Big City Clubs

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Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Sat Nov 10, 2007 2:45 pm

I’m going to be brave and state an opinion, to start a debate, so don’t take this personally. In a previous topic, I purposely didn’t mention the Grand Forks and Fargo club teams. These teams are effectively made up from the high school teams who get enough chat already and I question wether they should be in the Jr Gold league. I’m not saying they shouldn’t play. It’s just that their huge numbers advantage severely tips the balance in their favor against the small town clubs. These teams show up with 20 kids, mostly seniors with attitude because they didn’t make the varsity team, and expect to beat-up on some small town kids. No one is really surprised when they do. OK, the small clubs will occasionally have a glory year, but predominantly it’s the same big city teams taking the trophies home each year. If the numbers advantage weren’t enough, they feel they need to recruit Minnesota kids. I believe it was one of the Fargo teams that had issues with this last year. It’s bad enough that we have a Montana team in the league, but at least it helps tip the east/west balance. The small clubs do their best with every kid they have, quite often Bantams playing up just to make a team. It’s just disheartening when the competition isn’t even. As I stated earlier, this is just my opinion (last I checked, we were all allowed those) that is not necessarily shared by the rest of the club or league, so please go easy on me. :mrgreen:
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby Gman1 » Fri Nov 16, 2007 1:45 am

this shouldnt matter these kids arent the top level kids in hockey if they were they wopuld be playing for their high school teams small towns have produced some good hockey players so that there shuold play a part in the small schools getting the advantage so you cant penalize kids for living in a bigger town and not making there teams
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Fri Nov 16, 2007 8:46 am

Gman1 wrote:this shouldnt matter these kids arent the top level kids in hockey if they were they wopuld be playing for their high school teams small towns have produced some good hockey players so that there shuold play a part in the small schools getting the advantage so you cant penalize kids for living in a bigger town and not making there teams


Huh! It's called grammer and punctuation (I think they still teach that in school). It helps to convey your thoughts to your readers. I didn't understand a word of your post. Thanks for playing. :?
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:43 am

Yes it is a numbers game, but it is also about available talent and equal competition. It’s why most other sports have different divisions, B, A – AAA, and why you never see a team from a city of 50,000 people playing a team from a town with only 2000. There is an attempt at divisions in hockey at the lower levels, but there are still issues with that.

For comparison let’s look at the numbers between an average City and Town.

City Town
Population 50,000 plus Less than 2,000
High School Kids 2,000 plus Less than 200
High School Hockey Players 200 plus Less than 20

It should be pretty obvious that there is a big difference in the available talent pool. Your top 10% talent of 20 kids in the City equates to 1 or 2 kids in the town. Sure the City is divided into 2 schools which will take away roughly the top 30 kids. The next 10 will probably decide they would rather be first line on a club team that 4 fourth or JV on the school teams. Again there are another 2 club teams, but with recruiting back and forth, you’ll get about 7 City kids with equivalent talent to 2 Town kids. As you go down the talent scale, this will get worse, as the better average players go to the club teams to get more playing time.

The talent pool issue is effectively the same with the A and B divisions at the lower levels. A City club, that has 4 teams in a given age group, can stack whichever team it feels has the best chance of winning that year.

Add available facilities, such as year round ice, to the population issue and you can see how the scale is tipped. I don’t know the answer. I think hockey is a great sport and any kid that wants to should play.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:54 am

AC-DC wrote:------------------------------------------------------City-----------------------Town
Population --------------------------------------50,000 plus-------------Less than 2,000
High School Kids--------------------------------2,000 plus--------------Less than 200
High School Hockey Players-------------------200 plus-----------------Less than 20


The comparison format didn't come out very good in the original post. This should be more clear.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Sat Nov 17, 2007 12:49 pm

highheat wrote:they also teach reading comprehension all the way through grade school. what he was trying to say is that if those kids are playing on their city's junior gold team, they're probably not as good as the high school players. i know there are a few instances where there is a player who would be successful on his high school team but he does not want the commitment of high school hockey. if numbers are the real issue you are trying to present, then maybe ndaha could set a roster limit and those bigger cities could expand to have more teams.



The more I think about the roster limit, the more I like it. The small clubs, with about 15 kids, are usually competetive for the first period or two. Being a line short, they tend to run out of gas in the third. Looking at the NDAHA rules, the only limit I can find is on small teams playing up younger kids. The standard limit is 14, but Jr Gold is 16. One idea, is say a team roster limit of 20 and an individual game roster limit of 16.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby Gman1 » Sun Nov 18, 2007 9:25 pm

thanks i thought AC/DC would be a little smarter then that to understand what i was trying to say its evident that a little grammar error scares him a little
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Sun Nov 18, 2007 10:06 pm

Gman1 wrote:thanks i thought AC/DC would be a little smarter then that to understand what i was trying to say its evident that a little grammar error scares him a little

Do you actually have an intelligent comment, or just nothing better to do? There's nothing to be scared about, just very confussed. Between the poor spelling, grammer and run-on sentences, most people would need a translation. Thanks again, come back when you have something inteligible to add on the topic.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby NDSportsFan » Sun Nov 18, 2007 11:52 pm

ok fellas, let's get back on topic please.

Thanks
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby Gman1 » Mon Nov 19, 2007 12:05 am

sorry but there is no topic when it comes down to jr gold hockey. Its a league that has a bad reputation and very average hockey. It has been cleaned up but it it not even comparable to the calliber of high school sorry but thats how i feel about it
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby Baller » Mon Nov 19, 2007 12:08 am

Gman1 wrote:sorry but there is no topic when it comes down to jr gold hockey. Its a league that has a bad reputation and very average hockey. It has been cleaned up but it it not even comparable to the calliber of high school sorry but thats how i feel about it


Then don't post or read the NDAHA Forum...it is here for people that care about it.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:57 am

Baller wrote:
Gman1 wrote:sorry but there is no topic when it comes down to jr gold hockey. Its a league that has a bad reputation and very average hockey. It has been cleaned up but it it not even comparable to the calliber of high school sorry but thats how i feel about it


Then don't post or read the NDAHA Forum...it is here for people that care about it.


Amen!

I think the bad reputation comes about from part of the point I was trying to make. The bigger city Jr Gold teams are full of seniors with attitude because they didn't make their high school teams. For the small towns, with no high school hockey program, it's the only game in town and they play it to the best of their ability. There are some good hockey players out there. With the Jr Gold league and things like the ND Selects program, those players get the attention they deserve. It's a shame there's a stigma placed on these kids by the prevalant attitude expressed above.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby Gman1 » Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:02 pm

no this site is to talk about the different sports going on in the state so i will keep giving my thoughts on what i think about these things.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby NDSportsFan » Thu Nov 22, 2007 7:44 pm

Gman1 wrote:sorry but there is no topic when it comes down to jr gold hockey. Its a league that has a bad reputation and very average hockey. It has been cleaned up but it it not even comparable to the calliber of high school sorry but thats how i feel about it


Your feelings are noted, thanks for the input.

However to those that are interested, please feel free to discuss Jr. Gold hockey here.

Thank you.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:16 am

Unfortunately, after this weekend’s fiasco, I have to place Walsh County (Park River-Grafton) in the same category as Grand Forks and Fargo. They exhibited the typical “I’m not good enough for varsity”, “rules don’t apply to Jr. Gold”, goon squad attitude we’ve come to expect from the cities.

Fortunately, Grand Forks had some of the best ref’s I’ve seen any where. The guy the boys called “Mr. Monopoly”, because of his bushy mustache, was great. They kept the Grand Forks penalty box full and even ejected the goons when necessary.

The ref’s in Park River however, only called a penalty when the crowd shouted loud enough. Even when the fight broke out, that resulted in a Crosby kid receiving a hockey stick choke-hold, they only called 3 minors for roughing. The third went to a Crosby kid who stopped an additional Park River kid from joining the fray.

The Crosby parents had to stand guard, as the boys ran across the street to the school for a shower, due to threats of being met outside.

I know they’re new to the league, but we expect a better standard of play than that or they should limit themselves to Jr. Varsity.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby justahockeymom » Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:59 pm

I really wish you would stop saying the big cities have attitudes because they did not make Varsity or Junior varsity. My son is in his first year with the Junior Gold and I don't think they all come in with a big bad attitude. Remember that coaching plays a big role in attitude and not all kids are cut out for high school hockey, they play way more games with the Junior Gold then High school so maybe that is why kids play the Junior Gold. Also We in the BIG CITY can't help that you live in a small community. This is offered to keep the kids on the ice and out of trouble. I think it should be offered in every community big or small. I think maybe you are making a way bigger stink then the kids in your communtiy remember they just love to play the game.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby Gman1 » Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:47 pm

monopoly ref has generally been a great ref. He has reffed in multiple state high school hockey tournaments
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:37 am

Gman1 wrote:monopoly ref has generally been a great ref. He has reffed in multiple state high school hockey tournaments

Do you happen to know his name? He called the game fair and didn't take any BS. We need more ref's like that.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:52 am

justahockeymom wrote:I really wish you would stop saying the big cities have attitudes because they did not make Varsity or Junior varsity. My son is in his first year with the Junior Gold and I don't think they all come in with a big bad attitude. Remember that coaching plays a big role in attitude and not all kids are cut out for high school hockey, they play way more games with the Junior Gold then High school so maybe that is why kids play the Junior Gold. Also We in the BIG CITY can't help that you live in a small community. This is offered to keep the kids on the ice and out of trouble. I think it should be offered in every community big or small. I think maybe you are making a way bigger stink then the kids in your communtiy remember they just love to play the game.


It is what it is. Do you deny there are attitude issues in the city Jr Gold clubs? I've never said that anyone shouldn't play. The question is about keeping the competition level even, the game fair and promoting players with ability. I'm open to suggestions on how to make that happen.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby Gman1 » Wed Nov 28, 2007 9:12 pm

i believe it is montgomery. Dont knkow the first name though
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby justahockeymom » Wed Nov 28, 2007 11:00 pm

Well I beleive there is attitude in every Junior Gold team and any hockey team for that matter whether it be big city or little city. Ialso think it can be kept under control with good coaching and coaching doesn't just mean the one on the bench it needs to come from the parents. I say that if there is a kid that does not make a high school team and wants to play that is what the Junior Gold is there for. We as adults need to keep in mind that this game is for the kids and not for us, it is a privledge for us to get to watch our children play. When kids are cut from a team it is up to the kids to say they can take the game away from me but they cannot take me away from the game and that is why it shouldn't matter where kids come from as long as they are on the ice and out of trouble. I see a point where you feel that the big cities have more to choose from . Most of these kids that make the Junior Gold probably should have been on the high school team. Why aren't they probably a good reason, politics by this we all know that it is money, kissing butt, and I don't think I have to go on. We in the Big City probably have more problems then not having 15 or 20 on the bench. Trust me the more you have the worse it is I for one would love to be in a small community because then my child would never be told they are not good enough, not big enough, and so on, in the small communtiy they would WANT him to play and not just to be a practice guppy for the rest of the team or to keep the bench warm .This is why we love the Junior Gold program. I think we need to keep in mind the kids that you are seeing on the Big City Junior Gold Teams you need to ask did you try out for high school and did you get cut so they still deserve a chance to play. You may see there talent when we play you but obviously the High Schools didn't. Don't be angry at the Team or city size be happy that kids are still getting to play a sport they love and the big W isn't always everything. As far as the competition level there were some pretty good players on the smaller town teams last year that could skate circles around the big city kids. You will never make a equal playing field in any sport do to new kids moving and kids going and if you ever watch kids 1/2 hour after a loss of a game they have forgotton about it, it is just the pain the parents carry with them a little longer cause we want so badly for our children to be successful.

AC-DC wrote:
justahockeymom wrote:I really wish you would stop saying the big cities have attitudes because they did not make Varsity or Junior varsity. My son is in his first year with the Junior Gold and I don't think they all come in with a big bad attitude. Remember that coaching plays a big role in attitude and not all kids are cut out for high school hockey, they play way more games with the Junior Gold then High school so maybe that is why kids play the Junior Gold. Also We in the BIG CITY can't help that you live in a small community. This is offered to keep the kids on the ice and out of trouble. I think it should be offered in every community big or small. I think maybe you are making a way bigger stink then the kids in your communtiy remember they just love to play the game.


It is what it is. Do you deny there are attitude issues in the city Jr Gold clubs? I've never said that anyone shouldn't play. The question is about keeping the competition level even, the game fair and promoting players with ability. I'm open to suggestions on how to make that happen.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby dcs01 » Wed Nov 28, 2007 11:09 pm

my thoughts on this entire thread right here. monoply guy is the man he is probably my favorite ref.
park river refs are terrible i havent had to play there since i was a peewee but from what i remember they have always been just awful. and i agree that its really lame that fargo had to get kids from minnesota to play when they probably have a billion other kids that want to.
im not looking to start anything here and for some of you sorry i dont type with perfect grammer


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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:37 am

Good points from everyone, discussion was what I was trying to inspire.

Good coaching and officiating are definetly essential. The boys will take away better life lessons if the game is clean and fair.

One way to level the playing field, that I can't seem to get much comment or support for, would be to set a bench/game roster limit, say at 16. This would at least get rid of the 1 or 2 line advantage for the big clubs so they can't just wear down the smaller teams. I've seen way too many games that were close for one or two periods, only to turn into blow outs in the third when the boys had nothing left. That is dis-heartening.

If there was a smaller roster limit, maybe Grand Forks would still have 2 Jr Gold teams, instead of 23 kids on 1 team. In the small towns, if you have 20 skaters and 2 goalies, we call that 2 teams. To me it looks like Grand Forks is trying to stack a trophy team instead of letting kids play.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby hockeystar11 » Thu Nov 29, 2007 12:30 pm

grand forks isnt anything special anyways.
they can stack the team all they want.
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Re: Big City Clubs

Postby AC-DC » Thu Nov 29, 2007 4:30 pm

hockeystar11 wrote:grand forks isnt anything special anyways.
they can stack the team all they want.


I'll agree with that, but additional teams in the league would be a good thing.
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