Edina Peewee AA Tourney Format

Edina keeps their tournament formats the same every year for the top peewee level (AA).  The twelve teams entered are divided into three pools of four teams each.  The four teams entered in the Gold Pool are from four different districts (D3-Osseo/Maple Grove, D10-Andover, D8-Rosemount, and D6-Chaska/Chanhassen).  Two Gold Pool teams (OMG and Chaska/Chanhassen) play in the same peewee AA league-a league that combines the AA teams from D3 and D6 into one league although D3 still keeps the D3 AA teams in their peewee A league standings.  The Green Pool also has four teams from different districts, D6-Edina, D2-White Bear Lake, D10-Centennial, and D3 Wayzata.  Edina and Wayzata play in the D3/D6 peewee AA league.  The White Pool has teams from D3-Minneapolis, D2-Stillwater, D10-Blaine, and D8-Eastview.  Rosemount, White Bear Lake, Stillwater, and Eastview play in a combined D2/D8 league.

Each pool winner advances to the championship round semifinals.  A fourth team, a wildcard team, will also advance.  The wildcard team is the best team with the most points once the pool winners have been determined, but often two or more teams are tied in points and being from different pools, the first tie breaker, head to head competition, does not count.  Most wildcard teams over the past years at Edina are determined by goal differential with a cap of 5 goals maximum per game.  A 10-1 win in pool play yields a goal differential of +5 for the winner.

Schedule matters.  A team has to realize that a bad first game will likely put them out of the tourney.

Twelve Teams, Three Leagues

With five of the twelve teams entered playing in the same league, here is how they rank in league play going into the tourney: Edina leads with an 9-0-1 record, Chaska/Chanhassen is second with an 8-2-1 league record, and Minneapolis is third with a 6-1-3 record.  Osseo/Maple Grove (1-3-1) and Wayzata (0-3-3) are tied for last place but have played fewer games then the top three teams (four and five less) and have each lost three fair play points.  Minneapolis leads District 3’s peewee A league by a “country mile” (posting 43 points in 16 games-a 3-1 win over OMG on December 17th has not been reported) and have the title in hand.  Orono, the Storms nearest competitor, has 24 points in 10 games.  Osseo/Maple Grove and Wayzata trail the Storm in D3, but both associations have opted to play a limited D3 schedule. 

The three D10 teams (Centennial, Blaine, and Andover) play in D10’s six team peewee AA league this year.  The number of D10 associations fielding AA teams at the peewee level has dropped this year.  D2’s Forest Lake is the sixth team.  Blaine leads the league with a 10-0-2 record, Andover is in second place with a 7-3-2 record, and Centennial is in third place with a 6-5-2 record.

Rosemount leads the combined D2/D8 league with a 7-0-0 record.  White Bear Lake is the only other unbeaten team in the league with a 4-0-0 record but does not play a full schedule.  Eastview is in second place with a 5-1-2 record and Stillwater is in fourth place with a 4-3-1 record.

Gold Pool-Osseo/Maple Grove, Andover, Rosemount, and Chaska/Chanhassen

Osseo/Maple Grove is tied for last in the D3/D6 peewee AA league with a 1-3-1 record and are in eighth place in District 3’s 12 team peewee A league with a 5-1-0 record.  Confusion reigns.  The #8 ranked OMG team has posted a 17-7-3 record overall winning the Big Pumpkin at Moorhead and not placing at Eden Prairie’s Thanksgiving Day tourney.  The Crimson has posted a 5-3-1 record in December that is all over the place.  On the positive side, they beat Chaska/Chanhassen 2-1 and tied the Hawks 1-1.  They shutout Wayzata A, Armstrong, Hopkins, and Mound/Westonka, but were shutout by Prior Lake and Edina.  In 17 of their 27 games, OMG has held their opponent to 1 or 0 goals scored.  The Crimson are a dangerous team.  Andover is trailing Blaine in D10’s peewee AA league and are unlikely to catch the Bengals.  Overall, the Huskies are 12-9-6.  In December games they are 4-5-1.  Two of the five losses were to Blaine 3-0 and 3-1, one was to White Bear Lake 5-2, one was to Elk River 5-3, and one was to Prior Lake 7-1.  Andover tied Edina, Blaine, and OMG in early season play but are starting to struggle.

Rosemount had a great Championship Sunday at the Eden Prairie tourney beating Edina 2-1 in their semifinal game and then beating Chaska/Chanhassen 4-3 to win the championship.  They have gone on to post a solid 7-1 record in December with their only loss being to Minneapolis 4-2.  The #3 ranked Irish are well on their way to winning the D2/D8 Peewee AA title this year.  Chaska/Chanhassen has a season record of 15-11-3 and is ranked #13 overall.  The Hawks opened their season losing a tough game to Edina 2-1 and have been up and down since.  Chaska has posted a 5-2-1 record in December since losing to Rosemount at Eden Prairie.  Their two December losses were to OMG 2-1 and to Eden Prairie 5-1 last week.  Chaska will have a chance to avenge their loss at Eden Prairie when the Hawks play the Irish in the opening game of the White Pool.

OMG plays Andover in their opening pool game and should win; Rosemount uses their tough defense to beat Chaska/Chanhassen again.  Andover losses each of their games to Rosemount and Chaska; OMG loses to Rosemount and beats Chaska.  Rosemount sweeps the pool and finishes a +5 on goal differential.  OMG finishes second with +3 points.     

Green Pool-Edina, White Bear Lake, Centennial, and Wayzata

Edina opens play in the peewee AA tourney at 4:00 PM Thursday, New Year’s Day, playing Centennial at the Bloomington Ice Gardens or BIG.  Check schedules since not all games are played at Edina in this tourney.  The Hornets will be out for a +5 goal win against a Centennial team that struggled in the first months of the season.  Edina rides an 11 game win streak into the tourney and won the Spirit of Duluth Tourney in early December beating Wayzata 7-0 and Blaine 3-2 in posting five wins at Duluth.  Since then the Hornets have added a 2-0 win over OMG.  Centennial has a 9-16-3 record, but most of those losses came early in the season.  The Cougars low point was losing to Sibley 1-0 and Grand Rapids 4-1 Thanksgiving weekend.  They have gone 6-3-2 in their last eleven games including an impressive two ties with NOW #8 ranked Blaine (2-2 and 1-1).

White Bear Lake impressed this corner of YHH when they beat Eagan in a D2/D8 game 3-0 played three weeks ago at Eagan.  The Bears have played more of an “at large” schedule playing a Maroon and Gold schedule and teams from outstate.    Early in the season, the Bears lost to OMG 3-2, Duluth East 3-2, and Minneapolis 3-0.  They have strung a dozen win together in the past month including beating Stillwater twice.  Wayzata is either playing well or struggling.  They have posted a 16-9-5 record this season.  Six of those losses were to Edina and Chaska/Chanhassen.  Edina has owned the Trojans this season beating them four times by a collective score of 17-0.  Yet the Trojans on an up day beat Edina 4-1 to knock them out of the Eden Prairie tourney.

Edina beats Centennial in their first game but by less than five goals.  They eke out a narrow win over White Bear Lake and beat Wayzata by more than five goals and end with a +9 goal differential.  White Bear beats Wayzata and Centennial and ends with a +7 goal differential.  Centennial beats Wayzata who has a down weekend at Edina.

White Pool-Minneapolis, Stillwater, Blaine, and Eastview

The Minneapolis Storm is in third place in the combined District 3/6 peewee AA league with a 7-1-3 and in first place in District 3’s peewee A league with 12-1-3 record.  The difference between their two league records in the five wins they have against D3 peewee A opponents (OMG A, Armstrong, Orono, Minneapolis A, and Wayzata A).  The NOW ranked #4 Storm have an overall record of 24-3-5.  Two of the five ties are 3-3 games with Edina AA and the Storm has tied Rosemount 2-2 and Wayzata 3-3.  They have beaten Chaska/Chanhassen 3-1, Wayzata 4-1, Rosemount 4-2, OMG 3-1, and White Bear Lake 3-0.  They have lost to Andover 2-1 in the first game of the season, Chaska/Chanhassen, and Forest Lake.

Stillwater is NOW ranked #12 with an overall season record of 14-8-6.  This past weekend, the Ponies had their five game win streak (Eastview, Forest Lake, Minnetonka, Rochester AA, and Lakeville North snapped when they lost to Rosemount 2-1 in a D2/D8 league game.  Stillwater tied Blaine 3-3 in an early season game and have beaten Eastview twice by the same score 5-1.  Blaine, ranked #7 with a 20-5-7 record, has played well in December.  Since opening the month with a 3-2 loss to Stillwater, the Bengals have posted a 9-1-3 record.  The single loss was to Edina 3-2.  Besides tying Centennial twice, the  Bengals tied St. Cloud 2-2.  Two of the wins were over Andover 3-0 and 3-1.  Eastview has posted a 15-12-2 record.  The Lightning took third place at Burnsville’s Thanksgiving tourney and has won their last four games (Prior Lake, Lakeville North, Owatonna, and Hastings).

Minneapolis opens White Pool play against Eastview and should win and get a +5 on the goal differential and in a tough battle, Blaine edges Stillwater.  Minneapolis goes on to beat Stillwater and Blaine to take the pool.  Blaine and Stillwater beat Eastview.  Blaine places second in the pool with a +6 goal differential.

Championship Round Seeding

The pool winners will be seeded into the semifinals.  The seeds will be determined by points (2 points for a win and 1 point for a tie).  If pool play goes as predicted here, Edina, Rosemount and Minneapolis will all have six points since each team swept their pool winning all three games.  If the predicted goal differential holds, Edina with +9 gets the #1 seed; Rosemount and Minneapolis get the #2 and #3 seeds.  Three teams (OMG +3 goal differential, White Bear Lake +7 goal differential, and Blaine +6 goal differential) will be tied for the wild card seed to the championship round each with 4 points.  White Bear Lake with a +7 on the tie breaker gets the wild card #4 seed.

Edina would then play White Bear Lake again and the Bears pull the upset beating the Hornets in a tough fought game.  The Minneapolis Storm edge Rosemount to win their semifinal game.  The Storm beat White Bear Lake in the championship game.    

Notes on the tourney entries

All twelve entries are from three leagues and all except OMG and Wayzata are leading or at the top of the leagues.

Compared to the field last year, seven teams are returning.  Missing from last year’s field is STMA, Eden Prairie, Elk River, Lakeville North, and Lakeville South.

Seven of this year’s peewee AA entries (Edina, Wayzata, Centennial, White Bear Lake, Chaska/Chanhassen-then Chaska, Stillwater, and OMG) played in the 2009-2010 tourney-essentially one high school generation (five years) ago.  Most of the peewee A players from those teams are seniors playing for local high schools.  Players from the 2009-2010 Edina peewee team power Edina and Benilde-St. Margaret’s high school team; Centennial has eight of its peewees powering its varsity team; Wayzata has eight players; White Bear Lake has eight players on its varsity; Chaska has two players; Chanhassen has nine players; Stillwater has six players: Osseo has four players on its varsity; and Maple Grove has five players on its high school team.    

The twelve teams are ranked by NOW as follows: #1 Edina, #2 White Bear Lake, #3 Rosemount, #4 Minneapolis Storm, #7 Blaine, #8 OMG, #11 Wayzata, #12 Stillwater, #13 Chaska/Chanhassen, #16 Andover, #19 Eastview, and #33 Centennial.  It should be a good tourney.

There have been a large number of games are ending in ties this year at the peewee AA level this year.  The twelve teams in the peewee AA tourney have collectively played 45 tied games with 28 of the tied games were played against each other.