Best Rochester Team

[SEMNHOCKEYFAN]

Im just wondering some of your opinions on whos gonna be the best and worst teams in rochester in all 4 schools.

[clutterbuck22]

I think it's

1. Lourdes
2. Mayo
3. John Marshall
4. Century

[seasoned vet]

I'd go

Lourdes
Mayo
Century
John Marshall

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

It was nice to see mayo play a close game with lakeville north. Last year my pick for the best AA team was mayo and I will probably stay with that to start the season. Team does need better goaltending to finish the season higher in the section. But it is early

[BadgerBob82]

Class AA:
Mayo
John Marshall
Century

Class A:
Lourdes

[WendyClark]

89' John Marshall

[goldy313]

The '87 Mustangs were very good.

The 1980 Olympic team played the Gorki Torpedoes prior to the Olympics and lost so I'd guess I'd take the Commies.

[Mr Hockey]

Would any if these teams keep the score within 10 of the Ice Hawks?

[Roy01]

Would any if these teams keep the score within 10 of the Ice Hawks?

Arguably, Lourdes could probably beat the Ice Hawks. In my opinion at least.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

None of the three big schools would stay close, but the Rochester
All stars aka Lourdes might stay within five. I would venture that
The top ten teams in AA would probably actually win vs the ice hawks.
The top three in A would probably beat the ice hawks.

[BadgerBob82]

Lourdes had the best team in Rochester back in the Stuart boys' era. Had all 4 teams played Section1A, LHS would not be the reigning highest scoring HS team at Mariucci. Century would be!

LHS is not the best team this year either. Another nice Class A private school team not interested to play AA.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

What. I think the talent factor favors Lourdes last couple of years. It may be closer this year, but we will have to see.

[BadgerBob82]

What? Look at common opponents. Most recently Eau Claire Memorial for starters. I would not say JM has been better for several years, but CHS and Mayo have consistently been better than LHS. At least by common opponents. We'll never know til LHS joins the big boy league.

[PeterDenton]

What? Look at common opponents. Most recently Eau Claire Memorial for starters. I would not say JM has been better for several years, but CHS and Mayo have consistently been better than LHS. At least by common opponents. We'll never know til LHS joins the big boy league.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Lourdes beat Century in a scrimmage within these past few weeks? I understand scrimmages aren't real games but that sounds like the most accurate indicator as to where the two teams are at right now (Lourdes also didn't have 5 players who were on the state championship football team). IMO The last time Century had a better team than Lourdes was when Knoepke, Grimstad, Briscoe, and Wilcox were seniors and they took third at state and damn near beat Roseau in the semis to play for the state championship. Mayo hasn't been close to Lourdes caliber since the early 2000's when both teams were going to state and both rosters had alot of talent. Mayo hasn't even made their section final since 2000 I believe, 12-13 years is along time who knows maybe they'll finally do it this year. Lourdes has won nearly all of their games against big nine opponents over the past several years. Therefore if you're going to use fellow competition as an indicator that would probably be a better sample size to base off of rather than one game against Eau Claire Memorial, since both Mayo and Century play in the big nine. Btw Century just snuck by Eau Claire in a shoot-out last year and I personally thought they were out played by them the majority of that game.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

I agree that the common opponents in big nine
Games. Does anyone have Time to figure out records
For that. It would be very interesting. Also century just snuck by eau Claire and Lourdes lost by one goal. Nonetheless Eau Claire actually outplayed both of them on the ice. A couple bounces gone their way and they would have beat century too.

[BadgerBob82]

I agree scrimmages don't mean alot, which is why I didn't bring up LHS losing all three Rochester schools last year. And funny, LHS didn't want to participate this year. We can all cherry pick a season to say what-if? But, the fact remains, LHS is the best Class A team in Rochester.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

That is like saying they are the best of the rest in Rochester
Isn't it. I contest they are the best Rochester team!Later in season
We will have to compare records against common opponents

[goldy313]

Lourdes wants to be a Class A team, fine, that's their choice. They won't play the public schools because they are a class A team, again that's their choice. They won't play in the AA bracket in the Kiwinias tournament because they don't want to play the public schools, when they lost to Eau Claire Memorial, Memorial was then sent into the AA bracket the following year. When they lost to Mason City the Mohawks weren't invited back.

Lourdes has it pretty good, they don't have to compete against the public schools then can say they are the best team, they can trash the public school that can't get to the state tournament but Lourdes doesn't have to face the Lakeville schools to get there, they get teams that wouldn't be in the top 6 in 1AA. Lourdes schedule is pretty tough year in and year out, but their common opponents are generally the Big Nine Class A schools, not the Lakeville's or the other teams in the Kiwinia's tournament. Then grandmeadow guy can use a Tuesday night game in December at Faribault to justify their point, which is stupid, we can play that game and determine Fairmont should be the state champ every year.

Wheteher Lourdes is the best or isn't is debatable and only debatable because Lourdes chooses not to play them, which is their right.

[HockeyRoch]

I don't know how there is any confusion when it comes to this question. If you've been a folllower of Rochester high school hockey over the past decade, Rochester Lourdes has been the best team for 8-9 out of 10 years.

Look at common opponents overall and the margin of victory. Easily trackable if you want to waste the time.

To follow up with BadgerBob and Goldy, Lourdes has asked the Kiwanis tournament to do a one class tournament and they have also asked to be able to play the Rochester teams during the regular season. Both requests have been declined. Reason being, the public schools feel that there is no benefit to playing Lourdes and risk losing. If they lose, then it makes them look bad and if they beat Lourdes - it doesn't matter because they should being that they're AA. To summarize, it's not that Lourdes doesn't want to play AA schools, it's that AA schools don't want to play them. [/b]

[PeterDenton]

I don't know how there is any confusion when it comes to this question. If you've been a folllower of Rochester high school hockey over the past decade, Rochester Lourdes has been the best team for 8-9 out of 10 years.

Look at common opponents overall and the margin of victory. Easily trackable if you want to waste the time.

To follow up with BadgerBob and Goldy, Lourdes has asked the Kiwanis tournament to do a one class tournament and they have also asked to be able to play the Rochester teams during the regular season. Both requests have been declined. Reason being, the public schools feel that there is no benefit to playing Lourdes and risk losing. If they lose, then it makes them look bad and if they beat Lourdes - it doesn't matter because they should being that they're AA. To summarize, it's not that Lourdes doesn't want to play AA schools, it's that AA schools don't want to play them. [/b]

Amen hockeyroch

[BadgerBob82]

Put down the purple kool-aid! The reality is several attempts had been made to get LHS adminstration to opt up to AA. The adminstration has said no because they don't want LHS to become a "hockey school" that "recruits" players.

They want to maintain their Catholic enrollment fed by their K-8 system. They don't want kids jumping from public schools and/or neighboring communities for the sole purpose of playing hockey.

As for the Kiwanis tournament. I don't think anybody is holding a gun to LHS's head to play in it? Their format is AA - A so they can get 16 schools and maximize revenue. The cross-over has come from unknown ability level out-of-state schools and Dodge County.

[Roy01]

Thing is even though Lourdes has had a clutch on Section 1A, it's not like their wins have been blowouts every year through the course of sections. They were still competitive games. I know in the past they've had a couple close ones with Red Wing in the semifinals and finals, and even some tight games with Northfield over the past few years. Until another Rochester team matches or overcomes Lourdes success, they are (currently) the best team in Rochester. And we can blame that on Class A vs. AA or whatever, but they have the strongest team.

As for the other schools, they play within the Big 9 and, as it has been mentioned before, they have done worse against common competition than Lourdes. I think rather than looking at Lourdes being the team that is set apart from the others, maybe we should consider the addition of Century. That splintered the programs. As a result, Lourdes has dominated since.

I am not familiar with the district placement in Rochester, but if a child wants to play within a successful program and is given the option of choosing between schools, why wouldn't they step toward the one with the most success? Which currently is Lourdes. It isn't a case of "homegrown roots" or anything - the Rochester youth program is broken into colors for their teams. They don't have "JM Peewee's" or "Mayo Bantams." The kids have no designation though their youth hockey.

Further more, on Lourdes moving to AA. They lead Section 1A and that is apparent, but at the state level (the tourney) they have not had recent success on the winning side of the bracket. They have been blown out in the first round the past few years. In the case of STA, they are winning games at the X routinely. I think that puts Lourdes stepping in AA a bit more in perspective..

As far as Section 1AA is concerned, it has been the two Lakeville schools the past few years. I don't recall the last time a Rochester AA was even in the finals (if anyone knows, please comment), but the recent showings from Mayo, JM and Century do not exactly place confidence in them being the top tier team from Rochester.

[clutterbuck22]

Thing is even though Lourdes has had a clutch on Section 1A, it's not like their wins have been blowouts every year through the course of sections. They were still competitive games. I know in the past they've had a couple close ones with Red Wing in the semifinals and finals, and even some tight games with Northfield over the past few years. Until another Rochester team matches or overcomes Lourdes success, they are (currently) the best team in Rochester. And we can blame that on Class A vs. AA or whatever, but they have the strongest team.

As for the other schools, they play within the Big 9 and, as it has been mentioned before, they have done worse against common competition than Lourdes. I think rather than looking at Lourdes being the team that is set apart from the others, maybe we should consider the addition of Century. That splintered the programs. As a result, Lourdes has dominated since.

I am not familiar with the district placement in Rochester, but if a child wants to play within a successful program and is given the option of choosing between schools, why wouldn't they step toward the one with the most success? Which currently is Lourdes. It isn't a case of "homegrown roots" or anything - the Rochester youth program is broken into colors for their teams. They don't have "JM Peewee's" or "Mayo Bantams." The kids have no designation though their youth hockey.

Further more, on Lourdes moving to AA. They lead Section 1A and that is apparent, but at the state level (the tourney) they have not had recent success on the winning side of the bracket. They have been blown out in the first round the past few years. In the case of STA, they are winning games at the X routinely. I think that puts Lourdes stepping in AA a bit more in perspective..

As far as Section 1AA is concerned, it has been the two Lakeville schools the past few years. I don't recall the last time a Rochester AA was even in the finals (if anyone knows, please comment), but the recent showings from Mayo, JM and Century do not exactly place confidence in them being the top tier team from Rochester.

From what I can find and remember, the last time a Rochester team was in the 1AA final was 08-09 (Century).

[PeterDenton]

If you want to just compare talent on each Rochester team over the past few years here is another statistic that heavily favors Lourdes. This is a list of the number of players each Rochester team has had in the Upper Midwest Elite Hockey League between 2005-2006 and 2012-2013 seasons,8 year time span.

JM- 0

Century-4 (Grimstad, Knoepke, Wilcox, Briscoe)

Mayo-2 (Canzanello, C. Thauwald)

Lourdes-11 (Bahnneman, Owen, Amundson, Spratte, Voigt, Peterson, T. Funk, Hexum, A. Funk, Samuelson, Krecke)

I understand that having individual talent doesn't always equate to being a good team but in most cases it definately helps. This has been the case for Lourdes as they've been to state for the past 4 years. Also Funk was on track to lead the league in scoring this fall before injuring his shoulder. I believe Samuelson was top 3 for scoring on his team and made the NIT tournament. Did any of the public school teams even have a kid get offered a tryout?

[BadgerBob82]

How about you ask the 3 seniors how their Elite tryouts went? Oh yeah, they were invites, no tryout! 1 was still in a cast!

I totally agree LHS has had some very good hockey players. But problem is, they have almost always been a 1 line wonder. Add a decent goalie here or there and a couple solid D-men, and that is the recipe for success at the Class A level. Century had a long run of solid teams. And they had to play 3 lines to do it. Mayo too has had solid teams.

JM is the only public school team that might not consistently beat Red Wing or New Prague? Those are the 2 speed-bumps on LHS's trip to Mariucci.

I can't think of one LHS team that would have knocked off a Lakeville school. When you're drawing from a 150,000 population for hockey players, kinda hard to keep using the "we're just a small little school". Shattuck is a small school too.

Oh, and I love hearing the LHS people complain the STA etc should step up to AA! Pot-Kettle-Black!