Hermantown to Stay Down in Class A

[team22tank]

If there is a two class system then it should exist in both regular season and playoffs.

Class A plays Class A in regular season, that should be the rule.

All Class A has accomplished is unnatural runs of dominance and propelling private schools that never had hockey backgrounds into powerhouses.

Then your jv club would have had even fewer wins this year. Irish played a few single A teams.

LVN's feeder would have to adapt them and get the As off the schedule.

[kniven]

On the Marshall comments: I believe opting up is a 4-year commitment, so they're stuck in AA for another two. There is some okay young talent there; I'm skeptical it'll be enough to do any serious damage with what CEC, DE, and ER have coming through their systems, but they'll at least be able to see where they go with this group and then re-evaluate in a couple of years.

Yeah, let's ignore the young Andover team with 3rd ranked Bantams and PeeWees -- that's wise!

Karl(east). Shame on you......I am not ignoring Andover's youth movement. In fact, I've talked to Coach Manny about all this talent coming through Andover's youth hockey system.

[kniven]

Angst towards Hermantown is misplaced in my eyes. Play the best AA during the regular season and then win a championship among school size peers at the end of the year. From a player point of view, that's a great experience and clearly is good enough to develop D1 talent. Yes a AA championship would be better but they are betting on a sure thing that allows the best of both worlds.

It's been stated here before but I would place blame on AA teams that schedule them. If the hockey world and coaches are so upset that Hermantown continues their current strategy then why are they scheduling them for AA games. If AA teams stopped scheduling them they would be forced to move up if they want higher level competition throughout the year. It's as simple as that.

You are absolutely correct......

[mulefarm]

Maybe the hockey world and coaches aren't upset with what they're doing?

[HShockeywatcher]

It's always curious to me the difference in how this topic is discussed between public and private schools, and even with certain schools within each group. It would be great if the community could just decide what they want and have the MSHSL change it the same way football did. How bout we use tryout numbers??

All Class A has accomplished is unnatural runs of dominance and propelling private schools that never had hockey backgrounds into powerhouses.

The only programs, public or private, that seem to have a history of going to state before the two class system were Eveleth, Greenway, Hibbing, Theif River Falls, and Warroad. It has been a lot more than private schools with success since then.

[elliott70]

The only programs, public or private, that seem to have a history of going to state before the two class system were Eveleth, Greenway, Hibbing, Theif River Falls, and Warroad. It has been a lot more than private schools with success since then.

Not sure what you mean by this or what numbers you are looking at but these are not the teams with a history of going to state before the Tier2 fiasco and the current AA - A system.

You left out (# trips in about 48 year span)

Roseau 26
So St Paul 25
Edina 19
St Paul Johnson 19
International Falls 16
Minneapolis SW 15
Hill 13 (of 18 possible)
Grand Rapids 11 (not until the 70s, pretty impressive after that)

Of the team listed Eveleth has 12 but last one in that time period was 1956.

TRF and Hibbing have 9.

Greenway and Warroad 6.

I may have miscounted by one or so on any of them and did not check all of them just those that I remember as being perennials.

[Jeffy95]

I find this interesting. I was listening to people at the Cathedral game speculate where their skaters all come from and it made me think of Hermantown.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the current roster of Hermantown. How many Hermantown kids are still skating?

What is the dynamic around the families? If my kid grew up playing Hermantown youth hockey and was a strong player, I would be pretty pissed of if quite a few open-enrollees strolled in and bumped the local players. You would think if that is happening to a larger degree we would hear complaining from Hermantown natives.

The tough thing for the MSHSL is this: They can't just legislate all privates go AA, as there are small private schools that have no business moving up in most sports. So, potential forced move ups would have to be based only on competitiveness. Meaning a subjective review: something they are scared to do.

It would be very interesting to see what the Hermantown/Blake parents think. If it was me? I would be lobbying AA.

Most of the Non-Hermantown kids are in the Youth Program and yet to hit Varsity. Only about 30% of the Varsity team is Non-Hermantown kids this year. Samberg, Judnick and Pietrusa are open-enrollees. Gotz, Watkins and Herter are move ins. Those are the only kids I know of but there are probably a few more. I don't really count Sandelin but he obviously would not be in this area if his Dad didn't get the head coaching job at UMD. Not sure how many D1 coach's kids Hibbing, Greenway and Virginia have.

Parents of the kids who have always lived there are very upset about it but most are afraid of ruining their kids already slim chances by making a stink about it. A group of PeeWee parents did finally complain to the board in August about the youth coaches recruiting kids from other Associations and bumping their kids. You can see it in the meeting minutes on their website. Their Squirt A team last year was 7 out of 14 non-Hermantown kids. You won't even see that on a Twin Cities Metro team. Their PeeWee group is also loaded with them but not as many at Bantams this year. There has been talk of starting a Junior Gold team in Hermantown so that those Hermantown natives will at least be able to continue playing Hockey. Many of them see the writing on the wall after PeeWees and Bantams and quit hockey altogether. So that would at least help out if they can start a Junior Gold team.

[Jeffy95]

Teams that play strong A schools aren't afraid of anyone. GR for instance...Duluth East could learn from them.

Grand Rapids opts up to play Duluth East and the rest of the Big Boys. They don't gain any pride by beating up on weaklings on the playground. Duluth East is not the one that has anything to learn from Rapids. That would be the Chicken Hawks.

[mulefarm]

Actually for HT to have 7/14 from their youth program is exceptional compared to HM,HF, STA, Breck, Blake and SCC. Might have missed a couple

[pekyman]

I find this interesting. I was listening to people at the Cathedral game speculate where their skaters all come from and it made me think of Hermantown.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the current roster of Hermantown. How many Hermantown kids are still skating?

What is the dynamic around the families? If my kid grew up playing Hermantown youth hockey and was a strong player, I would be pretty pissed of if quite a few open-enrollees strolled in and bumped the local players. You would think if that is happening to a larger degree we would hear complaining from Hermantown natives.

The tough thing for the MSHSL is this: They can't just legislate all privates go AA, as there are small private schools that have no business moving up in most sports. So, potential forced move ups would have to be based only on competitiveness. Meaning a subjective review: something they are scared to do.

It would be very interesting to see what the Hermantown/Blake parents think. If it was me? I would be lobbying AA.

Most of the Non-Hermantown kids are in the Youth Program and yet to hit Varsity. Only about 30% of the Varsity team is Non-Hermantown kids this year. Samberg, Judnick and Pietrusa are open-enrollees. Gotz, Watkins and Herter are move ins. Those are the only kids I know of but there are probably a few more. I don't really count Sandelin but he obviously would not be in this area if his Dad didn't get the head coaching job at UMD. Not sure how many D1 coach's kids Hibbing, Greenway and Virginia have.

Parents of the kids who have always lived there are very upset about it but most are afraid of ruining their kids already slim chances by making a stink about it. A group of PeeWee parents did finally complain to the board in August about the youth coaches recruiting kids from other Associations and bumping their kids. You can see it in the meeting minutes on their website. Their Squirt A team last year was 7 out of 14 non-Hermantown kids. You won't even see that on a Twin Cities Metro team. Their PeeWee group is also loaded with them but not as many at Bantams this year. There has been talk of starting a Junior Gold team in Hermantown so that those Hermantown natives will at least be able to continue playing Hockey. Many of them see the writing on the wall after PeeWees and Bantams and quit hockey altogether. So that would at least help out if they can start a Junior Gold team.

Wow Hermantown has on its high school team 3 open enrolled kids that have been playing for Hermantown since they were 5, and 3 players that bought houses and have lived in Hermantown for Years! So nice of you to not count Sandelin! I’m sure Hermantown is the only city in MN that has people that actually move into a community. What is a recruit to you? Someone that hasn't lived in a community since it was founded? Who really give a crap about what you think. You know just enough about Hermantown to talk crap and blow everything out of proportion to push your agenda. News flash, even if Hermantown wasn’t in 7A, your Denfeld team wouldn’t make it to state. It’s going to be hilarious when Hermantown does move to AA if Marshall moves back down.

So there you go folks, 3 open enrolled kids that have been in the program since youth, 3 that have bought houses in the last 6 six years or so and the other 14 players that were actually born on the ice in Hermantown. Keep in mind that all these players have been developed in the Hermantown youth program. In addition, in the history of the hockey program, there has never been a player on the Varsity team that has never played in the youth program. I know of one player that played 1 year of Bantam and he was cut by East. Two other players played 2 years of Bantam. All other players have played Peewee or earlier. The vast majority began their hockey as mini mites.

Keep it up Jeffy you sad and pathetic human. The more you spew your jealousy, the better Hermantown Hockey looks. I sure hope you are not a coach.

[east hockey]

And on that sad, unfortunate note...

Lee