The 102 players attending the St. Cloud session have been divided into six teams.  They will demonstrate their on ice skills playing games June 14-19 at USA Hockey facilities on the St. Cloud States, but each player is evaluated on for skills on and off the ice.  Unlike evaluations thus far in the program, this camp also evaluates players off-ice.  More than one skilled player in the past has been left off the team because of off-ice evaluations.

To get to St. Cloud, the 102 players had to be invited to try out for their district team.  Twelve district teams competed in a festival held at Edina’s Braemar Arena in late April.  Each team played two preliminary games.  Based on the results of the preliminary games, the 12 district teams were divided into three pools.  Each team played three pool games at the festival.

Approximately 500 players tried out for a district team and 240 players made the 12 teams (20 per team).  Out of the 240 players that played in the festival, a 102 were chosen to attend the St. Cloud camp.

Festival Re-cap

The top four teams after preliminary play were placed in the Red Pool at the Festival.  District 8 (southeast Twin Cities area) won the Red Pool.  They are the Festival’s “champions”.  D8 beat D11 5-2 and D6 5-3.  D8 tied D10 6-6 and ended up with the best Red Pool record.   District 6 (southwest Twin Cities area) beat D11 7-0 and beat D10 3-2 to post the second best record in the Red Pool.  District 11 (Duluth and Lake Superior’s north shore areas) beat District 10 (north Twin Cities and east central Minnesota areas) 3-2 to finish third in the pool.

Preliminary round runner-ups were placed in the White Pool.  District 2 (northeast Twin Cities area) won all three of their White Pool games beating D5 6-1, D16 5-2, and D9 5-1.  District 5 (St. Cloud and central Minnesota areas) and District 16 (northwestern Minnesota area) tied for second in the White Pool.  Both teams beat D9 and they tied each other to finish festival play with 1-1-1 records.  District 9 (southeast Minnesota/Rochester area) lost tough games to D16 1-0 and D5 5-3 and had a good festival despite going winless.

The preliminary round third place finishers were placed in the Blue Pool.  The Blue Pool ended in a tie between District 15 (Moorhead and central west Minnesota area) and District 3 (northwestern Twin Cities area).  Both posted 2-0-1 records.  The two teams tied 3-3 in the festival’s Friday opening game and each went on to beat D12 and D4 Saturday and Sunday.  District 4 (southwestern Minnesota area) beat District 12 (Grand Rapids and Iron Range area) 6-4 to take third place.

D8’s 5-3 win over D6 Sunday at the Festival was the “unofficial championship” game.  The five goals D8 goals were scored by five different players, all from private schools; Marko Reifenberger/Hill-Murray, Austin Pratt/Shattuck, Andrew Lane/Shattuck, Erik Dahl/Shattuck, and Scott Reedy/Shattuck.  Pratt and Dahl played peewee hockey for Lakeville South leading the team to the 2012 state tourney played in Alexandria, Reedy led the Prior Lake peewees to a state tourney title at Alexandria in 2012.

The top point getter at the festival was White Bear Lake Association’s Aaron Grounds.  Grounds, a 2013 YHH Top 50 peewee A pick while playing for the Lakeville South peewee AA’s, posted 7 points (4 goals) in the three festival games.  Samual Hentges, a 2012 YHH Top 50 pick, led the festival in goals putting 5 pucks in the back of the net.

St. Cloud Camp

The 102 players are divided into six teams (each team in named after the color of their jerseys).  The six teams will play a round robin schedule of five games and the top teams will play a “championship” match on final day of the camp.  There will be dry land training sessions and daily classroom sessions. The staff includes prominent college and high school coaches teamed with current and former college hockey players to serve as coaches, role models, and counselors for each team.

Each player on and off ice activities are evaluated and ranked each day.   The top 22 players plus alternates are selected based on final player rankings.  The 22 players (7 defensemen, 13 forwards, 2 goal tenders) eight alternates with the highest point totals for each position are selected to represent the Minnesota District at the USA Hockey National Select 15 Development camp.

The big news in this year’s 102 select players are the four Minnesota players (Scott Reedy/Prior Lake, Austin Pratt/Lakeville, Erik Dahl/Lakeville, and Grant Mismash/Edina) who led the Shattuck Bantam team to USA Hockey’s U14 National Championship a month ago.  Reedy led the Shattuck last season in scoring (125 points/65 goals); Mishmash was fourth in scoring (96 points/48 goals) and Pratt was fifth in scoring (73 points/43 goals).  Dahl, a defenseman, scored 33 points/1 goal for the Sabres.  The four players played 2013 summer hockey for the Machine Orange.  At St. Cloud, Mismash and Pratt ended up on the Red team; Reedy is playing for the Royal Blue team; and Dahl is playing for the Gold team. 

Light Blue Team

Forwards-Chase Brand/Park Rapids, Ben Copeland/Edina, Hunter Huson/Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Carter Perry/Anoka, Clayton Phillips/Edina, Ryan Pogue/Bemidji, Patrick Reddan/Holy Catholic Family, Tyler Watkins/Hemantown, and Garrett Worth/Duluth East.

Clayton Phillips and Grant Mismash, former Edina peewee A players, were re-united on the District 6 team in the festival and the two players tended to dominate the play.  But at St. Cloud, Phillips and Mismash are not on the same team.  Phillips will play with Edina Bantam AA teammate Ben Copeland and Holy Family Catholic’s Patrick Redden from the Red Festival team.  Copeland and Redden had a good Festival each putting two goals in the net in the four games and collectively amassed 8 points.

Redden skated in 24 varsity games for the Holy Family Catholic Fire last season.  He posted 20 points/7 goals in regular season play against top Minnesota high school AA teams.  Holy Catholic Family plays in the Wright County Conference that oddly has only one team (Delano Area) that is actually in Wright County.  Buffalo, the Wright County seat, is in the Mississippi 8 Conference.  Buffalo plays along with St. Michael/Albertville and Monticello/Annandale/Maple Lake also located in Wright County.  Wright County Conference continues to grow; New Prague hockey will be joining the conference in the 2014-2015 season.   

Hunter Huson, a six footer, played on Benilde’s junior varsity in 2013-2014 and played for the Russell Stover Bantam Minor 1999 team in 2012-2013 that posted a .500 record on the season against opponents like the Chicago Fury, Belle Tire, and the Madison Capitals.  Huson played for the District 8 team in the Spring Festival and played at one time for the 2012 Minnesota’s Machine summer’s peewee team.

Chase Brand posted 29 points (13 goals) for the Park Rapids varsity in 2013-2014.  The lanky 5’8” ninth grader played 25 varsity games last season for the Rapids and is joined by three other Northern Minnesota forwards, Tyler Watkins, Ryan Pogue, and Grant Worth.

Watkins skated for Hermantown’s Bantam AA team that made a run to get to the state tourney winning the North Regional.  Watkins was on the Hermantown peewee A team that made it to the state championship game at Alexandria in 2012.  Watkins scored the winning goal in the semifinals leading the Hawks to a 5-3 come from behind win over Eden Prairie.  Pogue, another YHH Top 50 pick, played for Bemidji’s Bantam AA team had a good run in the late season but lost to Watkin’s Hawk team in the North Regional semifinals and lost narrowly to Moorhead 4-3 in the battle for North’s #2 seed to the state.  Worth played for the Duluth East Bantam AA team that also lost in the North Regional to Hibbing and to Grand Rapids.  The Hounds came back to end the season on a good note beating White Bear Lake 5-4 to win the VFW State Title.  Carter Perry played for the Anoka Bantam AA team last season that was edged by White Bear Lake 3-1 for the South Region’s #2 seed to the state.  

Light Blue Defense-John Greniuk/Elk River, Chase Hartje/Bemidji, Andrew Lane/Shattuck, Max Martinson/Blaine, Bronson McLeod/Cooper, and Tevin Neegaard/Osseo-Maple Grove

Bronson McLeod skated all 25 games for the Robinsdale Cooper varsity last season at defense.  He posted 22 points (2 goals) playing for the Hawks.   With Cooper combining with Robinsdale Armstrong for the 2014-2015 season, the 6’ ninth grader will lose the Blue and Orange jersey and return to the red, white and blue on the Falcons that he wore as a peewee.  Andrew Lane/Washington DC skated 65 games for Shattuck’s U14 Tier I National Championship team this past season that posted a 61-7 record.  Lane scored 16 points (3 goals) this past season and is one of five Shattuck bantam players to make the final 102.

Two D10 players are on the Light Blue defense, John Greniuk and Max Martinson.  Greniuk is one of five players off the Elk River 2012 peewee A state tourney team to make it to St. Cloud.  Martinson’s Blaine Bantam AA team played .500 hockey last season and was seeded into the South Regional but could not get to state.  The Bengals lost to Prior Lake losing 5-2 in their opening game and St. Cloud 4-3 at the PIC.  Bemidji’s Chase Hartje continues to play well; Tevin Neegaard’s Osseo/Maple Grove’s Bantam AA team made the finals of the West Regional but lost to Stillwater 6-2 in the championship game and to Edina 6-2 in the elimination final to miss the trip to the state tourney this year.  

Light Blue Goal Tenders-Mason Lovich/Hastings and Jaeger Reed/Northern Lakes

Mason Lovich was the only goalie on the Hastings Bantam AA team in the 2013-2014 season.  The team posted a .500 record; Lovich ended the season with a 2.5 goals against average.  He held 11 of the Raider’s opponents to one or zero goals in 43 games.  At the festival, he played on the “championship” District 8 team.  Jaeger Reed posted a 4-5 record playing varsity hockey for Northern Lakes last season.  Reed will be a sophomore next year for the Lightning and will be battling senior goalie Mitch Stangel for playing time.  Reed had a good festival giving up a single in D15’s 3-3 tie with D3 and sharing a shutout in D15’s 5-0 win over D12.

What is Next?

This is the first of three posts in anticipation of the St. Cloud camp opening on June 14.  The next two posts will cover the remaining five teams.  YHH will be at the opening of the camp and at the championship game played Thursday, June 19.  Some individual game stories will be posted during the week.