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Probably been discussed by others in the past and probably a dumb question, but why do they run 3 separate AA hockey teams in this town. They haven't sent a team to state in 8 years and have more so been a mere stepping stone in 1AA. Why not start a co-op and combine the 3 public schools into 1 hockey team? With numbers from the Hub their enrollment would be just a couple hundred kids higher than Eden Prairie. I get they all want to play hockey but I would think some in the community would prefer they be competitive rather than accommodating to all. Maybe they have tried and can't and maybe they have no interest, I know nothing about the situation. Just seems a city that was once rich with hockey history has fallen off the map of relevance.

As long as they have the numbers to field the 3 varsity and 3 junior varsity teams there is no need to co-op, there have been a couple of years where fielding a JV team has been problematic but not consistently enough to warrant a co-op. That said Rochester fielded 5 bantam teams this past season, that is not enough players to split among the 4 high schools, especially when almost no 9th graders played high school last year city wide.

In the past decade both John Marshall and Century choose to opt up and play AA, although the past cycle both were AA by enrollment. However, both those schools are among the smallest AA schools (Century has a Co-Op with Stewartville which has 800 or so students). With schools like New Prague, Northfield, West, MAML, and the like growing along with a rapidly growing free/reduced lunch population in Rochester it is just a matter of time before at least JM goes to A, Century might be there without a co-op this upcoming cycle.

It seems the administration is more concerned with providing opportunities than winning, and at least in my opinion that is valid reasoning.

Youth hockey runs an AA team made up of kids going to all 4 high schools and that team is a middle of the pack AA team, usually below the two Lakeville programs recently.

goldy313 wrote:As long as they have the numbers to field the 3 varsity and 3 junior varsity teams there is no need to co-op, there have been a couple of years where fielding a JV team has been problematic but not consistently enough to warrant a co-op. That said Rochester fielded 5 bantam teams this past season, that is not enough players to split among the 4 high schools, especially when almost no 9th graders played high school last year city wide.

In the past decade both John Marshall and Century choose to opt up and play AA, although the past cycle both were AA by enrollment. However, both those schools are among the smallest AA schools (Century has a Co-Op with Stewartville which has 800 or so students). With schools like New Prague, Northfield, West, MAML, and the like growing along with a rapidly growing free/reduced lunch population in Rochester it is just a matter of time before at least JM goes to A, Century might be there without a co-op this upcoming cycle.

It seems the administration is more concerned with providing opportunities than winning, and at least in my opinion that is valid reasoning.

Youth hockey runs an AA team made up of kids going to all 4 high schools and that team is a middle of the pack AA team, usually below the two Lakeville programs recently.

All understandable, just too many programs too feed IMO and was wondering some of the reasoning.

Co-ops are about numbers and participation above all - high school hockey isn't done any favors by continuously consolidating for the sake of fielding better teams.

It seems the administration is more concerned with providing opportunities than winning, and at least in my opinion that is valid reasoning.

Agree completely.

thestickler07 wrote:Co-ops are about numbers and participation above all - high school hockey isn't done any favors by continuously consolidating for the sake of fielding better teams.

Agree with this also.

We should co-op all the Minnesota programs down to a refined 20... Then we can grab the exchange player catalog to bump even more kids from playing!

MrBoDangles wrote:We should co-op all the Minnesota programs down to a refined 20... Then we can grab the exchange player catalog to bump even more kids from playing!

How many 20's would it take from me so that you didn't post anymore?

MrBoDangles wrote:We should co-op all the Minnesota programs down to a refined 20... Then we can grab the exchange player catalog to bump even more kids from playing!

You forgot to mention that after creating this large co-op we need to opt down to Single A for competitive reasons. After all, we have never won a quarterfinal game.

Traxler wrote:

MrBoDangles wrote:We should co-op all the Minnesota programs down to a refined 20... Then we can grab the exchange player catalog to bump even more kids from playing!

You forgot to mention that after creating this large co-op we need to opt down to Single A for competitive reasons. After all, we have never won a quarterfinal game.

GoldyGopher wrote:Probably been discussed by others in the past and probably a dumb question, but why do they run 3 separate AA hockey teams in this town. They haven't sent a team to state in 8 years and have more so been a mere stepping stone in 1AA. Why not start a co-op and combine the 3 public schools into 1 hockey team? With numbers from the Hub their enrollment would be just a couple hundred kids higher than Eden Prairie. I get they all want to play hockey but I would think some in the community would prefer they be competitive rather than accommodating to all. Maybe they have tried and can't and maybe they have no interest, I know nothing about the situation. Just seems a city that was once rich with hockey history has fallen off the map of relevance.

Yep, you were right, it was a dumb question

GoldyGopher wrote:

MrBoDangles wrote:We should co-op all the Minnesota programs down to a refined 20... Then we can grab the exchange player catalog to bump even more kids from playing!

How many 20's would it take from me so that you didn't post anymore?

Traxler wrote:

MrBoDangles wrote:We should co-op all the Minnesota programs down to a refined 20... Then we can grab the exchange player catalog to bump even more kids from playing!

You forgot to mention that after creating this large co-op we need to opt down to Single A for competitive reasons. After all, we have never won a quarterfinal game.

Rochester shouldn't have a problem supporting 4 teams going forward. The town is in the beginning stages of 20 year plan (Mayo Clinic DMC initiative) which they hope to add 30,000+ jobs to the area.