Kiwanis hockey tourney 2013

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

Having trouble finding info on this years tourney. Anyone with info.

[goldy313]

They should change the name to the Rochester/Wisconsin Challenge. 4 Rochester teams, 6 Wisconsin teams, Park, and Fargo South.

AA-8 team traditional format
Century, JM, Mayo, Park, Ashwebenon, Hudson, Northland Pines, and New Richmond.

A-4 team round robin
Lourdes, Verona, Eau Claire Memorial, and Fargo South.

Lourdes had commited to the Schwanns tournament last year, I wonder what changed.

[LivinDaDream]

Sounds like some juggling of A & AA compared to last year. Eau Claire Memorial won AA, now playing in the A bracket? Good luck Lourdes.

Northland Pines & Ashwebenon both played A last year, and now AA for the 2013 brackets.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

I think they are one or two years late on joining the Schwan. Last two years would have been a great idea. This year and next will be coming back to the pack some. Should be interesting.

Also totally agree that it should be renamed. Better yet make it the rochester hockey tourney with the four rochester teams in round robin. Will increase attendance and will get rid of the teams that are used to fill a otherwise dying tourney.

[Kiwanis Hockey]

The tournament 8 team bracket is not considered "AA" and the 4 team round robin is not "A." Hockey Hub has the incorrect information and have been requested to change it. WI does not classify their schools in a two class system like MN.

Verona and Eau Claire played in the WI State Championship last year and are both very good teams. Fargo South usually plays a physical game, but not sure how they will be this year.

It is more of a border battle this year, but the WI teams should not be discounted. Northland Pines is a tough team and are physical (they beat Lourdes to open the tournament last year).

I would love to have all four Rochester high schools in one tournament with four other teams, but you will have to get all four Athletic Directors to agree on that....and I do not see that as a possibility in the near future.

[TheJet]

Sounds like some juggling of A & AA compared to last year. Eau Claire Memorial won AA, now playing in the A bracket? Good luck Lourdes.

Northland Pines & Ashwebenon both played A last year, and now AA for the 2013 brackets.

ECM did not win AA last year.

[wooshlager]

Really a shame the way this tourny has deteriorated. Much like hockey in Rochester in general.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

Make it a four team tourney with rochester teams and I might think about going again. Till then not worth a ticket. Matter of fact I would not take a free ticket for this tourney. I will go watch the big dogs at St. Louis park or ridder.

[LivinDaDream]

A four team tourney of Rochester teams - personally, wouldnt care to see that. They play each other enough during regular season (AA teams). Its fun to see teams in town that normally wouldnt be part of any regular season match-ups, and boost our local economy with lodging, meals ect.

Good job Kiwanis Hockey, keep our local teams close during the holidays...and continue bringing in competitive teams.

And, ECM was 3rd place last year...misread the scoring site.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

Competitive teams? How about competitive minnesota teams.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

Great idea. Support the rochester teams to stay close to home and play subpar minnesota teams that will not challenge your team. Play better teams to get better of play subpar teams and stay the way you are. Or go to a tourney that will prepare you to get past lakeville. Play teams equal to lakeville talent and skill to prepare for a team that you will need to beat. Good luck if you continue playing section 1 and subpar metro teams. Way to push your teams to stay subpar. Good job dad.

[LivinDaDream]

The reply was in regards to supporting an organization (Kiwanis) that helps to stimulate our local economy. It'll take more than a weekend tourney to prepare to get past Lakeville(s) for any Rochester team.

[Marty McSorely]

LivinDaDream don't take offense to GMHF........... Grand Meadow is wrestling town....

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

Yes it does take more than a weekend tourney to prepare for lakeville, but that would a decent start.


Just an FYI. I lived in Duluth for the first thirty years of my life and moved to grand meadow recently. The truth hurts my friends, first stage of denial is getting defensive!

[Marty McSorely]

GMHF...... I agree the tourney certainly isn't as good as it once was. Southern Mn hockey... Rochester, Albert Lea & Austin along with Cities suburbs like Richfield, Bloomington Kennedy, Irondale have all become victims of our changing state. Most of these communities I listed were all working class Caucasians. Currently the demographics of all those schools listed are much different then 15 years ago.

To put it simply….. They all have the less of a traditional Minnesota hockey player pool to choose from than 15 years ago.

[Kiwanis Hockey]

This is the 22nd year of the Kiwanis tournament and this tounament has raised over $700,000 for local youth initiatives in that time.

It is impossible to find a "quality" team to fill each spot of a tournament bracket. I will tell you though that the 8 team bracket is very evenly matched this year so there should not be any blow outs. There are not just good hockey teams in MN, WI also has some quality hockey teams.

I think we do a pretty good job of finding the best match ups given the competitive levels of the local high schools give the fact that there are 19 holiday hockey tournaments that 140 schools from MN, WI, and ND are a part of.

It is interesting that some people feel the need to blame individual tournaments for some schools not having quality competition when each high school has their very own Athletic Director that schedules 22 other games through out the season.

Each team that comes to this tournament provides a different angle to the game and provides the kids with good experience...regardless of how "good" they are percieved to be.

Take the time to run a hockey tournament once and you will know what I am talking about and if you have run a hockey tournament before then you provide a list of teams that you can get down here and I would be happy to have you help us out.

[elliott70]

This is the 22nd year of the Kiwanis tournament and this tounament has raised over $700,000 for local youth initiatives in that time.

It is impossible to find a "quality" team to fill each spot of a tournament bracket. I will tell you though that the 8 team bracket is very evenly matched this year so there should not be any blow outs. There are not just good hockey teams in MN, WI also has some quality hockey teams.

I think we do a pretty good job of finding the best match ups given the competitive levels of the local high schools give the fact that there are 19 holiday hockey tournaments that 140 schools from MN, WI, and ND are a part of.

It is interesting that some people feel the need to blame individual tournaments for some schools not having quality competition when each high school has their very own Athletic Director that schedules 22 other games through out the season.

Each team that comes to this tournament provides a different angle to the game and provides the kids with good experience...regardless of how "good" they are percieved to be.

Take the time to run a hockey tournament once and you will know what I am talking about and if you have run a hockey tournament before then you provide a list of teams that you can get down here and I would be happy to have you help us out.

I, for one, appreciate what the Kiwanis are doing in Rochester. Too many people put winning a hockey game ahead of the important things. Only two teams will be champions when all is said and done, but every kid that puts on a pair of skates and plays the game can be a winner if we do everything else right.

Good job, boys!

[goldy313]

I think the Kiwanis do a nice job of running a pretty darn good tournament. Coming to Rochester for the AA bracket either involves at least 150 miles of round trip travel 3 days in a row or staying in a hotel for 2-3 nights and being responsible for the safety and well being of 30+ high schoolers, neither is a option most budget strapped athletic departments take lightly (not to mention Title IX ramifications). Plus as conferences expand teams have fewer and fewer no conference games they can have, often those are eaten up by sectional games.

Fargo South and New Richmond both have long standing relationships with the tournament and I think the both the teams and tournament have benefitted from that. What other team has brought a band to the tournament ever?

The Rochester public schools aren't at a place where they're consistantly top 10-20 programs in the state anymore, 2007 might have been the last time one of the programs was at that level. That being the case it has to be tough to draw top 10-20 teams because the competition isn't there and you don't want the home teams playing for 5th and 7th every year. Lourdes is but for some reason beating Lourdes either means you're not coming back or you're moved to the other bracket (Mason City, ECM, now Northland Pines). The Wisconsin teams and even Iowa teams show up and are very competitive, often winning, opening our eyes to how hockey is improving around the area. I knew nothing about Northland Pines last year but they handles a good Lourdes team that finished 6th in state, Verona won the class A part.

The basketball tournament is struggling, the wrestling tournament, which is the premier wrestling dual tournament in the country, doesn't draw very well either and with chair throwing and officials in advertising t-shirts seems less like a high school event than an MMA event, while the Kiwanis continues to chug along putting on a good show year in and year out.

[Marty McSorely]

Kiwanis Hockey...Relax... Your organization is awesome and the tourney is a great fundraiser. At one point it was one of a handful of tourneys over Christmas, now due to the fall off of the Rochester Teams and the fact there are 25 tourney's to chose from it's got to be difficult to find get a Top 20 team there.

I agree with Goldy all tourney's are struggling. The Super Metro teams only want to play against each other therefore the outstate tourney's suffer.

I like the Minnesota Boarder Battle theme. People in The State of Hockey don't realize how good kids from outside MN are.

[mnhockeyfan11]

I think the Kiwanis do a nice job of running a pretty darn good tournament. Coming to Rochester for the AA bracket either involves at least 150 miles of round trip travel 3 days in a row or staying in a hotel for 2-3 nights and being responsible for the safety and well being of 30+ high schoolers, neither is a option most budget strapped athletic departments take lightly (not to mention Title IX ramifications). Plus as conferences expand teams have fewer and fewer no conference games they can have, often those are eaten up by sectional games.

Fargo South and New Richmond both have long standing relationships with the tournament and I think the both the teams and tournament have benefitted from that. What other team has brought a band to the tournament ever?

The Rochester public schools aren't at a place where they're consistantly top 10-20 programs in the state anymore, 2007 might have been the last time one of the programs was at that level. That being the case it has to be tough to draw top 10-20 teams because the competition isn't there and you don't want the home teams playing for 5th and 7th every year. Lourdes is but for some reason beating Lourdes either means you're not coming back or you're moved to the other bracket (Mason City, ECM, now Northland Pines). The Wisconsin teams and even Iowa teams show up and are very competitive, often winning, opening our eyes to how hockey is improving around the area. I knew nothing about Northland Pines last year but they handles a good Lourdes team that finished 6th in state, Verona won the class A part.

The basketball tournament is struggling, the wrestling tournament, which is the premier wrestling dual tournament in the country, doesn't draw very well either and with chair throwing and officials in advertising t-shirts seems less like a high school event than an MMA event, while the Kiwanis continues to chug along putting on a good show year in and year out.

If this were Facebook I would totally like this post. As someone who grew up in Rochester (and consequently a perennial attendee of Kiwanis since I was a kid), I think you've hit the nail on the head.

Until a Rochester public school makes state again a la Century in the mid-2000's, I don't think you'll see any prominent metro/northern AA schools make the trip to Rochester when you can just as easily go to Schwan's and not pay for hotel rooms. Despite the lack of household names last year, for the days I attended it was a very good tournament and shows what hockey talent we do have in the surrounding states.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

And how far talent in rochester teams has fallen!!!!

Yes Kiwanis is a great organization and I have never debated that. That is not the point of the tourney though. It is good hockey and good organizations. Not just one or the other.

[goldy313]

Using Mitch's Wisconsin rankings:
The AA side has the #4, #8, and #9 teams in Wisconsin in Verona, New Richmond, and Hudson, Northland Pines is #7 in the coaches poll but unranked in Mitch's. The A side has the #2 team in Eau Claire Memorial.

It should be some pretty good hockey.

[Bulldog3489]

I can't stand the mentality that unless the top teams are playing it isn't worth watching. Or that everything must revolve around getting to state. With 12 teams, I'm sure there are some talented players.

[northwoods oldtimer]

I can't stand the mentality that unless the top teams are playing it isn't worth watching. Or that everything must revolve around getting to state. With 12 teams, I'm sure there are some talented players.

There are better hockey players from other states than Minnesota. Get used to that.

[grandmeadowhockeyfan]

Hudson up 1-0. Could easily be three or four to zero. Hudson spent 75% of the period in parks zone. Several great chances.