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So Junior Festival has been announced and information e-mailed out. Tryouts are the same weekend as the Phase II games but you can be evaluated there or if not in Phase process you can tryout independently.

Can anyone who played last year talk about the level of play and were there a lot of scouts in attendance? If you had it to do over again would you do it? I am asking becuase it seems like there were comments last year that the level of play was off and not a lot of scouts? Any feedback just trying to weigh it against all the hockey on the list?

If you talk to college coaches they will tell you this is the most scouted Girls Hockey event in the US, and Second most scouted event in north america to Prospects in Toronto.

I would say that last year the overall talent was down, but each year is different based on the amount of talent in each graduating class. The biggest draw to the college coaches is timing, they get to see the kids against solid competition just prior to when they are able to start making contact with the athletes.

allhoc11 wrote:If you talk to college coaches they will tell you this is the most scouted Girls Hockey event in the US, and Second most scouted event in north america to Prospects in Toronto.

I would say that last year the overall talent was down, but each year is different based on the amount of talent in each graduating class. The biggest draw to the college coaches is timing, they get to see the kids against solid competition just prior to when they are able to start making contact with the athletes.

Wow ok great - my daugheter was at NAHA last fall and every single D1 and a lot of D3 were there I was amazed we never get that to a tournament in Minnesota.....thank you.

The year before there was pretty much a college coach from all the major D1 and every DIII school there. It's pretty much worth attending just to listen to the talk before the first practice.

It centers on recruiting, responding to coaches, hard work, fun - you name it.

It is certainly worth it.

I would certainly encourage anyone invited to participate in Junior Fest.

However, from my experience with 2 Junior Fests in the last three years and the last 3 NAHA tourneys over Labor Day; there are considerably more coaches, particularly head D-1 coaches (from the east) at the NAHA tourney as compared to Junior Fest.

Last year there were some North Dakota girls that played in the Junior Fest. Anyone know did invites go out to North Dakota players, too?

http://mghca.com/images/stories/website ... roster.pdf

SportsMa wrote:Last year there were some North Dakota girls that played in the Junior Fest. Anyone know did invites go out to North Dakota players, too?

I think JF is usually listed as a 4 team event, but the MGHCA leaves the option open to expand if they feel there are more players that college coaches will want to see. I was told the ND players last year were all Phase III players in their area, but from watching some of the games they didn't seem very competitive with the MN girls, not sure if there will be a ND team this year.

I think try-outs were this weekend, anyone see them? How did they go? Any ND kids there? When will kids know if they make it?

allhoc11 wrote:

SportsMa wrote:Last year there were some North Dakota girls that played in the Junior Fest. Anyone know did invites go out to North Dakota players, too?

I think JF is usually listed as a 4 team event, but the MGHCA leaves the option open to expand if they feel there are more players that college coaches will want to see. I was told the ND players last year were all Phase III players in their area, but from watching some of the games they didn't seem very competitive with the MN girls, not sure if there will be a ND team this year.

I think try-outs were this weekend, anyone see them? How did they go? Any ND kids there? When will kids know if they make it?

Can't speak to ND or stand alone JF tryouts. I did see the U17 action at Plymouth - 8 teams so as many as 160 kids trying out for JF. If all of the top Juniors with '91 DOB also tried out there will be a lot of talent (a few examples......F - Stenerson, McDonald.....D - Gleason, Lacombe, Scholzen - know there are more but don't know all) and there are some kids who will try out for JF for $60 versus the 6 weeks and $320 to go all the way through PI-III. I am sure there were other sophomores in the U17 group of 160 the 7 I saw were F - Lorence, Lundeen, M Brandt, Ramsey.....G - Laden, C Billadeau ... D - Vogl, Hanmer, Pilot.

Does anyone know when we are supposed to find out who made it to Junior Fest?

The last try-out group on 4/3 & 4/4 was told that it would be a couple of weeks. So that would put it sometime around 4/17 - 4/18

Has anyone heard anything yet? Will they contact the girls who made it at the same time they contact the girls who didn't?

Looks like Junior Festival e-mails started going out yesterday/last night with a requirement to sign up and pay by May 8th - if late it says alternates will be added - you must be a current member of USA Hockey.

Looks like there will be an expansion from 6 teams in 2008 to 8 teams for 2009 (so if 20/team 160 girls vs 120 last year). As posted by others this may be the most scouted event for MN girls so hope there is a high standard of play to keep the event strong. I can't tell if there are girls from outside MN involved like there was last year with ND? Events will start Tuesday 6/9 with registration at 11:15 AM through Championship on Friday 6/12 starting at 2 PM.

Check your spam filters as it went out to a list and may not have gotten to your inbox.

So do you know if they contact the girls if they don't make it?

createfun wrote:So do you know if they contact the girls if they don't make it?

Everyone was notified by email and were told they were in JF, an alternate, or did not make JF.

8 full teams of juniors, 20 players each - plus alternates? I doubt they cut many.

FrankThom wrote:8 full teams of juniors, 20 players each - plus alternates? I doubt they cut many.

You had about 140 juniors in Phase II so you have to guess they all opted to try out. Not sure how many non-Phase II '92 or '91 Juniors tried out.

You figure just 20 sophomores out of 160? Interesting.

FrankThom wrote:You figure just 20 sophomores out of 160? Interesting.

SWAG - looking at rosters 2-3 on each of the 8 teams I might be low.....

joehockey wrote:

FrankThom wrote:You figure just 20 sophomores out of 160? Interesting.

SWAG - looking at rosters 2-3 on each of the 8 teams I might be low.....

I would guess the 91 Juniors would would balance out the 92 Sophomores at Phase II.

Add to that the Juniors that chose not to participate in Adv 17.

Subtract the kids that didn't try out/can't schedule/don't want to play in junior fest and I'm starting to wonder if anyone got cut.

Thought there was only going to be 4 teams?. I'm happy for all the girls getting a chance to play. It will be watered down hockey though. Scouts can't be happy. How many on a team? Hopefully 3 F lines and 5 D. It's smelling like a money maker to me

If there are 8 teams with 12 F 6 D 2 G it would mean 160 kids - play would be equal to or better than the Phase II games with the same number of kids because you would have all juniors and the older '91 kids. If there are 8 teams 9 F 6 D and 2 G it would be 136 players and better play than Phase II.

joehockey wrote:If there are 8 teams with 12 F 6 D 2 G it would mean 160 kids - play would be equal to or better than the Phase II games with the same number of kids because you would have all juniors and the older '91 kids. If there are 8 teams 9 F 6 D and 2 G it would be 136 players and better play than Phase II.

I agree Joe, and don't forget the kids who simply choose not to do NDP Phase II for various reasons.

I would not go as far as to say it will be "watered down" hockey. the graduating class of 2010 has talent and if there is no big drop in talent its hard for the evaluators to really cut many people.

This weekend during the TNFHL games Junior Festival was discussed a lot by current juniors. It sounds like a lot of schools are still in session the week of Jr Fest......Eagan, Irondale, Stillwater, WBL all are still in schools and taking finals that week - is this a problem across the State?