HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

New Top 20 is up on the Hub -- and no surprise to see Minnetonka stays at No. 1. Some shake-ups otherwise as the hockey season continues with interesting match-ups...

http://www.mnhockeyhub.com/page/show_ar ... news/40887

Looks like Centennial got hit with the Sports Illustrated jinx, eh??

Looks like we agree on just about everything aside from Jefferson.

karl(east) wrote:Looks like we agree on just about everything aside from Jefferson.

AAAANNNNNNNNDDDDDDDD..... where do we think they get their info from?????

That's because great minds think alike, I'd say.

I just went and checked out your rankings, Karl, and we're pretty close. I definitely have Jefferson much higher than you do. Couple of other changes, as well. I like having:

1. Eagan behind Centennial and Roseau
2. Eden Prairie in front of Wayzata
3. I'm not sold yet on Maple Grove and Apple Valley, but wasn't tossing Andover and Cretin out of the Top 20 yet
4. I'm also not ready to put Osseo up ahead of Benilde and Duluth East
5. plus I've got to include those pesky Class A schools in mine

Great work!

Of course, as soon as I put Centennial back in there, they lose to Elk River. Hmmm...

Goldfishdude wrote:

karl(east) wrote:Looks like we agree on just about everything aside from Jefferson.

AAAANNNNNNNNDDDDDDDD..... where do we think they get their info from?????

I'll try to play nice.

karl(east) wrote:Looks like we agree on just about everything aside from Jefferson.

Karl, I tend to agree with your ranking of Jefferson based on their play the last couple of weeks. I think they have the talent to be a top team, but not yet.

dueling21 wrote:That's because great minds think alike, I'd say.

I just went and checked out your rankings, Karl, and we're pretty close. I definitely have Jefferson much higher than you do. Couple of other changes, as well. I like having:

1. Eagan behind Centennial and Roseau
2. Eden Prairie in front of Wayzata
3. I'm not sold yet on Maple Grove and Apple Valley, but wasn't tossing Andover and Cretin out of the Top 20 yet
4. I'm also not ready to put Osseo up ahead of Benilde and Duluth East
5. plus I've got to include those pesky Class A schools in mine

Great work!

I definitely understand the EP/Wayzata and Osseo/DE/BSM differences; I debated those ones for a while and understand how someone could easily have gone a different way. And those bottom two AA slots are a mess; I have my reasons for choosing the teams I put there, but they aren't incredibly strong ones.

So the only real differences that I'd question are Jefferson and Eagan.

karl(east) wrote:

dueling21 wrote:That's because great minds think alike, I'd say.

I just went and checked out your rankings, Karl, and we're pretty close. I definitely have Jefferson much higher than you do. Couple of other changes, as well. I like having:

1. Eagan behind Centennial and Roseau
2. Eden Prairie in front of Wayzata
3. I'm not sold yet on Maple Grove and Apple Valley, but wasn't tossing Andover and Cretin out of the Top 20 yet
4. I'm also not ready to put Osseo up ahead of Benilde and Duluth East
5. plus I've got to include those pesky Class A schools in mine

Great work!

I definitely understand the EP/Wayzata and Osseo/DE/BSM differences; I debated those ones for a while and understand how someone could easily have gone a different way. And those bottom two AA slots are a mess; I have my reasons for choosing the teams I put there, but they aren't incredibly strong ones.

So the only real differences that I'd question are Jefferson and Eagan.

It's funny, but for the past two years, Jefferson is the team that seems to be most under debate (other than Little Falls last year in Class A, of course!). They have their strong supporters and then their detractors that are equally vocal. I get emails from both sides every so often questioning my rankings of them either way! But that's the kind of thing that makes these rankings fun (and debatable).

With Eagan beating the Jags, it really mucks it up more. Eagan is still climbing in my rankings, as they weren't highly regarded before the season. But they keep winning. I want to see them in the coming weeks continue that and they'll really make a big jump.

I agree that the bottom of Class AA is a toss-up and I can't figure out what to do with Centennial from week to week (neither perhaps can Erik Aus).

Dueling, with all due respect I have to give the nod to Karl. Although you also give thoughtful insight, Karl has one distinct advantage over you.

Karl is minutes from the Pentagon, where he has access to the Secret Service, CIA and all the inside info down to the point he knows what the players are eating for meals, down to who may have some distractions from grades and how each team is practicing on a daily basis.

If Karl says Jefferson is ranked lower than you, I ain't arguing, because I don't want any unexpected knocks on my door!!

Goldfishdude wrote:Dueling, with all due respect I have to give the nod to Karl. Although you also give thoughtful insight, Karl has one distinct advantage over you.

Karl is minutes from the Pentagon, where he has access to the Secret Service, CIA and all the inside info down to the point he knows what the players are eating for meals, down to who may have some distractions from grades and how each team is practicing on a daily basis.

If Karl says Jefferson is ranked lower than you, I ain't arguing, because I don't want any unexpected knocks on my door!!

Oddly enough, there have been a lot of lone men in sunglasses hovering around the neighborhood today...guess I'd better watch out...

dueling21 wrote:

Goldfishdude wrote:Dueling, with all due respect I have to give the nod to Karl. Although you also give thoughtful insight, Karl has one distinct advantage over you.

Karl is minutes from the Pentagon, where he has access to the Secret Service, CIA and all the inside info down to the point he knows what the players are eating for meals, down to who may have some distractions from grades and how each team is practicing on a daily basis.

If Karl says Jefferson is ranked lower than you, I ain't arguing, because I don't want any unexpected knocks on my door!!

Oddly enough, there have been a lot of lone men in sunglasses hovering around the neighborhood today...guess I'd better watch out...

dueling21 wrote:

karl(east) wrote:

dueling21 wrote:That's because great minds think alike, I'd say.

I just went and checked out your rankings, Karl, and we're pretty close. I definitely have Jefferson much higher than you do. Couple of other changes, as well. I like having:

1. Eagan behind Centennial and Roseau
2. Eden Prairie in front of Wayzata
3. I'm not sold yet on Maple Grove and Apple Valley, but wasn't tossing Andover and Cretin out of the Top 20 yet
4. I'm also not ready to put Osseo up ahead of Benilde and Duluth East
5. plus I've got to include those pesky Class A schools in mine

Great work!

I definitely understand the EP/Wayzata and Osseo/DE/BSM differences; I debated those ones for a while and understand how someone could easily have gone a different way. And those bottom two AA slots are a mess; I have my reasons for choosing the teams I put there, but they aren't incredibly strong ones.

So the only real differences that I'd question are Jefferson and Eagan.

It's funny, but for the past two years, Jefferson is the team that seems to be most under debate (other than Little Falls last year in Class A, of course!). They have their strong supporters and then their detractors that are equally vocal. I get emails from both sides every so often questioning my rankings of them either way! But that's the kind of thing that makes these rankings fun (and debatable).

With Eagan beating the Jags, it really mucks it up more. Eagan is still climbing in my rankings, as they weren't highly regarded before the season. But they keep winning. I want to see them in the coming weeks continue that and they'll really make a big jump.

I agree that the bottom of Class AA is a toss-up and I can't figure out what to do with Centennial from week to week (neither perhaps can Erik Aus).

Right or wrong, we give preference to programs who typically do well.
-Last year, Jefferson played two really good teams, was 2-1 in those games. They also needed OT to beat a pretty good Moorhead team and a sub .500 Lakeville South team. All this, with a nothing schedule the rest of the way and they were still rated #1 to everyone. This amazing record and they get shut out in the section final that they walked to.
-Every year Holy Angels starts out high in the rankings when they don't play their first game until most teams have 5. This year were in the top ten with a 3-0 record, all games against Class A Missota schools. Why? Because of who the school is.
I could go on, but I don't need to. Whether right or wrong, we do.

Last year undefeated Utah beat Alabama by close to the same margin as Florida did. But Utah wasn't in the national championship game because of their schedule, right or wrong. It is very difficult to truly factor into a ranking system what we see in a team unless they play head to head. So what is done is using how difficult their schedule is. Boise St and Utah show us that good teams can demolish bad teams and Hawaii shows us that above average teams can also demolish bad teams.

The ONLY point I've been making about ranking Eagan high is that people give Jefferson this high ranking. If Jefferson is high and gets beat, not only should they drop, but the team who beats them should come on the scene. That being said, I personally don't believe Jefferson should be ranked as high as they are; not because of how good they are, but how good they've proven to be.

It's funny that when AA schools do well without a schedule there are always excuses given to why they are good and they are high, but when A schools do well without a schedule, there is always consensus they need to play someone to prove themselves. Spring Lake Park is 12-0 but have proven nothing. If they get to 15-0 (which means beating Benilde) they will move up drastically; 14-1 they will not prove much.

HShockeywatcher wrote:

dueling21 wrote:

karl(east) wrote: I definitely understand the EP/Wayzata and Osseo/DE/BSM differences; I debated those ones for a while and understand how someone could easily have gone a different way. And those bottom two AA slots are a mess; I have my reasons for choosing the teams I put there, but they aren't incredibly strong ones.

So the only real differences that I'd question are Jefferson and Eagan.

It's funny, but for the past two years, Jefferson is the team that seems to be most under debate (other than Little Falls last year in Class A, of course!). They have their strong supporters and then their detractors that are equally vocal. I get emails from both sides every so often questioning my rankings of them either way! But that's the kind of thing that makes these rankings fun (and debatable).

With Eagan beating the Jags, it really mucks it up more. Eagan is still climbing in my rankings, as they weren't highly regarded before the season. But they keep winning. I want to see them in the coming weeks continue that and they'll really make a big jump.

I agree that the bottom of Class AA is a toss-up and I can't figure out what to do with Centennial from week to week (neither perhaps can Erik Aus).

Right or wrong, we give preference to programs who typically do well.
-Last year, Jefferson played two really good teams, was 2-1 in those games. They also needed OT to beat a pretty good Moorhead team and a sub .500 Lakeville South team. All this, with a nothing schedule the rest of the way and they were still rated #1 to everyone. This amazing record and they get shut out in the section final that they walked to.
-Every year Holy Angels starts out high in the rankings when they don't play their first game until most teams have 5. This year were in the top ten with a 3-0 record, all games against Class A Missota schools. Why? Because of who the school is.
I could go on, but I don't need to. Whether right or wrong, we do.

Last year undefeated Utah beat Alabama by close to the same margin as Florida did. But Utah wasn't in the national championship game because of their schedule, right or wrong. It is very difficult to truly factor into a ranking system what we see in a team unless they play head to head. So what is done is using how difficult their schedule is. Boise St and Utah show us that good teams can demolish bad teams and Hawaii shows us that above average teams can also demolish bad teams.

The ONLY point I've been making about ranking Eagan high is that people give Jefferson this high ranking. If Jefferson is high and gets beat, not only should they drop, but the team who beats them should come on the scene. That being said, I personally don't believe Jefferson should be ranked as high as they are; not because of how good they are, but how good they've proven to be.

It's funny that when AA schools do well without a schedule there are always excuses given to why they are good and they are high, but when A schools do well without a schedule, there is always consensus they need to play someone to prove themselves. Spring Lake Park is 12-0 but have proven nothing. If they get to 15-0 (which means beating Benilde) they will move up drastically; 14-1 they will not prove much.

You make some good points, but stop bringing the BCS into this. High School hockey ends up with only one "true championship" team winning their last game. The BCS has many.

Those are excellent points and I think it feeds into the inherent bias in a ranking system done by people. Simply put, they don't like to look stupid.

It's much more palatable to put traditional powers in high positions at the start of a season, because if said team continues to win, the ranker appears to have "knowledge." If said team loses to teams it shouldn't, then it drops and the ranker still keeps up the appearance of "knowledge."

But if the ranker starts jumping non-traditional powers way up in the rankings early in the season based on a few limited results (such as sticking Spring Lake Park at No. 1 or something like that), then they lose credibility with much of their readership -- and everyone stops paying attention to that ranking system.

If those non-traditional teams continue to win, however, then they slowly move up the rankings until they are likely in the proper spot come the end of the regular season (when many more head-to-head games have been played). It's just that their road to that spot is much longer because of the lack of history.

Simply put...no one wants to look stupid.

On the positive side, unlike the BCS Minnesota high school hockey does play down to a single champion in each class (which gives us the only argument remaining as to whether the A or AA team is better!).

In the interest of full disclosure, here were my top-10 in each class in the preseason (finalized way back on Nov. 1):

CLASS AA
1. Eden Prairie
2. Minnetonka
3. Bloomington Jefferson
4. Benilde-St. Margaret's
5. Hill-Murray
6. Blaine
7. Holy Angels
8. Edina
9. Apple Valley
10. Woodbury

CLASS A
1. Breck
2. St. Thomas Academy
3. Warroad
4. Hermantown
5. South St. Paul
6. Mahtomedi
7. St. Cloud Cathedral
8. Thief River Falls
9. Sartell-St. Stephen
10. Virginia/MIB

Definitely some movement, but not too much among most of these "traditional powers." I tried to think outside the box on a couple of instances, putting both Apple Valley (AA) and Sartell (A) in my top-10...neither of which has totally worked so far, but still could by season's end.

Holy Angels and Woodbury (AA) have played their way out of the Top 10 so far, as has South St. Paul (A). Then we've had teams jump up like Wayzata (I had them just outside the top 10) and Eagan (not on my radar), but not too much change overall to be honest.

dueling21 wrote:

Goldfishdude wrote:Dueling, with all due respect I have to give the nod to Karl. Although you also give thoughtful insight, Karl has one distinct advantage over you.

Karl is minutes from the Pentagon, where he has access to the Secret Service, CIA and all the inside info down to the point he knows what the players are eating for meals, down to who may have some distractions from grades and how each team is practicing on a daily basis.

If Karl says Jefferson is ranked lower than you, I ain't arguing, because I don't want any unexpected knocks on my door!!

Oddly enough, there have been a lot of lone men in sunglasses hovering around the neighborhood today...guess I'd better watch out...

Don't worry about them. They're there for your safety.

HShockeywatcher wrote:Last year, Jefferson played two really good teams, was 2-1 in those games. They also needed OT to beat a pretty good Moorhead team and a sub .500 Lakeville South team. All this, with a nothing schedule the rest of the way and they were still rated #1 to everyone.

Not quite everyone...I had them behind Edina nearly the entire season, and #3 behind Edina and EP heading into sections.

This year, with the Lake apparently up a bit (Eagan, AV, maybe Burnsville and LVS are jumping into the picture), they don't have quite as big a problem with that. And they also played in a much stronger holiday tourney, which gave us a better picture of how good they are.

I watched all 3 of their games in that tourney, and it was very revealing. It showed why some people think they should be #2--there was an awful lot of talent flying around on the ice. But it also showed why they shouldn't be that high--a tie against a very inconsistent team, the ease with which other teams knocked them off their game. They're definitely pretty good--they've got 4 wins against top-20 teams, two more than any team below them in my rankings other than Duluth East. But neither their loss nor their tie is against another top-7 team; Edina, Blaine, Hill, and EP, on the other hand, have only lost to top-7 teams. That's why I'm very comfortable with where I have them now. If they can play up to their ability and get some big wins over the likes of Wayzata and EP, they climb accordingly. If not, down they go.

Aside from having a real championship, we do have one other advantage over the BCS in that HS hockey teams play about double the number of games they do in NCAA football. That's double the information to work with, and with more information, it's way easier to justify things. Sure, you might get 10 people justifying 10 different things in 10 different ways, but at least they're using results to do it, instead of the inherent guesswork in NCAA football. If we had to issue rankings for a BCS in high school hockey after the same number of games that they have in the NCAA, we'd be doing that about now--think of the arguments that might cause.

I agree completely with what dueling says about knowledge and traditional vs. non-traditional teams. The goal for us as rankers, then, is to find the right balance, and to create a smooth transition from early-season rankings based on what we think we know to late-season rankings more grounded in what has actually happened. (We are, of course, allowed to hedge on a few spots here and there so long as we can justify that.) The goal is to create a fluid system that recognizes those who should climb and those who should fall, but at the same time gets a "feel" for a team and a general idea of where they should be. Of course, some teams end up being impossible to pigeon-hole like that; Centennial is the prime example so far this year, and Benilde's been all over the map too.

Another team that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned is Roseau. While they are a traditional hockey power, they were considered more of a bubble team at the beginning of the year, and now no one's really questioning their presence in the top ten. This surprises me, since a team with similar achievements, Eagan, has caused quite a bit of arguing.

i still think that Edina would Jefferson but otherwise good rankings...maybe not Eagan ahead of Benilde

BodyShots wrote: You make some good points, but stop bringing the BCS into this. High School hockey ends up with only one "true championship" team winning their last game. The BCS has many.

Yes, I too (like 90% of the population) dislike the BCS. The thing, though, the BCS does do on a large scale basis, is give credit to teams with more difficult schedules. Why have Texas and Bama been higher ranked than the other undefeateds all season? They play a more difficult schedule. I am not at all denying that Utah, Boise, Hawaii, TCU, Cincy, etc should be ranked where they were; their schedules didn't prove them. In a playoff system, they would either prove they can play or they can't.

Every year Class A size Roseau plays an average Class A schedule despite being a Class AA team now. Of their 13 games thus far, 2 have been against AA teams. They have a total of 4 AA games on their schedule; but they get respect for their history. (I wrote this before reading your post karl)

karl, I guess I personally disagree with some of what you're saying. I put out the Class A rankings every week. While I admit I do use the popularity and tradition to help determine the #20 team between 3 when I can't decide, but if you look at my rankings, I am doing my best to put up rankings based on what has happened, not the name of the team. Simply put, regardless of the season Rogers is having, a team like Cathedral should not lose to them. They are not the team most thought they were. They are very low. They aren't still high with it being a fluke loss.

Quit second guessing Karl's picks, he gives good detail on them and explains his reasoning. Your single A ranks are nice to read but are not superior by any stretch to karl's AA picks. Keep doing the single A ranking as it is a very good read. All this BCS talk is just BS quite frankly. Overall ranking's do not mean much so why spend so much time locked in over analysis, good for water cooler chat and that is about it. The season boils down to this, a team has to win 3 games on 3 nights in a very warm building against very good talent. You do that and you earn the trophy.

This is a discussion forum, right? I thought I was in the right place. If not, let me know. I was having a respectful discussion with a couple people, no reason to be disrespectful.

Oh yeah, my bad..."hockey's different"

northwoods oldtimer wrote:Quit second guessing Karl's picks, he gives good detail on them and explains his reasoning. Your single A ranks are nice to read but are not superior by any stretch to karl's AA picks. Keep doing the single A ranking as it is a very good read. All this BCS talk is just BS quite frankly. Overall ranking's do not mean much so why spend so much time locked in over analysis, good for water cooler chat and that is about it. The season boils down to this, a team has to win 3 games on 3 nights in a very warm building against very good talent. You do that and you earn the trophy.

Without second guessing there is only one post on this thread, maybe a couple "nice job, Karl"s too. No point in posting rankings if there's not going to be discussion/ second guessing. No offense to karl I appreciate the rankings.

This is a discussion forum, right?

Indeed, that is why I am throwing out my opinion on the subject, get it?

HShockeywatcher wrote: karl, I guess I personally disagree with some of what you're saying. I put out the Class A rankings every week. While I admit I do use the popularity and tradition to help determine the #20 team between 3 when I can't decide, but if you look at my rankings, I am doing my best to put up rankings based on what has happened, not the name of the team. Simply put, regardless of the season Rogers is having, a team like Cathedral should not lose to them. They are not the team most thought they were. They are very low. They aren't still high with it being a fluke loss.

Could you elaborate a bit on what you disagree with? Are there team(s) in my rankings that you think are too high or low due to tradition?

And personally I do not mind people stirring the pot a bit so long as it's within reason and the dialogue contributes something.