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Blaine has (roughly) 2,900 students and Roseau has (roughly) 410 students.

In simple terms:

Blaine has about 60 kids to choose from to find each player on its team.

Roseau, on the other hand, has only 8 kids to choose from to find each player on its team!!!

So Blaine has 1200 boys out for hockey?

Must be some tryout.

MrRoseau wrote:
In simple terms:

Enrollment was discussed last week, and it isn't quite as simple as you portray.

Sounds to me like somebody is already looking for excuses! Uh-oh!

That's ridiculous

Tell me this, does Roseau ever cut any players from tryouts?


I'll use our Rogers school to compare this.

Their enrollment is about 1150 give or take..
They have never cut a player yet, because they barely had enough to fill both a JV and Varsity roster.
Last year I believe they had about 38 players at tryouts, the most yet!

So it really depends on the community and the interest in the sport for that area.

Well, for you naysayers:

Let's say you have a school with 25 boys in it and another school with 1,000 boys in it.

Which has more kids to choose from to create a 25-member team roster?

The larger schools have an inherent superiority because they have a larger pool of potential players to choose from. A school with a large enrollment that only has a few players trying out for the team is simply failing to take advantage of that inherent superiority.

To put it another way, a small school that does well is utilizing what talent it has in the available pool students extremely efficiently. And, that is the only way a small school has any chance against enormous schools.

MrRoseau wrote:Well, for you naysayers:

Let's say you have a school with 25 boys in it and another school with 1,000 boys in it.

Which has more kids to choose from to create a 25-member team roster?

The larger schools have an inherent superiority because they have a larger pool of potential players to choose from. A school with a large enrollment that only has a few players trying out for the team is simply failing to take advantage of that inherent superiority.

There is no superiority. Both schools have the same amount of kids on the Bantam A team.

MrRoseau wrote:Well, for you naysayers:

Let's say you have a school with 25 boys in it and another school with 1,000 boys in it.

Which has more kids to choose from to create a 25-member team roster?

The larger schools have an inherent superiority because they have a larger pool of potential players to choose from. A school with a large enrollment that only has a few players trying out for the team is simply failing to take advantage of that inherent superiority.

You are adding 2+2 and coming up with 5.

Its not a math problem.

You cant use enrollment numbers to explain or predict hockey success nor "failure".

Too many other variables.

Neutron 14 wrote:There is no superiority. Both schools have the same amount of kids on the Bantam A team.

And the Bantam A team is drawn from a larger pool of potential talent in a community like Edina than the Bantam A team draws from in a community like Roseau.

Now, whether a school takes advantage of the inherent wealth of talent potential a larger community has is another story.

Look at the history of the tournament in the two decades before the split into A and AA. Large schools dominated. That’s not an accident. Instead, it demonstrates the inherent strength a larger pool of students provides.

MrRoseau wrote:Well, for you naysayers:

Let's say you have a school with 25 boys in it and another school with 1,000 boys in it.

Which has more kids to choose from to create a 25-member team roster?

The larger schools have an inherent superiority because they have a larger pool of potential players to choose from. A school with a large enrollment that only has a few players trying out for the team is simply failing to take advantage of that inherent superiority.

To put it another way, a small school that does well is utilizing what talent it has in the available pool students extremely efficiently. And, that is the only way a small school has any chance against enormous schools.

You didn't answer my question..Did they, or do they regularly have to cut players?

MrRoseau wrote:Blaine has (roughly) 2,900 students and Roseau has (roughly) 410 students.

In simple terms:

Blaine has about 60 kids to choose from to find each player on its team.

Roseau, on the other hand, has only 8 kids to choose from to find each player on its team!!!

So, big schools have more kids to choose from??? Thanks for the update.

MrRoseau wrote:Well, for you naysayers:

Let's say you have a school with 25 boys in it and another school with 1,000 boys in it.

Which has more kids to choose from to create a 25-member team roster?

The larger schools have an inherent superiority because they have a larger pool of potential players to choose from. A school with a large enrollment that only has a few players trying out for the team is simply failing to take advantage of that inherent superiority.

To put it another way, a small school that does well is utilizing what talent it has in the available pool students extremely efficiently. And, that is the only way a small school has any chance against enormous schools.

Mr. Roseau, you are rehashing the thread from last week. Obviously it is better to have large numbers, but that isn't the sole variable. If it were Roseau would never win anything and Anoka and Stillwater would have won 10 each.

Roseau's participation through youth levels in the sport of hockey is higher than other schools of similar enrollment.

Roseau's great. Everybody gets it. If you want, we can bus a few thousand Hmong kids so your enrollment swells and you can split the school like Hopkins, Bloomington, Edina, White Bear, Lakeville, Anoka, and others have done.

My graduating class had 10 ABC kids from the "A Better Chance" program where they brought them from tough areas of Los Angeles so they could have more academic opportunity. How many did yours have?

Numbers matter, obviously. But there are other factors. In what else has Roseau won state titles? It isn't like you've got great athletics in all sports.

Mr. Roseau,

I think it would be very interesting if you would share with us how many boys tryout for the high school team.

MrRoseau wrote:

Neutron 14 wrote:There is no superiority. Both schools have the same amount of kids on the Bantam A team.

And the Bantam A team is drawn from a larger pool of potential talent in a community like Edina than the Bantam A team draws from in a community like Roseau.

Now, whether a school takes advantage of the inherent wealth of talent potential a larger community has is another story.

Look at the history of the tournament in the two decades before the split into A and AA. Large schools dominated. That’s not an accident. Instead, it demonstrates the inherent strength a larger pool of students provides.

The Bantam A team comes from the Peewee A team, and again is the same size as Roseaus. Want to keep going? Your logic is severly faulted. You keep talking about bodies, but were only concerned about hockey players aren't we.

MrRoseau-please change your name.

OGEE OGELTHORPE wrote:MrRoseau-please change your name.

To MrWarroad?

In the twenty years prior to the split in the classes, here are the state champs:

International Falls
Hibbing
Edina East
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids
Rochester John-Marshall
Edina East
Edina East
Grand Rapids
Bloomington Jefferson
Edina
Hill-Murray
Edina
Burnsville
Burnsville
Bloomington Kennedy
Edina
Bloomington Jefferson
Roseau
Hill-Murray

Where is Hermantown, Warroad, Eveleth, Red Wing, Greenway, Hibbing???

It is so obvious that a large enrollment gives a team a significant advantage that it’s hard to believe that some people think it’s even debatable!!!

Is it an absolute advantage? Of course not. No small town school would ever win then. But, to deny that it gives a team any advantage at all is to deny reality in the face of facts.

DubCHAGuy wrote:So, big schools have more kids to choose from??? Thanks for the update.

Yes, it is painful to have to point out such an obvious fact . But, it is, apparently, necessary to do so when people claim that a huge enrollment confers no advantage to a school.

This might be the dumbest topic on the board. The number of students is, in my opinion not a factor. One might look at it and say WOW, Roseau is amazing for producing such a great product year in and year out with sooo few kids.

I look at other variables:
1. Ice Time: Ice time in Roseau is Free... Well, not free to the tax paying citizens of Roseau, but to the everday users. I'm betting Ice time in nearly every other city in NOT free. Far from it. This most certainly will keep a large number of potential hockey players looking for other sports and/or interests.

2. Related to Ice Time: (Number of Ice Sheets available per Child)
Not sure what the break down (exact hours) available to kids wanting to skate and/or play hockey in Roseau is, but I'm betting money that there is much more time to sharpen their skills over a given time.

3. From the start (Tiny Mites age) ALL kids try hockey in Roseau. Many stay with hockey. There are far more "Feeder Programs" for other sports in large metro cities. While Basketball has improved over the years in Roseau (with exception to this year), feed programs are hit and miss to say the least.

4. All this being said, I will cheer for Roseau. I always have and always will. However, the arguement regarding small town vs big town only works when variables are similar.

GO RAMS!

MrRoseau wrote:It is so obvious that a large enrollment gives a team a significant advantage that it’s hard to believe that some people think it’s even debatable!!!

Just like it is so obvious that kids in a small town in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do and almost as much ice time as anyone could ask for will become very good hockey players.

Just like it is so obvious that Roseau rarely loses players to other teams the way many Twin City programs do. (Dustin is one, but how many others?)

Roseau is great. Numbers help.

BTW, when you won the prestigious bodybuilding title of Mr. Roseau, how many others entered?

(Is this like the dude that pretended to be from Edina and talked a lot of smack for the few minutes before his account was nuked?)

Can't Never Tried wrote:You didn't answer my question..Did they, or do they regularly have to cut players?

Let’s stipulate that they don’t have to cut players. That doesn’t disprove my point.

All it says—as I’ve said above—is that some larger schools are simply failing to capitalize on the inherent advantage that a larger enrollment affords them.

Look at the history of the winners.

O-townClown wrote:Numbers matter, obviously.

Thank you.

Some people simply deny that.

Neutron 14 wrote:The Bantam A team comes from the Peewee A team, and again is the same size as Roseaus. Want to keep going? Your logic is severly faulted. You keep talking about bodies, but were only concerned about hockey players aren't we.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.

Where do the Mites come from? Edina, for example, has a much larger pool of potential talent for Mites than a tiny community like Roseau has.

Roseau's A Bantam team is going to the State Tourney. All of the kids on that team will go to Roseau High School after Bantams. Many of the other teams at state will lose kids to privates. The numbers in the school mean much less than the opportunities a community provides for development. Roseau did not opt to play the poor me, I'm a little guy card. We opted up as a community because of that proverbial chip on our shoulders that says we do things right here.


I think we found circletalkers long lost brother.

MrRoseau wrote:

Neutron 14 wrote:The Bantam A team comes from the Peewee A team, and again is the same size as Roseaus. Want to keep going? Your logic is severly faulted. You keep talking about bodies, but were only concerned about hockey players aren't we.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.

Where do the Mites come from? Edina, for example, has a much larger pool of potential talent for Mites than a tiny community like Roseau has.

Are Edina's mites better than Roseaus mites because there's more of them?

And that O-Town guy is from Florida, don't listen to him.