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As you may have heard Minnesota high school football has added another class this season for the largest 32 teams by enrollment. With it will come a revised playoff system that at the end of the regular season will operate as follows:

"Class 6A will employ a unique postseason structure. The top four seeded teams in a section play the bottom four in the section quarterfinals. Instead of then playing each other as winners in other classes do, the final four teams will cross over to play teams from another section to produce the final eight teams making up the state tournament field."

I see this as sort of a hybrid system that preserves the geographical section assignments for the first round, but then allows the top teams in a "loaded" section a better chance to advance to the state tournament. I am wondering if hockey should consider adopting something similar and would like to hear what everyone thinks, pro and con. If hockey were to stay with just the two classes while also keeping the option of allowing smaller schools the option of moving up to AA, then AA would probably have 64 schools (8 sections of 8 teams each) and Class A would have the remainder. In any given year, if say 5 smaller enrollment schools opted to play up you would then fill out AA with the 59 largest schools by enrollment.

I kind of like the idea and am encouraged that some change might even be possible...with the thought that if football is allowed to try something new, so might hockey.

P.S. Here is a link to the football article:

http://www.mnfootballhub.com/news_artic ... _id=342060

MNHockeyFan wrote:As you may have heard Minnesota high school football has added another class this season for the largest 32 teams by enrollment. With it will come a revised playoff system that at the end of the regular season will operate as follows..........

http://www.mnfootballhub.com/news_artic ... _id=342060

I believe that the State Hockey Tourney should involve teams from across the State. Cross-sectional play before St. Paul could/would limit this geographic diversity. It doesn't matter nearly as much for 6A football, since 31 of the 32 teams are Metro-area teams.

almostashappy wrote:I believe that the State Hockey Tourney should involve teams from across the State. Cross-sectional play before St. Paul could/would limit this geographic diversity. It doesn't matter nearly as much for 6A football, since 31 of the 32 teams are Metro-area teams.

For sure that would be one disadvantage. But as it is now 1AA has the two Lakevilles and 7AA has Andover and Elk River. So really only 8AA has all teams that are outside the metro, that is if you don't count Buffalo which isn't very far outside the metro.

One possible solution that would help address your concern would be to have the sectional winners aligned so that the quarterfinal winners in 1AA, 7AA and 8AA face off against each other in alternating years, i.e. one of them would play a metro-area section and the other two would play each other. That way at least two non-metro teams would make it each year, much like now. And the State Tournament would have a stronger field overall, which was the main goal when football decided to make the change.

One solution would be to get Elk River, Andover, and Forest Lake out of 7AA and put them in 1AA.

TheHockeyDJ wrote:One solution would be to get Elk River, Andover, and Forest Lake out of 7AA and put them in 1AA.

That would make less sense location wise then having them in 7AA

TheHockeyDJ wrote:One solution would be to get Elk River, Andover, and Forest Lake out of 7AA and put them in 1AA.

And who would replace them with in 7AA?

puckstopper33 wrote:

TheHockeyDJ wrote:One solution would be to get Elk River, Andover, and Forest Lake out of 7AA and put them in 1AA.

That would make less sense location wise then having them in 7AA

Competition wise it would make more sense. And if a metro team isn't in a metro section what difference does it make? What's the difference from the NW subs to Duluth or to Rochester? 10-15 minutes? Wow, that's huge!!!

Bigcat99 wrote:

TheHockeyDJ wrote:One solution would be to get Elk River, Andover, and Forest Lake out of 7AA and put them in 1AA.

And who would replace them with in 7AA?

How about Hermantown?

TheHockeyDJ wrote:

puckstopper33 wrote:

TheHockeyDJ wrote:One solution would be to get Elk River, Andover, and Forest Lake out of 7AA and put them in 1AA.

That would make less sense location wise then having them in 7AA

Competition wise it would make more sense. And if a metro team isn't in a metro section what difference does it make? What's the difference from the NW subs to Duluth or to Rochester? 10-15 minutes? Wow, that's huge!!!

Andover, Elk River & FL in 1AA--really? why not BV, Bloomington, PL etc...?

almostashappy wrote:

Bigcat99 wrote:

TheHockeyDJ wrote:One solution would be to get Elk River, Andover, and Forest Lake out of 7AA and put them in 1AA.

And who would replace them with in 7AA?

How about Hermantown?

If you could get Hermantown, Duluth Marshall and Hibbing to opt up, you could move Elk River, Andover and Forest Lake out.

And in other fantasies....

Lee

It takes the same amount of time to get to Lakeville from FL, as it does to Duluth.

Really? It's 52 miles from Forest Lake to Lakeville, 126 miles from Forest Lake to Duluth. Even Rochester is closer than Duluth at 102 miles. Makes more sense for Forest Lake to be in 1AA than 7AA.

Seems like it to us. Traffic/people on that side of town!

TheHockeyDJ wrote:Really? It's 52 miles from Forest Lake to Lakeville, 126 miles from Forest Lake to Duluth. Even Rochester is closer than Duluth at 102 miles. Makes more sense for Forest Lake to be in 1AA than 7AA.

You guys do know that MSHSL policy is to create sections that (a) minimize travel during section play, and (b) are geographically contiguous, right?

TheHockeyDJ wrote:Really? It's...126 miles from Forest Lake to Duluth. Even Rochester is closer than Duluth at 102 miles.

Rochester is closer to Duluth than Forest Lake? Really?

what irritates me is Andover playing DE in Duluth. Home ice advantage and hard to make that drive with no kids on the team. And Semi in Duluth on a Thursday night. I love hockey, but just not feasible when I can go to the colosseum and watch good hockey there.

the_juiceman wrote:

TheHockeyDJ wrote:

puckstopper33 wrote: That would make less sense location wise then having them in 7AA

Competition wise it would make more sense. And if a metro team isn't in a metro section what difference does it make? What's the difference from the NW subs to Duluth or to Rochester? 10-15 minutes? Wow, that's huge!!!

Andover, Elk River & FL in 1AA--really? why not BV, Bloomington, PL etc...?

How about moving St. Thomas into 1AA......

Roy01 wrote:

the_juiceman wrote:

TheHockeyDJ wrote: Competition wise it would make more sense. And if a metro team isn't in a metro section what difference does it make? What's the difference from the NW subs to Duluth or to Rochester? 10-15 minutes? Wow, that's huge!!!

Andover, Elk River & FL in 1AA--really? why not BV, Bloomington, PL etc...?

How about moving St. Thomas into 1AA......

Wish they would put St. Thomas in 3AA and maybe move Apple Valley south to 1AA.

Get used to it, STA will never move to AA. Dare I say it CHICKEN...

I don't like the football idea.

It works in football because it is a metro league to begin with (albeit Brainerd).

How about this:
you divide the state into 8 geographical regions.
Take the top 8 teams (by school size) and put them into AA, the remainder are in A.
A's can opt up if desired.

As a AA school, if you do not win a game against other AA schools, the next two years you can play in A. Then up again for two years.

Private schools are considered AA or A based on prior two years record against what would be now AA schools (to get the ball rolling).

MNHockeyFan wrote:I kind of like the idea and am encouraged that some change might even be possible...with the thought that if football is allowed to try something new, so might hockey.

P.S. Here is a link to the football article:

http://www.mnfootballhub.com/news_artic ... _id=342060

A couple things that haven't come up in this article. They made the two changes, 6A and section cross play, each for a different reason.
1. MN is very top heavy in enrollments when you take the top 64 teams. There were safety concerns when a top team played a smaller team. When you go down to 32 teams, that disparity changes a lot.
2. 3 teams have won 13 of the last 16 5A tournaments, and they are all now in the same conference, I believe were in the same section as well.

Neither of these are true in AA hockey.
Additionally, if they didn't do this, only 4 teams would make it to the state tournament. Does anyone else think it's weird that one out of four teams make state? Me too.

I don't know if there is really a justification that could be made in hockey for cross section play currently, maybe in Class A, so I don't know that's it's necessary. But I have a couple ideas:
1. How about the bottom 64 in Class A, while allowing for opt ups? When a team opts up, then you grab the next smallest team making 64 in Class A. Only a couple teams that many want to see in AA that wouldn't be there, and I'm sure they'd opt up, plus it would leave a post season for really small community programs?
2. How instead of the top 64 teams, the top half of public schools and top half of private schools in AA, while dropping bottom teams down when teams opt up?
3. How bout not allowing opt ups? My personal favorite, but it'll never happen.