Editor’s Note: We received this note yesterday and wanted to echo our opinion that this process is not well thought out.  Districts 8 and 10 aren’t happy with how they are being told to distribute their bids.  The East Region is arguably a tougher tournament than the State Tournament.

Dear Editor,

Frederick61 completed a nice article back in November titled “Minnesota Hockey Fills in the AA Regional Seeds”, and followed it up recently with the “Another Way to look at Peewee A (and AA) Hockey East Regionals” story. When I look at the regional pairings below, more specifically the first round games at the bottom, the first thing that comes to mind is why wouldn’t a few teams sandbag and become the #1 seed out of its district?

When you review the North, East and West First Round Games you’ll notice the majority of the #1 seeds play #2 seeds which the #2 seeds are strong and could be a #1 team. Let’s look at D10 Peewee AA west region. D10 #1 plays D3 #2. For discussion purposes and current rankings, D10 #1 Centennial plays D3 #2 Wayzata. D10 #2 Elk River plays D8 #5 Woodbury. Obvious choice for Centennial or Elk River would be to get the #2 seed. Same thing in the North region, why would D16 #1 want to be #1 when #2 plays the #5 seed out of D10. Same with the East Region. Another question to be answered. Let’s look at D10. What if Elk River, Centennial and let’s not forget Andover is a sleeper sand bag to the 5th seed as Centennial or ER would breeze thru the North Region. Who sets up the Regions and at what point does it get divided more equally. You can argue the same for the North and East. My son’s team will be in the South so I have no favorites just looking at it from an outsider looking at the region pairings. How come the South region #1′s play #4 seeds but that’s not the case for the North, East or West?

Thank you for your time and I’m certain an in-depth look at the entire regional seeding and layout would be beneficial for everyone to understand the method to this madness.

Signed,

This Makes No Sense