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Mahtomedi is in the Bronze final (underdog)
St. Thomas Academy is in the Silver final (pick em)
Hill-Murray is in the Gold Finals (pick em)

Plus SSP and Tartan have solid squads with Richfield a step behind them. St. Thomas is the heavy favorite to win the Class A title and Hill-Murray sits atop Minnhock's rankings (with STA #2). Nice year for the conference I'd say...

May be hard to use the strength of schedule argument and be credible this year...

So how does a school like North St. Paul compete with these other schools? I have to admit, they have excellent programs... but NSP has some really talented kids on their team too. You just rarely get a chance to hear about them year after year. Why not put all the private schools into their own conference? Bad idea?

Got2luvhockey wrote:So how does a school like North St. Paul compete with these other schools? I have to admit, they have excellent programs... but NSP has some really talented kids on their team too. You just rarely get a chance to hear about them year after year. Why not put all the private schools into their own conference? Bad idea?

Here we go again.

There are only 2 private schools in the conference. North St. Paul can compete just like anyone else. As far as competing in sports, District 622 went the wrong way when they decided to keep 2 high schools instead of merging into one giant school like White Bear and Roseville did. That is the way to compete with those schools in athletics. But as long as they keep their enrollment smaller and splut the talent between Tartan and North St. Paul, it will be hard for either school to compete with the larger single high school districts...

There can be only so many kids on each team - so it's not the numbers, it's the recruiting - which will change in the next few years as kids will actually need to live in the district now.

Let's face it - it's also how the program is managed at the school from the AD through the coaching.

North at 1700 kids & Tartan at 1500 are the two largest schools in the conference. It appears that for the last 25 years North St. Paul has had no interest in competing at a high level in hockey. They have been too busy whining about the 1 or 2 kids from Maplewood & No. St. Paul that go to Hill-Murray. They would rather compete with Mound & Chisago Lakes than their neighbors White Bear and Roseville.

Sparlimb, the Classic may be up a bit from the last few years but there was no place else to go.

There are still a number of very challenged programs at a very deep bottom of the conference. The middle is better than it has been and the top is too so its an up year, but still a ways to go.

Got2luvhockey wrote:So how does a school like North St. Paul compete with these other schools? I have to admit, they have excellent programs... but NSP has some really talented kids on their team too. You just rarely get a chance to hear about them year after year. Why not put all the private schools into their own conference? Bad idea?

MAybe they should put all of the schools with bad hockey teams in one conference.

they have had some success

hill, tartan, sta, and nsp have all won the conference

hill and simley have gone to the state championship

sta has won it

ssp, mahtomedi, tartan have all gone to state

its a pretty good conference

cretin tried joining before they got let into teh SEC

that really would have made it a top notch conference!

They tried to form their own really weak conference but it didn't work out. 8 yrs ago SSP, Tartan, NSP, Simley & Sibley conspired to toss out Park, Woodbury & Hastings. They wanted add only Fridley, Richfield & Mahtomedi. In the end they had to keep STA & add HM, who with Mahtomedi are the 3 school that now dominate most of the sports.

i wouldn't say those 3 dominate most sports

i'll go with some of the ones i'm more familiar with

hockey hill for sure, followed by sta
girs hockey ssp,nsp
boys basketball tartan has been on top, richfield was good a few years back now sibley is good
football mahtomedi then probably sta and simley was good this year
baseball sibley has been good
boys soccer ssp went to state this year
volleyball tartan

i think its just a competitive conference in all sports, every school has their top sports and bottom sports. that goes for every conference

i never heard about the dispanding of the old st. paul suburban though, i knew they got rid of park, woodbury, hastings because of enrollment, i didn't know they wanted to add fridley and stuff but i think it worked out for everyone, i still think cretin in their would have solidified it as a top notch conference

Conference Champions last year & this year so far:
FB - 2006 HM & STA tied at 7-0 / 2007 Simley at 7-1 (STA also had only 1 loss at 6-1 but Simley had an extra game)
Volleyball - HM both years
B Soccer - 06 Maht / 07 HM
G Soccer - Maht both years
Basketball - STA
Hockey - HM & STA tied
Girls Hockey - HM
Girls Swim - HM both years
Boys Swim - STA
Baseball - HM
Softball - North
Don't have cross country & track winners.
HM, STA & Maht have indeed dominated the conference.

I've known most of the Hill players since they were mites, same w/ NSP, Tartan. Aside from 1-2 standouts on each.. and North has two - Orme & goalie Horner... all things are equal - UNTIL you hit the level of commitment that the SCHOOL puts into the program. If North wanted to succeed, their AD would have the balls to fire the coaching staff and get serious. How long has their coaching team been together? time to put a new set of tires are the car!

Looks like Mahtomedi will be jumping up a few notches in the PS2 rankings next monday...

eyeinthesky wrote:i wouldn't say those 3 dominate most sports

i'll go with some of the ones i'm more familiar with

hockey hill for sure, followed by sta
girs hockey ssp,nsp
boys basketball tartan has been on top, richfield was good a few years back now sibley is good
football mahtomedi then probably sta and simley was good this year
baseball sibley has been good
boys soccer ssp went to state this year
volleyball tartan

i think its just a competitive conference in all sports, every school has their top sports and bottom sports. that goes for every conference

i never heard about the dispanding of the old st. paul suburban though, i knew they got rid of park, woodbury, hastings because of enrollment, i didn't know they wanted to add fridley and stuff but i think it worked out for everyone, i still think cretin in their would have solidified it as a top notch conference

STA won state in basketball last year, swimming they might have the best program in the country, winning state 8 out of the last 9 years

Sparlimb wrote:Mahtomedi is in the Bronze final (underdog)
St. Thomas Academy is in the Silver final (pick em)
Hill-Murray is in the Gold Finals (pick em)

Plus SSP and Tartan have solid squads with Richfield a step behind them. St. Thomas is the heavy favorite to win the Class A title and Hill-Murray sits atop Minnhock's rankings (with STA #2). Nice year for the conference I'd say...

May be hard to use the strength of schedule argument and be credible this year...

The CSC is what it has always been, top heavy. Hill and STA are no doubt top 10 teams in the state for the past 3 years. Mahtomedi is always a solid team and SSP and Tartan have been everywhere from top 10 teams to terrible since this conf. started.

stpaul wrote:Conference Champions last year & this year so far:
FB - 2006 HM & STA tied at 7-0 / 2007 Simley at 7-1 (STA also had only 1 loss at 6-1 but Simley had an extra game)
Volleyball - HM both years
B Soccer - 06 Maht / 07 HM
G Soccer - Maht both years
Basketball - STA
Hockey - HM & STA tied
Girls Hockey - HM
Girls Swim - HM both years
Boys Swim - STA
Baseball - HM
Softball - North
Don't have cross country & track winners.
HM, STA & Maht have indeed dominated the conference.

Look at 2005...

Tartan Hockey was conf champs

Their basket ball has been to state the last like 8/10 years it seems and state champs in 2000.

They had a decent run with baseball as well with some state appearances and I think a 3rd place finish one year? not sure tho

SSP was also solid 2-3 years ago with a state appearance in hockey

Hill is going to be medium to good every year because they always will have 1-2 very solid lines. In a High School game that can make all the difference * hockey wise*

Btw Tartan recruits inner city for basket ball*** so cant complain

The Classic Suburbs topped everyone but Tonka this week.

Though, I still expect Hill to win State, the Pioneers will have to work harder than usual in their newer conference (looks like the SEC would have been a cakewalk).

However, any Twin City conference is tougher than any outstate... Real hockey fans never have even heard of tiny towns too scared to play down here like Warroad, Thief River Falls, Hibbing, International Falls, or Eveleth (let's include Roseau in that group, too).

pistol wrote:
However, any Twin City conference is tougher than any outstate... Real hockey fans never have even heard of tiny towns too scared to play down here like Warroad, Thief River Falls, Hibbing, International Falls, or Eveleth (let's include Roseau in that group, too).

According to the MSHSL official website the two schools with the state record for state championships are Roseau and International Falls at 7 each. Scared?

BIAFP wrote:According to the MSHSL official website the two schools with the state record for state championships are Roseau and International Falls at 7 each. Scared?

Is that including all years, or only since the MSHSL let all teams play?

pistol wrote:However, any Twin City conference is tougher than any outstate... Real hockey fans never have even heard of tiny towns too scared to play down here like Warroad, Thief River Falls, Hibbing, International Falls, or Eveleth (let's include Roseau in that group, too).

I don't know where you are getting your facts about them being too "Scared" to come play...

Since 1999

CHAMPIONSHIPS: 4
Roseau(1999,2007), Warroad(2003,2005)
RUNNER UPS: 1
Warroad(2000)
3RD PLACES: 1
I'Falls(2000)
5TH PLACES: 3
Roseau(2000), Hibbing(2003), Warroad(2004)

Looks to me like thats pretty good. 9 times in the last 8 years the teams you mentioned took home some hardware at state. And have come away with 4 titles in 8 years!!
If you want to go back in history, it just gets better for the teams that are "SCARED" to play down there....

stpaul wrote:Conference Champions last year & this year so far:
FB - 2006 HM & STA tied at 7-0 / 2007 Simley at 7-1 (STA also had only 1 loss at 6-1 but Simley had an extra game)
Volleyball - HM both years
B Soccer - 06 Maht / 07 HM
G Soccer - Maht both years
Basketball - STA
Hockey - HM & STA tied
Girls Hockey - HM
Girls Swim - HM both years
Boys Swim - STA
Baseball - HM
Softball - North
Don't have cross country & track winners.
HM, STA & Maht have indeed dominated the conference.

STA dominated in cross country for 07, most of the top 5 on the team were all conference(top 16 runners)

Okay, so we have established that Roseau is scared, and STA is "running scared."

Congrats to the Pioneers, not falling into the Gold jinx trap, as HM will not be "skipping" the real Championship this March.