Michigan Series?
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Hockeyguy_27
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Michigan Series?
Isn't that this weekend? If anyone has updates please post them. Hopefully our boys are doing well.
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Observer85
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Any College Coaches watching??
Recently learned of then read the following. This was posted in the US Hockey Report earlier this week. This impacts events like this Minnesota/Michigan series and the AAA Showcase events that many Minnesota kids attend on the east coast in August. Any parents currently looking at events like the Chowder Cup, Hockey Night in Boston, etc., you need to be aware of this new agreement by college coaches.
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5/14/07
Recruiting Calendar Creating Consternation
After years of talk, a college hockey recruiting calendar was voted on and passed at the coaches convention in Florida. The vote was driven by a desire to protect college coaches from being on the road virtually – literally, actually – every single weekend of the year.
The vote, effective immediately, would keep Div. I coaches out of the rinks from May 15-31 and again from August 4-19. The May dead period would encompass two weekends while the August period would encompass the first three weekends of the month.
The proposal was put forth for vote by the WCHA and passed, 40-2. Only the University of Maine and Holy Cross voted against it.
Unlike dark periods in other NCAA sports, this is not NCAA legislation. Rather, it’s a gentlemen’s agreement among the college coaches. In other words, if the agreement is broken, it would not be an NCAA violation as would be the case in, say, basketball, and schools would not be punished. It is expected, however, that the coaches, as members of the American Hockey Coaches Association, will honor the agreement, as the lopsidedness of the vote certainly suggests.
However, there is a movement afoot to hold off implementation of the calendar until next May. The push has come from tournament organizers, in particular Peter Masters, the head coach of the Boston Junior Bruins (EJHL) and the organizer of the Beantown Classic.
There are well-attended tournaments in the East, particularly during the three weekends in August, that would be imperiled by an absence of Div. I coaches. They include the Chowder Cup, the EJHL Showcase, Hockey Night in Boston, and Masters’ Summer Beantown Classic.
Money has been shelled out for ice, parents and their kids have made summer plans based around these events, and now, on relatively short notice, the plug has been pulled on them.
The American Hockey Coaches Association, Hockey East, the ECAC and Atlantic Hockey are receiving pressure to delayed implementation until ‘08. In many cases, the assistant coaches at the eastern schools -- ironically, among those the new ruling is principally designed to protect – are asking for the one-year reprieve. Whether the ACHA and their eastern leagues agree to take up the cause and bring it to their WCHA and CCHA brethren, who have fewer major tournaments to attend in their part of the country during those periods, remains to be seen.
The WCHA coaches, who sponsored the proposal, don’t miss much under the proposal. They would still get to attend the USHL playoffs in its entirety (the championship game was last night). With the arrival of June, coaches from both the east and west begin making the circuit of USHL camps and USA Select Festivals. The Aug. 4 date is the final day of the USA Hockey Select 15 Festival. There’s nothing major in the Midwest in August. In the east, as mentioned above, there are four major tournaments in this time slot and numerous organizers, coaches, and kids are affected:
1. The Eastern Junior Hockey League Showcase (32 teams, 640 players)
2. The Chowder Cup (88 teams, over 1600 players)
3. Hockey Night in Boston (approximately 20 teams, 400 players).
4. The Beantown Classic (Eight teams, 140 players)
Since the August dark period doesn’t start until Aug. 4, the Chowder Cup and the EJ Showcase, which run from Aug. 2-5, could still be scouted on Thurs-Fri. Aug. 2-3, but not over the weekend days.
Hockey Night in Boston, which runs from late July through the first few weeks of August, and the Beantown Classic would be hit hard.
Masters feels he and other tournament organizers have been blindsided, and that the same goes for the participants.
“If we had been given one year to adjust that would have been one thing,” Masters said, “but to put it in now is wrong.”
Masters said that if the recruiting calendar doesn’t get delayed for a year there will be a mad scramble among the tournaments to find ice. It will be extremely difficult, he said, and, in some case, impossible.
Merrimack College head coach Mark Dennehy, currently running the Hockey East meetings, has been the recipient of various entreaties to put the ruling on hold for a year.
“Because I am on the board of directors,” Dennehy said, “I’ve definitely received phone calls. All I can do is try to figure out what effect this is going to have.”
“I’m trying to get answers for people. I personally don’t have any answers. We voted on this because the coaches wanted it. We knew there would be fallout but we think it’s for the betterment of the game.”
Dennehy was asked if there could be an exemption.
“I can’t comment on that,” he said. “There are a lot of questions.”
The only two schools that voted against the proposal in the first place were the University of Maine and Holy Crosss.
Maine head coach Tim Whitehead feels that the proposed recruiting calendar plays right into the hands of the Canadian Major Junior Leagues by giving them the opportunity to use two large time blocks to schedule tournaments and camps that would attract top players. Whitehead feels that WHL and OHL, in particular, will set up invite camps during those freed-up weekends in late May and August and that kids from emerging hockey areas such as California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida will be pursued aggressively.
Whitehead feels that the NCAA recruiting restrictions already in place make it difficult enough to compete against major junior, and questions the wisdom of giving the CHL additional time blocks during which they can bring in prospects who might otherwise have chosen to attend a tournament in which they could play before NCAA coaches.
In an email, Holy Cross head coach Paul Pearl wrote, “I am against the recruiting calendar because I am against putting any recruiting restrictions on ourselves other than what the NCAA puts in place. I think we all can decide for ourselves what tournaments we go to. Plus all the evaluations are free in the summer. Lastly, who decides what the good tournaments are? What might be good for Holy Cross may not be good for bigger schools.”
“With that said,” Pearl added, “we obviously will comply with what the body decides.”
It’s also felt by many that the recruiting calendar will hurt the Div. III coaches, who are not directly governed by it, but could get hit with a ripple effect. Since Div. III coaches at Northeast schools rarely travel out of New England and New York state, they use the August events to inexpensively evaluate the talent pool for the upcoming season. If Div. I recruiters can’t show up at these events, it’s been posited, then the players won’t either. That means the Div. III guys would sit home, too.
When we asked an assistant at a top CCHA school about how the recruiting calendar would affect his school, he said, “It won’t really. There’s nothing we really need to be at on those weekends. I can see how it’s different back in Massachusetts, though. I can definitely see that.”
Stay tuned on this one.
Note:
The scheduled Michigan vs. Minnesota series, scheduled for the Detroit area this coming weekend, will go on as scheduled. There will, of course, be no Div. I coaches in attendance unless the ban is put on hold this week.
==============================================================================================
5/14/07
Recruiting Calendar Creating Consternation
After years of talk, a college hockey recruiting calendar was voted on and passed at the coaches convention in Florida. The vote was driven by a desire to protect college coaches from being on the road virtually – literally, actually – every single weekend of the year.
The vote, effective immediately, would keep Div. I coaches out of the rinks from May 15-31 and again from August 4-19. The May dead period would encompass two weekends while the August period would encompass the first three weekends of the month.
The proposal was put forth for vote by the WCHA and passed, 40-2. Only the University of Maine and Holy Cross voted against it.
Unlike dark periods in other NCAA sports, this is not NCAA legislation. Rather, it’s a gentlemen’s agreement among the college coaches. In other words, if the agreement is broken, it would not be an NCAA violation as would be the case in, say, basketball, and schools would not be punished. It is expected, however, that the coaches, as members of the American Hockey Coaches Association, will honor the agreement, as the lopsidedness of the vote certainly suggests.
However, there is a movement afoot to hold off implementation of the calendar until next May. The push has come from tournament organizers, in particular Peter Masters, the head coach of the Boston Junior Bruins (EJHL) and the organizer of the Beantown Classic.
There are well-attended tournaments in the East, particularly during the three weekends in August, that would be imperiled by an absence of Div. I coaches. They include the Chowder Cup, the EJHL Showcase, Hockey Night in Boston, and Masters’ Summer Beantown Classic.
Money has been shelled out for ice, parents and their kids have made summer plans based around these events, and now, on relatively short notice, the plug has been pulled on them.
The American Hockey Coaches Association, Hockey East, the ECAC and Atlantic Hockey are receiving pressure to delayed implementation until ‘08. In many cases, the assistant coaches at the eastern schools -- ironically, among those the new ruling is principally designed to protect – are asking for the one-year reprieve. Whether the ACHA and their eastern leagues agree to take up the cause and bring it to their WCHA and CCHA brethren, who have fewer major tournaments to attend in their part of the country during those periods, remains to be seen.
The WCHA coaches, who sponsored the proposal, don’t miss much under the proposal. They would still get to attend the USHL playoffs in its entirety (the championship game was last night). With the arrival of June, coaches from both the east and west begin making the circuit of USHL camps and USA Select Festivals. The Aug. 4 date is the final day of the USA Hockey Select 15 Festival. There’s nothing major in the Midwest in August. In the east, as mentioned above, there are four major tournaments in this time slot and numerous organizers, coaches, and kids are affected:
1. The Eastern Junior Hockey League Showcase (32 teams, 640 players)
2. The Chowder Cup (88 teams, over 1600 players)
3. Hockey Night in Boston (approximately 20 teams, 400 players).
4. The Beantown Classic (Eight teams, 140 players)
Since the August dark period doesn’t start until Aug. 4, the Chowder Cup and the EJ Showcase, which run from Aug. 2-5, could still be scouted on Thurs-Fri. Aug. 2-3, but not over the weekend days.
Hockey Night in Boston, which runs from late July through the first few weeks of August, and the Beantown Classic would be hit hard.
Masters feels he and other tournament organizers have been blindsided, and that the same goes for the participants.
“If we had been given one year to adjust that would have been one thing,” Masters said, “but to put it in now is wrong.”
Masters said that if the recruiting calendar doesn’t get delayed for a year there will be a mad scramble among the tournaments to find ice. It will be extremely difficult, he said, and, in some case, impossible.
Merrimack College head coach Mark Dennehy, currently running the Hockey East meetings, has been the recipient of various entreaties to put the ruling on hold for a year.
“Because I am on the board of directors,” Dennehy said, “I’ve definitely received phone calls. All I can do is try to figure out what effect this is going to have.”
“I’m trying to get answers for people. I personally don’t have any answers. We voted on this because the coaches wanted it. We knew there would be fallout but we think it’s for the betterment of the game.”
Dennehy was asked if there could be an exemption.
“I can’t comment on that,” he said. “There are a lot of questions.”
The only two schools that voted against the proposal in the first place were the University of Maine and Holy Crosss.
Maine head coach Tim Whitehead feels that the proposed recruiting calendar plays right into the hands of the Canadian Major Junior Leagues by giving them the opportunity to use two large time blocks to schedule tournaments and camps that would attract top players. Whitehead feels that WHL and OHL, in particular, will set up invite camps during those freed-up weekends in late May and August and that kids from emerging hockey areas such as California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida will be pursued aggressively.
Whitehead feels that the NCAA recruiting restrictions already in place make it difficult enough to compete against major junior, and questions the wisdom of giving the CHL additional time blocks during which they can bring in prospects who might otherwise have chosen to attend a tournament in which they could play before NCAA coaches.
In an email, Holy Cross head coach Paul Pearl wrote, “I am against the recruiting calendar because I am against putting any recruiting restrictions on ourselves other than what the NCAA puts in place. I think we all can decide for ourselves what tournaments we go to. Plus all the evaluations are free in the summer. Lastly, who decides what the good tournaments are? What might be good for Holy Cross may not be good for bigger schools.”
“With that said,” Pearl added, “we obviously will comply with what the body decides.”
It’s also felt by many that the recruiting calendar will hurt the Div. III coaches, who are not directly governed by it, but could get hit with a ripple effect. Since Div. III coaches at Northeast schools rarely travel out of New England and New York state, they use the August events to inexpensively evaluate the talent pool for the upcoming season. If Div. I recruiters can’t show up at these events, it’s been posited, then the players won’t either. That means the Div. III guys would sit home, too.
When we asked an assistant at a top CCHA school about how the recruiting calendar would affect his school, he said, “It won’t really. There’s nothing we really need to be at on those weekends. I can see how it’s different back in Massachusetts, though. I can definitely see that.”
Stay tuned on this one.
Note:
The scheduled Michigan vs. Minnesota series, scheduled for the Detroit area this coming weekend, will go on as scheduled. There will, of course, be no Div. I coaches in attendance unless the ban is put on hold this week.
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animal1019
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2007 7:16 pm
Michigan Series
Re: How the Minnesota boys are doing? I have heard that all the Minnesota teams lost every game played today. In fact, the 93/94 Michigan teams have refused to play our Minnesota boys anymore this weekend! Evidentally a revised schedule was handed out tonight to the 93/94 MN players where now they now only play the other MN team the rest of the weekend. I hear the 93/94 parents are quite upset and considering coming home. What a bummer. (note-- hearing t his second-third hand, but a reliable source)
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Hockeyguy_27
- Posts: 745
- Joined: Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:19 pm
Re: Michigan Series
What a bummer is rightanimal1019 wrote:Re: How the Minnesota boys are doing? I have heard that all the Minnesota teams lost every game played today. In fact, the 93/94 Michigan teams have refused to play our Minnesota boys anymore this weekend! Evidentally a revised schedule was handed out tonight to the 93/94 MN players where now they now only play the other MN team the rest of the weekend. I hear the 93/94 parents are quite upset and considering coming home. What a bummer. (note-- hearing t his second-third hand, but a reliable source)
I was hoping Minnesota would have shown off better. That is interesting about the recruiting calander and I'm sure this will effect many of these types of tournaments.-
Around the boards
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- Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 8:41 pm
Michigan series?
This is the first I heard of this series....where are the Minnesota players from? Are there rosters anywhere?
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Around the boards
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 8:41 pm
.I heard from a guy at work that they ended up pulling some guys down from the 91-92s to play with the 93-94s on Sunday and both MN teams still got whipped pretty bad--something like 12-1 and 7-1. He said they got out skated, stick handled, dangled, and shot so badly that it was kind of embarassing. He said the goalies looked like they were shell shocked after the second round of games and started taking chances on shots and positions that only ended up costing them easy goals.
He said the 91-92 team (black, I think) had a whole bunch of little chicken fights in the game and got down to 7-8 skaters after the ejections for wrestling. Apparently this age group was somewhat more competitive than the young guys. They were able to skate with the teams but were getting shoved around pretty good in the early games.
The oldest group from MN played pretty well. They won most of their games but my friend said one of the MI dads told him most of their higher level players are playing now in the juniors so they didn't play in this. Might be an excuse, who knows.
He said the 91-92 team (black, I think) had a whole bunch of little chicken fights in the game and got down to 7-8 skaters after the ejections for wrestling. Apparently this age group was somewhat more competitive than the young guys. They were able to skate with the teams but were getting shoved around pretty good in the early games.
The oldest group from MN played pretty well. They won most of their games but my friend said one of the MI dads told him most of their higher level players are playing now in the juniors so they didn't play in this. Might be an excuse, who knows.
Shuck the puck!!!
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The Exiled One
- Posts: 1788
- Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:34 am
Most of Minnesota's studs were missing as well. In fact, only a handful of the D1 committed and CSB rated players were involved. Joe Gleason, Mike Fink, and Brock Montpetit are the only ones I can think of. That's about the same as the Michigan team. There's others on that team that WILL be D1 or CSB ranked, but they're all a bit younger. Again, same goes for Michigan.pucker52 wrote:The oldest group from MN played pretty well. They won most of their games but my friend said one of the MI dads told him most of their higher level players are playing now in the juniors so they didn't play in this. Might be an excuse, who knows.
Hopefully, the lack of success from the younger kids isn't a sign of things to come. Anybody think they might have an explanation?
*EDIT*
I think I figured it out. The roster I was give showed all of the 93's (no '94s) came from primarily 3 teams: Compuware, Honeybaked, and Little Ceasars. In other words, they likely kept the same lines together that just finished playing an entire bantam A season. The Minnesota boys came from 20 different teams. They didn't stand a chance.
Last edited by The Exiled One on Mon May 21, 2007 4:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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PlayersFirst
- Posts: 23
- Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:46 pm
Minnesota vs. Michigan
The 1989/1990 group dominated this weekend going 6-1-1. The team consisting of Shattuck and some Northern MN players took home the cup.
The 1991/1992 teams had some close games, but were a little overmatched. And, the 1993 teams were completely overmatched and did not win a game.
This may be a wakeup call to Minnesota players for next years series in Minneapolis. There is a lot of top competition out there and it is now our turn to group together as many of the top players in Minnesota for the re-match.
The 1993 Little Caesars team in the series actually flew in some players from California and other states so they could dominate and win. The players on the 1993 teams were so big and strong that it actually made you wonder how kids at that age developed so quickly.
It wasn't the skill level for the most part, it was the physical aspects of the game that took our 1993's out of almost every game.
It is true that the Little Caesars team actually told the Minnesota group that they didn't want to play the 1993 Minnesota group unless they re-grouped their rosters to form an all-star team for Sunday's games. The organizers of the event for Minnesota did not re-organize their rosters, but they brought down a couple of 1992 defensemen to help out.
After speaking with one of the organizers, they indicated that they would not give up and change all of the rosters just to satisfy Little Caesars. They stated that they brought all of the teams from Minnesota for an experience against tougher competition and they were not going to sacrifice their players ice time by submitting to Little Caesars.
The final verdict was that their players paid to be challenged as players and they kept the rosters the same in order to keep that challenge alive, even if it meant losing again and again. The experience against the tougher competition was a part of the design of the series.
I really hope that our top players in Minnesota understand that this series has a lot of merit and the series is not another AAA tournament. This was about hockey pride and a wake up call has been sent out. Minnesota now has a major rival in Michigan and they firmly believe that they have the best player - or that they have the most players on growth accelerants.
Lets get our top players to participate in this event next year and let Michigan know more about our top players.
The 1991/1992 teams had some close games, but were a little overmatched. And, the 1993 teams were completely overmatched and did not win a game.
This may be a wakeup call to Minnesota players for next years series in Minneapolis. There is a lot of top competition out there and it is now our turn to group together as many of the top players in Minnesota for the re-match.
The 1993 Little Caesars team in the series actually flew in some players from California and other states so they could dominate and win. The players on the 1993 teams were so big and strong that it actually made you wonder how kids at that age developed so quickly.
It wasn't the skill level for the most part, it was the physical aspects of the game that took our 1993's out of almost every game.
It is true that the Little Caesars team actually told the Minnesota group that they didn't want to play the 1993 Minnesota group unless they re-grouped their rosters to form an all-star team for Sunday's games. The organizers of the event for Minnesota did not re-organize their rosters, but they brought down a couple of 1992 defensemen to help out.
After speaking with one of the organizers, they indicated that they would not give up and change all of the rosters just to satisfy Little Caesars. They stated that they brought all of the teams from Minnesota for an experience against tougher competition and they were not going to sacrifice their players ice time by submitting to Little Caesars.
The final verdict was that their players paid to be challenged as players and they kept the rosters the same in order to keep that challenge alive, even if it meant losing again and again. The experience against the tougher competition was a part of the design of the series.
I really hope that our top players in Minnesota understand that this series has a lot of merit and the series is not another AAA tournament. This was about hockey pride and a wake up call has been sent out. Minnesota now has a major rival in Michigan and they firmly believe that they have the best player - or that they have the most players on growth accelerants.
Lets get our top players to participate in this event next year and let Michigan know more about our top players.
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Iscraper56
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hockeyguy99
- Posts: 171
- Joined: Mon May 15, 2006 9:54 pm
Minnesota did not have many of their top players, and Michigan had their top players to make sure they would win. I heard from a couple of good sources that the hockey was just brutal. Clutch and grab, like the old NHL. The dominance of the deep 90 Minnesota group showed in the weekend. They might be one of the best classes Minnesota has ever had.
A checkbook hockey tournament played during a recruiting blackout period is of almost no value, and it is certainly not a yardstick to measure the strength of hockey in Minnesota (or Michigan for that matter).
A better measure would be the final NHL pre-draft listings which I believe had 26 Minnesota kids, 9 Michigan, and 9 Mass.
A better measure would be the final NHL pre-draft listings which I believe had 26 Minnesota kids, 9 Michigan, and 9 Mass.
The only wake-up call that should be gotten from this tournament is that it is much easier (and less expensive) for the home state to put competitive teams together for a pretended showcase in May.
If people want to spend their money fiddling around at this tournament, that's their perogative, but don't try to tell people it's an indication of the state of hockey in this state.
Give me a break.
If people want to spend their money fiddling around at this tournament, that's their perogative, but don't try to tell people it's an indication of the state of hockey in this state.
Give me a break.