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Any predictions on the top 10. The list should be out tomorrow.

Goalies

Shelby Amsley-Benzie
Crystal Amunrud
Chloe Billadeau
Julie Friend
Erika Hanson
Chelsea Laden
Haley Morningstar
Tiana Press
Shyler Sletta
Samantha Ubl

Ms. Hockey

Rachael Bona
Hillary Crowe
Taylor Kuehl
Allie LaCombe
Meghan Lorence
Layla Marvin
Abby Ness
Rachel Ramsey
Sami Reber
Karley Sylvester

Nice list...all very worthy

But... no Audry Hanmer, Jordan Burns, Morgan Illikainen?


Very little love for the Blue liners.

Congratulations to a fine group of young women and best wishes for a successful post- high school career.

And, thinking of those who didn't make it, too.

leftwing wrote:Congratulations to a fine group of young women and best wishes for a successful post- high school career.

And, thinking of those who didn't make it, too.

Agree congrats and there are some very good players that did not make the list.

hockeya1a wrote:

leftwing wrote:Congratulations to a fine group of young women and best wishes for a successful post- high school career.

And, thinking of those who didn't make it, too.

Agree congrats and there are some very good players that did not make the list.

Agree with the above sentiments. I think it's a good thing for the game when you can think of good players for both lists who didn't make the final ten.

Agreed, and some that made the list, that maybe shoudnt.

Another conspicuous omission is Dani Schultz. Weak schedule, but 58 goals, 94 points and counting... those are some big numbers in any conference.

Congrats to all the young women who made the list -- some great players & goalies.

http://www.mngirlshockeyhub.com/news_ar ... 15187-news

I don't see a single girl on these list that doesn't belong there. We may have to put up the top 50 girls to make everyone happy.

Looking at this year's list of Ms. Hockey nominees I noticed that it includes only one defenseman, Rachel Ramsey. Obviously a very deserving nominee and a big reason why Minnetonka has been rated No. 1 pretty much the whole season.

But other than the fact that defensemen typically don't score as many points as forwards, I'm not sure why they always seem to get slighted with this award. After all, more than a third of all skaters play defense, and you know there are some very good ones out there even though they don't show up at the top of the points standings. Looking at the past winners of the Ms. Hockey award [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_ ... rd#Winners ] I do not believe that ANY of the girls on the list played defense.

Maybe those who do play defense should have their own award. Similar to the goalies, they could name the winner "Senior Defenseman of the Year". Just a thought...

Definately a great list of young ladies. Congrats to all.

One thing I first thought was, wow Minnetonka could sweep the awards. Then I realized so could Warroad. If an award would happen to go to a girl from one school, would that maybe hurt the chance for the other girl from the same school. Just to keep a sweep from happening? Any thoughts.

MNHockeyFan wrote:Looking at this year's list of Ms. Hockey nominees I noticed that it includes only one defenseman, Rachel Ramsey. Obviously a very deserving nominee and a big reason why Minnetonka has been rated No. 1 pretty much the whole season.

But other than the fact that defensemen typically don't score as many points as forwards, I'm not sure why they always seem to get slighted with this award. After all, more than a third of all skaters play defense, and you know there are some very good ones out there even though they don't show up at the top of the points standings. Looking at the past winners of the Ms. Hockey award [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_ ... rd#Winners ] I do not believe that ANY of the girls on the list played defense.

Maybe those who do play defense should have their own award. Similar to the goalies, they could name the winner "Senior Defenseman of the Year". Just a thought...

I have always thought there should be a separate award for the top defenseman. Just look at the list of this year's high school defensemen committed to D1 teams (and last year's list was just as impressive):

Caitlin Hewes
Morgan Illikainen
Brittney Huneke
Rachel Ramsey (F/D)
Emma Stauber
Jesse Ryan
Audrey Hanmer
Jordyn Burns
Greer Vogl

In my humble opinion, it is unfair to compare the stats of a defenseman against the stats of a forward. I also think there are so many more attributes that go into making a good defenseman other than just points. A truly good defenseman will do a very good job of stopping the other team from scoring and get the puck up to the forwards so they can do their job. Unfortunately, these skills are hard to measure. Plus/Minus stats are helpful, but rarely accurately recorded. Maybe some day the powers that be will consider having a separate award for the top defenseman.

MNhockeyfan,

Wrong on that post.

Winny Brodt 1996- Roseville
Rhonda Curtian 1999- Roseville
Krissy Wendell 2000- Park Center
Ashley Albrecht 2002- SSP

Knight7 wrote:MNhockeyfan,

Wrong on that post.

Winny Brodt 1996- Roseville
Rhonda Curtian 1999- Roseville
Krissy Wendell 2000- Park Center
Ashley Albrecht 2002- SSP

Thanks for clarifying. Guess I should have added "recently" when I said none of the past players played defense. I did see in an article while researching this that Ronda Curtin of Roseville played center in high school. So there appears to be three past winners who played defense, the last one in 2002.

MNHockeyFan wrote:

Knight7 wrote:MNhockeyfan,

Wrong on that post.

Winny Brodt 1996- Roseville
Rhonda Curtian 1999- Roseville
Krissy Wendell 2000- Park Center
Ashley Albrecht 2002- SSP

Thanks for clarifying. Guess I should have added "recently" when I said none of the past players played defense. I did see in an article while researching this that Ronda Curtin of Roseville played center in high school. So there appears to be three past winners who played defense, the last one in 2002.

I think the game has changed quite a bit since 2002. Years ago more teams would play their best players as D to maximize the ice time they were getting - and then they'd just rush the puck up the rink when the opportunity presented itself.

More recently, teams will play similar strong players at F, and then put them back at D for a shift or two to "rest" a bit. I'd say that in 2011 this approach is quite rare, and so too is the one I mentioned above. The game has changed a lot - and that's saying a very good thing about girls hockey.

MNHockeyFan wrote:Looking at this year's list of Ms. Hockey nominees I noticed that it includes only one defenseman, Rachel Ramsey. Obviously a very deserving nominee and a big reason why Minnetonka has been rated No. 1 pretty much the whole season.

But other than the fact that defensemen typically don't score as many points as forwards, I'm not sure why they always seem to get slighted with this award. After all, more than a third of all skaters play defense, and you know there are some very good ones out there even though they don't show up at the top of the points standings. Looking at the past winners of the Ms. Hockey award [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_ ... rd#Winners ] I do not believe that ANY of the girls on the list played defense.

Maybe those who do play defense should have their own award. Similar to the goalies, they could name the winner "Senior Defenseman of the Year". Just a thought...

I think this should be as follows:

1) Name a top 10 at each position - F, D, and G
2) Name a final 5 at each position
3) Announce a "Ms. F" "Ms. D" and "Ms. G" at the banquet
4) Of those 3, Name a "Ms Hockey"

I can think of Goaltenders that should have been named "Ms Hockey"

I also think D are under-recognized...

Right now we have about 120 teams in the state, most teams play 1 goalie and have 1 back-up, so 120 full-time goaltenders and 240 that likely see ice time each year. So, 10 of the 240 are being selected for Ms. Goalie. You need to be a Sr, so, that would diminish the #. Assume most players are in grades 9-12 (not entirely true, but...), so, 25% per grade => 10 of the 60 Sr goalies were recognized = 16.7% and probably more like 10 of the 30 based on most teams only playing one goalie => 33% recognized.

I'd say, on average, teams play 4 D, and maybe as many as 5. So, 120*4=480 and 120*5 = 600. And we had only 1 of the 600 D selected. Applying the 25% per grade rule to get a # of Srs => 1 of the 150 Sr D were recognized = 0.7%.

F's, same deal, at least 6, as many as 9, 120*6= 780, 120*9=1080, 25% Srs => 270, 9 of 270 Sr F were recognized = 3.3%

Of course, the numbers of F vs D will change year-to-year based on the actual selections and we know that not all HS players are in grades 9-12, etc. But these are some rough estimates...

Just my 2 cents...

ghshockeyfan wrote:

MNHockeyFan wrote:Looking at this year's list of Ms. Hockey nominees I noticed that it includes only one defenseman, Rachel Ramsey. Obviously a very deserving nominee and a big reason why Minnetonka has been rated No. 1 pretty much the whole season.

But other than the fact that defensemen typically don't score as many points as forwards, I'm not sure why they always seem to get slighted with this award. After all, more than a third of all skaters play defense, and you know there are some very good ones out there even though they don't show up at the top of the points standings. Looking at the past winners of the Ms. Hockey award [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_ ... rd#Winners ] I do not believe that ANY of the girls on the list played defense.

Maybe those who do play defense should have their own award. Similar to the goalies, they could name the winner "Senior Defenseman of the Year". Just a thought...

I think this should be as follows:

1) Name a top 10 at each position - F, D, and G
2) Name a final 5 at each position
3) Announce a "Ms. F" "Ms. D" and "Ms. G" at the banquet
4) Of those 3, Name a "Ms Hockey"

I can think of Goaltenders that should have been named "Ms Hockey"

I also think D are under-recognized.

Just my 2 cents...

GHS - I like your take as usual, and I agree that D are under appreciated. However I don't think any of these decisions are made based on points. There were some good D left off the list, but that is a solid top 10, and there were some top end F's left off that top 10 list as well. That just tells me this is a good class, and it's good for the girls game as a whole to have this much talent.

My main concern with changing the process would be "where does it stop?" We have raised a generation who have been praised for everything, and all along the way everyone gets an award, there has to be a time we prepare them for the real world and everyone doesn't always get a trophy. We add D, then people complain that we shouldn't just honor SR's, so we go to adding a "rookie of the year", then we have to add D & G categories to that award because they don't get recognized, then "rookie" can mean anything, so we have to go to Fresh, Soph, and Jr POY the year awards. I don't know, it just seems that teams, conference's, Coaches, AP and everyone has awards. To me Ms./Mr. Hockey is sacred and some things shouldn't be changed.

ghshockeyfan wrote:
I think this should be as follows:

1) Name a top 10 at each position - F, D, and G
2) Name a final 5 at each position
3) Announce a "Ms. F" "Ms. D" and "Ms. G" at the banquet
4) Of those 3, Name a "Ms Hockey"

I like your idea a lot. This would give all players an opportunity to be recognized as being the best at their position while at the same time preserve the Ms. Hockey designation for the best player overall, regardless of position. And as you say it would give a great goalie a chance of being named Ms. Hockey which is not the case now.

allhoc11 wrote:My main concern with changing the process would be "where does it stop?" We have raised a generation who have been praised for everything, and all along the way everyone gets an award, there has to be a time we prepare them for the real world and everyone doesn't always get a trophy. We add D, then people complain that we shouldn't just honor SR's, so we go to adding a "rookie of the year", then we have to add D & G categories to that award because they don't get recognized, then "rookie" can mean anything, so we have to go to Fresh, Soph, and Jr POY the year awards. I don't know, it just seems that teams, conference's, Coaches, AP and everyone has awards. To me Ms./Mr. Hockey is sacred and some things shouldn't be changed.

I probably should have started with "If you are going to consider changing things, then..." above.

Funny - we actually agree on "where do you stop" as far as the recognition is concerned. I remember the days when awards truly meant something. I pushed the first conference I coached in to REDUCE the # of All-Conf players for this reason. We realized that roughly 30% of the players were being named All-Conf or ACHM! That was crazy to me - and we got it fixed.

Similarly, I moved to a team award-less banquet approach after a few years of coaching as I found it was far better. No one left feeling like they were left out and the best players were recognized by all those other entities you mentioned. Unfortunately, when I moved on to my final coaching stop the team had a long-standing tradition of certain awards and I decided to honor that tradition as much as I personally did not believe in it...

My point? I see the "sacred" argument re: "Ms. Hockey" but not sold on a Goalie being ineligible for the "Ms Hockey" title. I would actually do away with the Ms Goalie then, and have only Ms Hockey (which goalies would be eligible for). Seems that Goalies and Forwards are always thought of as "game changers" and probably would always dominate such a list over D. Maybe that is just the way it is. I still think that "forwards are a dime a dozen" and an amazing D is severely under-valued (except by D1 coaches).

Weak schedule, very weak. Coaches fault for not playing strong competion in the non-conference schedule. Probably would have had a hard time hitting 40 points in one of the tough city conferences. Looking at the schedule they played. Rachel Bona would of anilated that schedule and would of probably accumalated 250 points. It's too bad her coaches did not take care of her by coming to the cities to showcase her skills playing some tough competion. Big fish in small puddle.

Bandy wrote:Another conspicuous omission is Dani Schultz. Weak schedule, but 58 goals, 94 points and counting... those are some big numbers in any conference.

Congrats to all the young women who made the list -- some great players & goalies.

http://www.mngirlshockeyhub.com/news_ar ... 15187-news

She has posted a pair of eight-goal contests.

Kuehl was involved in over 72 percent of Mound Westonka’s goals during her career and finished her high school career with 350 points.

“Taylor has changed our program forever,” Mound Westonka head coach –and Taylor’s father – Bob Kuehl said.

Way to go Dad. Built a program around your daughter. Now that she's gone, probably retire? Familiar approach for parent coaches. 8 goal contests.......really sporting. Building a program!

hockeylife,mylife wrote:She has posted a pair of eight-goal contests.

Kuehl was involved in over 72 percent of Mound Westonka’s goals during her career and finished her high school career with 350 points.

“Taylor has changed our program forever,” Mound Westonka head coach –and Taylor’s father – Bob Kuehl said.

Way to go Dad. Built a program around your daughter. Now that she's gone, probably retire? Familiar approach for parent coaches. 8 goal contests.......really sporting. Building a program!

I don't disagree with your post but did get to see her skate in the non HS season and she stood out among some of the best. I think the girls at smaller programs who get big numbers against less competitive teams really need to make their name between March and September.

Maybe the panel who chooses the players isn't qualified.

ghshockeyfan wrote:Seems that Goalies and Forwards are always thought of as "game changers" and probably would always dominate such a list over D. Maybe that is just the way it is. I still think that "forwards are a dime a dozen" and an amazing D is severely under-valued (except by D1 coaches).

On behalf of many D parents that agree, I'd like to thank you for that comment. Good D players are often overlooked in HS but as you state they are in high demand by D1 coaches. Because D are rarely on the Ms Hockey list I personally think there should be a separate D award. Really good D are rarely noticed because in general their job is not to score goals but prevent goals from being scored. Unfortunately, only offensive D get occasional recognition at the Ms Hockey level so I don't think one more award that is specific to D is too many. Now if you start adding other awards such as top defensive forward, top rookie, top middle schooler, etc I would have a problem.

MNHockeyFan wrote:Maybe those who do play defense should have their own award. Similar to the goalies, they could name the winner "Senior Defenseman of the Year". Just a thought...

I came to this conclusion a few years ago now...I'm among those who believe there should be an award specific to those that play D, thinking it was time for such an award a few years back...at least. It's overdue now IMO. Too many fine defenders have been left out of proper, deserved recognition in absence of an award specific to D. There should be a "Senior Defenseman of the Year" award in my view.

Edit: I'd personally prefer just recognizing three players...a Ms. Hockey, Senior GOTY and Senior DOTY and leave it at that rather than picking a "Ms. Hockey" from the three. I prefer the idea of recognizing the three equally.