Mavs wrote:
anyone jump off the page well above the MN kids?
Well above can mean a lot of things to different people. I saw parts of several games over a couple of days. Here were some takeaways in addition to some players that were impressive to me (all my personal opinion thru what I saw and some of what I heard from other adults and participants):
1. The teams had 10 F and 6 D. Different than MN camp with 9 F, 6 D & 2 G. I thought that it was nice to be able to see slightly different line combinations with the extra kid sort of changing things up throughout the 2 periods. Think that it was a GREAT idea to rotate the goalies.
2. Less games than MN camp. Saw a practice (did not happen to see a MN camp practice). Liked what I saw as it appeared to be well organized and relatively efficient.
3. Overall the quality of play was higher than MN camp. Had heard that MN camp was going to be the better quality of play but it was NOT the case. There are definitely some kids from outside the state of hockey that can play. Not noticeably more rough (as in hearing over the years about how the East coast kids play a rougher style of hockey).
4. The program that was sold on site in St Cloud had listed: 2015/16 team, DOB, grad year, HT, and WT. Online info was only #, pos, hometown. Was interesting to see how far some of these kids travel to play hockey or go to boarding school.
5. Looked at all 12 teams and there was at most 4 MN kids on each and I think that 1 team had 2 or 3. Also grad years were mostly 2019. Between 4-7 kids on each team of 16 were 2020's.
6. After some google searches it appears as if a handful of girls are still playing boys at the bantam (checking) level. This did NOT necessarily translate to being a standout player in each case. One father whom I spoke with briefly commented how awful the girls hockey was in the area that they lived. That person is looking at boarding schools and/or possibly considering a move with part of all of family to the state of hockey. Another couple of parents that I had some contact with had a couple of meetings with boarding schools in the NE while in St Cloud.
7. LOTS of parents from out of state spent the week in St Cloud. In some cases it was mom/dad + a kid or 2 or in some cases full families.
8. LOTS OF COLLEGE COACHES FROM D1 SCHOOLS were watching games and also practices. BU, UND, UMN, Mankato, UMD, BSU, QU, Princeton, Harvard, Brown, Providence, OSU, UNH, RPI, Vermont, & Cornell to name some off the top of my head. Also several what I would presume are D3 and at least 1 scouting service.
9. Talked to the scouting service person (Neutral Zone something) and she was at U18 the week before, Select 66, and U15. She said that the play was much easier to watch at U15 than U18. Taking the top 60+ kids out of U18 makes a difference in the overall play. She also said that Zumwinkle of Breck was in her opinion the best player in the country. Said overall the MN girls are noticeably the best overall players in the country. She is an East Coast person and said that there are good players from many places but said, "Almost all of the best players are Minnesota girls."
10. It is both cool and helpful to see kids that have unique helmets/breezers/gloves from their teams. Most combinations with that Pink color were awful. The Little Caesars breezers were a particularly horrific combo with many colors. Fun to see Penguins breezers, NAHA, CYA, etc gear. Schools/programs you sort of hear about periodically over the years.
11. Lots of kids were fun to watch. Was overall impressed with some of the kids from the aforementioned Little Caesars team. I think that there were 5-8 of them from that team. Many nice players. Was NOT overly impressed with any of the Shattuck kids that I saw. I am always sort of imagining the SSM players to be superstars and most of the time they were solid but not impressive (MY OPINION).
12. Players: Danielle Hartje, 2019, of MI & Light Blue (played boys). Scored lots of points but was remarkable every time I had a chance to see Light Blue. Here and a Farmington girl (helmet was recognizable) always seemed to be out at the same time and were always making things happen offensively. She was the most impressive player I saw. Katelyn Knoll, 2019, of NY & Green was another one of the more remarkable kids I saw. Supposedly is committed to Northeastern and was super solid. kaitlyn O'donahoe, 2019, of PA & Teal was a nice player that was a high point scorer and heard a couple others mention her. Lastly the D combo of #2 Edwards of Pitt Penguins & OH & #3 England from MI for Green were both really good. Both 2019's. I am sure that there were others but I did not take notes and just remembered a few kids.
Overall was good stuff. I look forward to seeing how the vaunted 2002 class from MN does in their first real comparison (without the crutch of systems their crazy coaches have them playing!) to the rest of the USA next year.