Friday night at the Big Pumpkin Tourney being played at the Bloomington Ice Garden (BIG), the Superior, WI Spartans tied the Roseville, Mn Raiders.
The operative words in above sentence are the abbreviations for Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The Superior Association, despite being a Wisconsin team, has followed Minnesota Hockey rules when forming their youth teams. By Superior doing so, their Spartan teams can compete in District 11 (along with Duluth teams, Cloquet, Proctor and Hermantown). This year, despite being a smaller association in numbers (Superior’s population is approximately 27,000) they have formed a peewee AA and peewee A team for the second year in a row following Minnesota guidelines.
There is a simple reason for Superior following Minnesota Hockey rules when forming teams, cost. The Superior Association is in WAHA’s Region 1 and its nearest competitor is a 150 mile round trip, most competitors are well over 200 miles. Minnesota’s District 11 teams are a 10-20 minute drive across a bridge.
Ten gallons of gas plus an overnight stay and there goes $200 from a parent’s budget. Multiply that by 20 and that is a cool $4000. So they play Minnesota Hockey, but it costs them. They can’t play in the Wisconsin State Tourneys with the same teams.
This year at the Big Pumpkin, they showed up with a veteran peewee AA team with eight returnees, but they were facing another team loaded with veterans (7) in Roseville. The two teams battled through three 14 minute periods and ended up in a tie. It was a good game.