosophies on why the call was made.

A refs job is tough enough to have to worry about district standings because of how he/she makes a call. I would like to see player / coach conduct as the determining factor in the FPP (if it has to be used) not losing a point because of 6 lazy penalties. If a coach is making a spectacle out of himself or if the kids and parents are mouthy and making a refs job h*ll, then they should lose their FPP. I know this puts the burden back on the refs and isn't a perfect idea, just giving my thoughts!

Elliott, RL:

Thanks. That explains it. USA Hockey has moved it around and Minnesota tried at times to keep up.

The calender year cutoff should be used because it matches USA Hockey.

The "keep grades together" argument is a fallacy. The very reason we use a date certain age cutoff instead of grades is because kids in the same grade are different ages.

Examples:
My son's Squirt group has kids in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade.
My son's PW group has kids in 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade.

From another angle:
3/4th graders play both Mites and Squirts.
5/6th graders play both PWs and squirts.
7/8th graders play both PW and Bantams.

LesHabs brings up a great point. Go back to the old regional format. The double elimination is the way to go, not sure why MN Hockey changed it in the first place.

hockeyparent11 wrote:The calender year cutoff should be used because it matches USA Hockey.

The "keep grades together" argument is a fallacy. The very reason we use a date certain age cutoff instead of grades is because kids in the same grade are different ages.

Examples:
My son's Squirt group has kids in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade.
My son's PW group has kids in 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade.

From another angle:
3/4th graders play both Mites and Squirts.
5/6th graders play both PWs and squirts.
7/8th graders play both PW and Bantams.

There is obviously going to be some overlap and thats mostly due to kids being held back and starting when they turn five. Some kids born in the summer months (May - August) do not start school as a five year old becuaed of developemental reasons (ie would be better academically to be oldest in class vs. youngest) and in this day and age its happening more and more for athletics. If you start them as a six year old, you get an extra year to develope physically as a senior in HS.

So for the most part, your kids actual class mates as a second year whatever, and the grade behind him are on the same team level. With a Jan date, more kids would play with kids of a different class because MN Hockey does not break the level down into Minor and Major as USA Hockey does (AAA teams). If we di that, a Jan birth year in the same class as a Dec player (one month older) would be on different teams.

id like to add that touch up offsides makes alot of sense not sure why we got rid of it in the first place.

1. Tag up offsides for Bantam (all levels), PeeWee (all levels) and Squirt (A level)...A Squirts will not have a problem with this.

2. Checking From Behind - make sure that the penalty associated will cause a change in learned behavior - that may mean having to go to an extreme to make the kids think twice about their actions.

If someone has a specific question they would like answered, highlight your post somehow and I will try and explain MN Hockey position or give you an answer.

elliott70 wrote:If someone has a specific question they would like answered, highlight your post somehow and I will try and explain MN Hockey position or give you an answer.

Elliott, I asked one about blue pucks. At what age are they used and when do kids move to black? Is there any variance by association?

Elliot I forgot one biggy.

Get away from the ridiculous individual skills mantra USA Hockey tries to shove down the throats of Minnesotan's. That can go right along iwth those sad blue pucks! Last time I checked the game still required a 5 man unit to take the ice to play what is still considered a team game. This individual skills stuff is for the birds get back to teaching systems at pee wee through bantam. Than in a few years we might actually once again witness good team play! To all you young guns a note team hockey is way more fun to play than watching some "all star" force it up ice.

I am not 100% behind tag up offsides. What it does is allow a team to shoot in the puck, reducing the pressure on their D, while waiting for teammates to clear the zone. Under current rules that should be an intentional offsides and bring a defensive zone faceoff. To avoid that a team has to pass and stickhandle the puck in the neutral zone. I would rather see action in the neutral zone where a turnover may provide an odd-man rush than teams having a freebie to breakout under little pressure.

The biggest bonus to tag up offsides is it keeps rules consistent to HS and USA hockey.