Seeding in Minnesota Boys High School took a strange turn last Sunday when STMA (20-4-1), generally considered the #2 or #3 seed in Section 7AA, was seeded #4.  Instead Grand Rapids (13-10-2) and Duluth East (11-10-4) were seeded higher.  Tuesday night, at the higher seeds home arenas, three of the four higher seeds Elk River, Grand Rapids, and Duluth East won.  STMA did not and most would say the seeders were right.  This corner of YHH says the seeders were wrong and that it needs to be pointed out.  The only thing “right” at the Albertville Arena was the play of the Cloquet Lumberjacks and the control and discipline the Cloquet team showed in winning the game.

The game

Tuesday night at the Albertville Arena, in front of a packed crowd of Knight’s fans, the STMA team never rolled.  Despite beating Cloquet 3-0 two weeks earlier in a game played at the same Albertville Arena, the Knights never got organized.  Cloquet led by junior Koby Bender’s hat trick and senior Kyle Klatt’s three points (two goals and one assist) beat the Knights 9-4.  The Lumberjacks played with discipline using a passive offense that relied on a counter attack that turned the STMA rushes in neutral ice.  Cloquet's defense would collapse all five skaters into a line across the Lumberjacks half of the neutral zone.  The Knights forwards could not skate through the contact created by the collapsed defense.  For most of the first period, their forwards refused to dump the puck into the Cloquet zone when they were trapped by the Lumberjack forwards.  Once Cloquet turned the puck, the Knights forwards would get caught up ice on Cloquet’s counter attacks creating holes in the Knight’s defensive zone.

The first period opened with STMA getting a roughing penalty ten seconds into the game.  Cloquet controlled the puck off the faceoff to the right of the Knights net and attacked the net.  Bender got his first goal, a power play goal in the first thirty seconds of the game.  Cloquet led 1-0.  Four minutes later, STMA scored on a power play goal to tie the game 1-1.  The Knights set up in Cloquet’s zone, moved the puck to Trevor Zins in the high slot.  Zins’ quick hard shot beat STMA goalie Kyle Hayden.  The Knights Logan Nelson and Jack Kelly got the assists.

Thirty seconds later, Cloquet’s Cole Litsey scored to break the tie and give the Lumberjacks a 2-1 lead.  With two minutes left in the period and Cloquet attacking the Knights’ goal, the Lumberjacks’ Ryan Schramm scored from the top of the crease by putting a rebounding puck back into the net.  Cloquet led 3-1 and they outshot the Knights 9-6 despite drawing three penalties in the period.  It was clear that Cloquet came ready to play.  STMA was in trouble.

The second period opened with a Knights flurry.  STMA picked up the pace at the start of the period, beating the Cloquet defense with their quickness and speed coming into the Lumberjacks’ zone forcing Cloquet’s sophomore goalie Eric Newman to make some tough stops.  Two minutes into the period, the Knights scored.  Jack Kelly hit a breaking Tucker Bjorlin with a pass from the neutral zone.  Bjorlin broke into the slot and beat Newman with a hard shot to the upper left corner to cut the Lumberjacks’ lead to 3-2.  That was as close as the Knights would get.

The Knights continued to press by trying to hit the breaking skater with longer passes from the neutral zone, but the passes would miss their targets resulting in icing calls.  The game became chippy and the Knights started to lose their cool.  With nine minutes left in the second period, STMA picked up a elbowing penalty.  Cloquet again took the face off to the right of the STMA net and put the puck on the STMA goal.  The puck bounced to the left crease area where the Lumberjacks’ Dalton Johnson backhanded the puck over a diving Kyle Hayden into the net.  Cloquet led 4-2.  Shaken by the score, things got worse for the Knights.  Two more penalties were called in the next two minutes creating a 5-on-3 power play for Cloquet.  This time, Kyle Klatt got the score on a shot from the right face off to put the Lumberjacks up 5-2.  It was the game winning goal.

STMA killed the remaining penalty, but with four minutes left on the clock, drew another penalty.  This time Cole Litsey put a rebound past Hayden from the lower left slot beating Hayden on the glove side.  Cloquet led 6-2 as the second period ended.  STMA’s Cody Reckard scored in the opening two minutes of the third period, but Cloquet’s Bender scored twice and Klatt once to end the scoring 9-4.  STMA’s Tyler Hayes scored the fourth STMA goal, Mitch Bourgerie got the assist.  Congratulations to the Lumberjacks.  They played a solid game letting STMA make the mistakes.  Cloquet will play Elk River on Saturday at AMSOIL in a Section 7AA.  Despite losing Tuesday, STMA ends their season winning 21 games (21-5-0).  That is a great season for the Knights.

What is next?

This post opened with a statement about seeding and it needs further explanation.  It is a worthwhile discussion to have at this point in time because the hockey world is changing and Minnesota Hockey (the organization) and the Minnesota State High School League are moving in different directions.  

Before Tuesday’s quarterfinal play, the seeding assured was that both Grand Rapids and Duluth East would have the maximum opportunity to advance to the semifinals at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth.  The two northern teams would be playing home games that they should win.  They did.  Grand Rapids beat Forest Lake 2-1 and Duluth East beat Andover 3-0.  The seeding avoided playing a championship at AMSOIL that would result in Northern teams being eliminated in quarterfinal and semifinal play.  This came true Tuesday night.  Cloquet’s win was a bonus.  Now the Section 7AA championship will be a North versus South at AMSOIL and if Elk River loses in their semifinal game, there will be a north Section 7AA team at the Xcel in two weeks.

There is a reluctance to change at the high school level when it comes to hockey especially if the change could affect finances.  A big north/south showdown will drive a big crowd when the Section 7AA championship is played at AMSOIL and assures large crowds for Saturday’s semifinal games.  If two Twin City teams had to travel to AMSOIL to play the championship game, the crowd would be reduced.  Twin city fans would have to make a 300 mile round trip on a school night.  The MSHSL has created the 7AA situation.  It was created when they placed the sectional teams and has roots in the late 1960's and early 1970's.  No one ever thought a team like STMA would improve to challange the status quo.  Sectional playoffs seem fitted to finance based on history, not a constantly changing hockey environment.

Part of that thinking is that hockey fortunes of the different high schools will not change, that established hockey programs will trump those that are new or trying to grow.  We want competition, but we will not be beaten by the new teams.  Obviously, Grand Rapids and Duluth East are established teams?  STMA?

In the 2009-2010 peewee A season, St. Michael/Albertville’s Association fielded a peewee A team that caught the eye of YHH.  They posted a 37-14-1 record that year and narrowly lost the South Regional’s #2 seed to Orono 5-4 in overtime missing going to state by that one goal after beating Osseo/Maple Grove to get to the final game.  Two years later, the STMA’s peewee A team went to state in Alexandria, but missing their starting goalie, they had to call up a substitute and lost.  A year later the Association’s Bantam AA team played in the 2013 Bantam AA state tourney making the semifinals beating Prior Lake 4-3 before losing to Duluth East 4-2.  YHH saw the post season play of these STMA Associaton teams in 2010, 2012, and 2013 and have watched the STMA Association develop players over the past four years.  

STMA’s current varsity roster has players from those teams.  This year their #1 scorer senior Logan Nelson (44 points/27 goals), #3 scorer (28 points/12 goals) junior Tucker Bjorlin , #6 scorer junior Cam Fuerstenberg, and #10 scorer senior Zach Erickson all  played on the STMA Association’s 2010 peewee A team along with juniors Marshall Bjorlin, Brandon Berning, Casey Crandall, Hunter Wilcox, and Brandon Heiber.

Tucker Bjorlin, Cam Fuerstenberg, Brandon Berning, Marshall Bjorlin, Tucker Bjorlin, and Brandon Heiber skated on the Association’s Bantam AA team in 2013.  Also on the Association’s Bantam AA team that year were defense man Trevor Zins (#4 scorer with 27 points/7 goals), Connor Greenwood (#5 scorer with 24 points/11 goals), Mitch Bourgerie (#7 scorer with 18 points/9 goals), Cody Reckard (#8 scorer with 15 points/8 goals), and Jack Kelly (#9 scorer with 14 points/5 goals).  Ryan Copeland and goalie Kyle Hayden played for the Bantam AA’s in 2013.  All these players were all on the ice in the Cloquet loss.

The STMA Association represents the new with the ultimate reward for their efforts, a fair shot for their high school team when their youth teams play for their high school.

High school hockey has generated significant revenues at the high school level that the MSHSL covets and then re-distrubutes every August.  The formula they use distributes all moneys to support 45 plus other "activities".  In Minnesota's high schools, Hockey is not a sport, it is an activity.  The MSHSL does not calls them activities because most of the "45 activities" would not be consider a viable high school sport.  On top of that, the high schools that field hockey teams are charging nearly a $1,000 per player to play junior varsity/varsity hockey while refusing to provide school support at the teams games (no bands, no cheerleaders).  MSHSL is on a path that does not foster growth of the sport.  And their policies have impact. Most high schools are now trying to sign students up to play "activities".  The MSHSL needs to get behind hockey or get out of the way.

Minnesota Hockey is geared to one sport (not 50 or so activities), boys and girls hockey.  It is a sport.  But they like MSHSL league are headed on potentially troublesome path that will cause boys and girls to lose the interest .  The two need to get together and start to eliminate divisions.

Today, there are three divisions between the two organizations that should be erased.  These divisions revolve around the short view that both are taking.  First is the lack of integration in the sport (or activity) over the four seasons, winter, spring, summer, and fall.  No matter how Minnesota Hockey or the MSHSL decide to organize their aspects of the sport, they can’t stop spring, summer and fall hockey from happening.  But they can curtail it.  If one thinks about it, they do not want to curtail or stop enterprises in those non-winter seasons.  Both currently have no ownership in those seasons, but the community arenas they rely on to support their winter season need spring, summer, and fall hockey to remain viable.  Yet these two organizations remain on different paths that restrict participation in those three seasons.  Both organizations need a passive way of letting off-season hockey happen without threatening.  They do not need an active way.  If they kill off-season hockey, they will kill the arenas.

The second division is at the U14, U16, U18 level.  Historically, Minnesota Hockey and MSHSL have managed those levels by having their organizations issue rulings that restrict opportunities for developing players to skate.  In effect, they are saying you can't skate in the communities' arena if you don't follow my rules.  For example, the two organizations can make it hard for a player that leaves the state to play organizational hockey to better himself and returns.  There is no rationale for that except in the name of competition.  But in the name of competition both organizations have developed high performance programs that are geared to the best but few.  There is nothing wrong with programs like Minnesota Hockey’s high performance program or MSHSL’s UMHSEL.  Those programs are trying to develop the best player, but there is nothing wrong with a player trying to be the best if he can't play in the UMHSEL or participate in the high performance programs.  The avenues outside of the two organizations serve a purpose and they can serve many players.  Organizations like the Minnesota Blades, Gentry Academy, Ice Edge/Magicians Red Black League, and the Minnesota Made Machine develop players that are often selected by Minnesota Hockey and UMHSEL for participation.  These organizations are developing far more hockey players independent of Minnesota Hockey and the MSHSL approach geared to choose the best.  And these organizations are doing nothing wrong and by using off season ice and they are supporting indirectly winter hockey.  It is in the interest of both Minnesota Hockey and MSHSL to encourage these organizations.  They need to find a passive way of working with them.  

These organizations like the Blades, the Machine, the Magicians are broadening the base.  Herb Brooks always wanted a broad base to the pyramid and got communities to build arenas based on that idea.  It has driven the state of hockey to where it is today.  Both Minnesota Hockey and MSHSL policies are going in the opposite direction.  They will narrow the base by “stove piping” which leads to a constantly shrinking diameter (less participants) in the pipe.

The third and final division is the concept of player eligibility.  Today both organizations have player eligibility concepts that try to constrain players as a means of equalizing competition between teams that are not effective.  They can't be effective because they are trying to constrain by imposing rules that have holes that legally the two organizations have no authority to impose and they don't work.  The more they try to implement, the more they loose through lower participation.  We live in a connected world and high school students are far more connected than the adults that surround them.  It was 1957 when Roosevelt got thrown out of the state basketball tourney for a kid playing in a DeMolay tourney.  That thinking has to change.

As in most competition in sports/activities, there will be lopsided wins.  Both organizations try to apply competitive rational that in theory levels competition but doesn't.  But it does makes the job simpler.  It also makes both organizations above the fray.  Minnesota Hockey wants to grow the support and that is to be endorsed; but question are they headed in the right direction?  The MSHSL needs to ask themselves what is their long term goal is for hockey or the "hockey activity".  The answer would be silence, they are perceived here to have none except to survive another year.  That is an end game for high school hockey.

The MSHSL should then ask themselves “why should the STMA Association build a program to support their high school following Minnesota Hockey rules only to have MSHSL uncertain and arbitrary about pulling the incentives for their high school team by seeding for reasons other then what is good for the sport.  Maybe because they consider it an activity they are insensitive to what happens at the association level.  Losing on the ice is one thing everyone accepts; but winning on the ice and then losing away from the rink, no one accepts.