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Well, as far as the talent goes, I agree that it was waterd down. It made it hard to watch all the games because 1) so many kids 2) watered down talent 3) lots of Sophs and Froshs 4) Games were overlapping and one right after the other.

As far as scouts go, I personally saw and talked to the following

1) Dallas
2) Calgary
3) Valley Junior Warriors? EJHL
4) Burnaby BCJHL
5) MN Ice Hawks
6) Bismarck
7) St Olaf

I will say that most agreed that the talent was spread thin. A few guys did stand out and a lot were very disappointing IMO.

Overall, if you were a scout, it was worth seeing a lot of guys in one or two days. However, minus 2-3 guys, there was not a lot of HIGH end talent.

Congrats and good luck to Tony Palkki from GR!

A few things that could really improve the tournament in years to come would be:

1) take the teams from 12 down to 8.

2) only allow previous 11th and 12th grade players (invite the worthy underclassmen).

3) do not schedule the tournament the same weekend as selects and great 8 showcase tournament in chicago.

4) check player background experience more closely.

As for the lack of scouts issue -- i dont feel there is a lack of scouts. at this years tournament i saw a representative from the following teams (and wasnt looking very intently):

des moines buccaneers (ushl)
sioux falls stampede (ushl)
fargo force (ushl)
tri city storm (ushl)
sioux city musketeers (ushl)
green bay gamblers (ushl)

alexandria blizzard (nahl)
north iowa outlaws (nahl)
topeka roadrunners (nahl)
st louis bandits (nahl)

burnaby express (bchl)

university of north dakota (wcha)

those are just the ones that caught my eye going back and forth between games, i am sure there were more by the amount of people with notepads and fancy glasses