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This might have been bantered about before, but here is a possible solution to increasing the probability of having more competitive teams in the state tournament, while still allowing section rivalries.

Keep the current section playoff brackets the same until the final two teams are determined. Re-seed the final 16 teams as a play-ins to the state tournament. Based on the either the coaches input or the Krach ranking system, the first nine teams are ranked and the final seven are pulled from a hat for pairing, with eight playing nine. Have this venue at Ridder Arena the Friday and Saturday the week before the State Tournament.

What are the positive or negatives of this?

Excellent idea IMO. Probably the biggest negative in some peoples' minds would be requiring travel to the Twin Cities on two successive weekends for teams in far northern Minnesota.

Play-ins could be in Roseau, Moorhead, or Duluth! Everyone gets to travel

have cities bid on hosting a section final, that way your location is neutral.
you could allow the top seeded teams to pick their location based on their finish.
example: the number one team in the state left playing picks which location they want to play at, next team 2 goes, and on down.

That way a city knows it needs ice for a certain night, and has everything in place to run the event.

u12dad wrote:This might have been bantered about before, but here is a possible solution to increasing the probability of having more competitive teams in the state tournament, while still allowing section rivalries.

Keep the current section playoff brackets the same until the final two teams are determined. Re-seed the final 16 teams as a play-ins to the state tournament. Based on the either the coaches input or the Krach ranking system, the first nine teams are ranked and the final seven are pulled from a hat for pairing, with eight playing nine. Have this venue at Ridder Arena the Friday and Saturday the week before the State Tournament.

What are the positive or negatives of this?

It effectively kills section rivalries. The big section game is the final, and there would no longer be section finals. That is the biggest negative in my opinion.

I think most everyone would have rather had Tonka and BSM play in the State Championship game at Xcel the last two seasons than at the Section 6AA finals at Parade. I would give up a few of the Section rivalries if they could be supplanted by State rivalries. Just MHO.

Girls hockey should go to a 1 class system. There is no need for 2 classes. Top 8 then should go play @ Ridder to a packed arena with bands, people screaming, etc. The atmosphere would be unreal!

I know it will never happen....

Because everyone loves a bunch of 12-1 first round play-off games?

With all the talk about the girls class A qt not being competitive at state look at the boys scores tonight 12-0 STA. 6-1 Breck is there talk about that at all it seems the boys have the same issues.

hockey21 wrote:With all the talk about the girls class A qt not being competitive at state look at the boys scores tonight 12-0 STA. 6-1 Breck is there talk about that at all it seems the boys have the same issues.

Hmmmm...all private schools that should/will be playing in AA!!!!!!!!

one thing to think about neutral site locations, it is a way to generate both revenue for a school and get more people to the game. here is a thought on this.

If two metro schools end up playing in St. cloud, the schools get 200 tickets to sell to the kids, include busing in the cost of the ticket, and put some of the excess revenue into the girls program. Also gets more people at a game not just parents. They will spend money at the venue, so that helps that community out as well.

if you look at some of the sections, teams don't play all the sections teams during the year, so there isn't that extra hatred for a certain team unless they are a conference team.

sometimes you have to do some different things to create a buzz about a sport. just think if the games where during the day, think of the number of kids wanting to get out of school to go then!!!