Re: Minnesota Girls High School Hockey III
As the country knows in Minnesota the Girls (and boys) play HS hockey which for women is 26 regular season games and 6 post season games - the exception being Shattuck St Mary's which is mostly made up of girls from outside of MN and the MN Thoroughbreds which is made up of top players from Metro or W. Wisconsin who choose to play with Thoroughbreds over their HS program (often weaker HS programs or maybe coaches compared to Thoroughbreds). The Elite League has added superior competition on the front end of the season against the top HS players in MN and against top U19AAA Junior Teams. It would be nice to see JWHL and the Ontario CDN Teams play against the Elite League.
The Top Girls also play on spring or summer teams like the MN Jr Whitecaps and Minnesota Ice Cats who play in summer tournaments.
What’s up with the Elite Leagues
By John Russo
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
After 10 years of existence, the Upper Midwest High School Elite League is not only alive and well, but it is thriving – improving each year.
Actually, there are now three segments to the Elite Leagues.
The first of course, is the “big daddy,” the 10-year-old Elite League itself. Then there is the Girls’ Elite League and the boys’ Elite Development League, which is now “affiliated” with the Elite League.
Let’s first go over the Girls Elite League. Started three years ago, it has three Minnesota teams with players from around the state of Minnesota; a total of about 65-70 players each year. While the director, Eric Johnson (Minnetonka girls’ varsity coach), is male, all other participants from players to coaches to referees are girls/women!
In 2010, they played 15 games over a five-weekend period, including an eight-team National Invitational Tournament in October that included many of the best U8-U19 teams in North America. The league play includes Shattuck-St. Mary’s perennial USA Hockey national champion team.
The first year (2008), the girls’ NIT included one all-star team from the Girls Elite League. They swamped the competition by a total of 27-2 over three games. The next year, they moved to two all-star teams and still won the tournament handily with one of the two teams.
The big challenge then came last fall (2010) when all three girls’ league teams played in the tourney. While not as handily, they still won the tournament over the best that North America had to offer! The college coaches have caught on, and are now in strong attendance.
On the boys’ side, 2010 was a year of great change as the Elite Development League morphed out of what previously was Elite II and become an affiliate of the Elite League. To strengthen the league, the number of teams was cut from a dozen to seven. It also became a sophomore/junior league with less than a handful of seniors invited (next year there will be no seniors).
The biggest change however, was the affiliate agreement with the Elite League. All call-up (alternate) players for the Elite League came from Elite Development. They earned their call-ups in Elite D league play.
Over the course of the Elite League’s eight week schedule, three Elite D players were able to move up to permanent roster spots. Another 12 players played some games in the “big leagues.” A rousing success for both leagues.
While the Elite D league only “signed up” about 80 percent of the top sophomore/juniors in 2010, the word is now out that the league play was very good and the opportunities to move up to the Elite League were numerous. The AAA fall team options couldn’t compare – and will have an impossible task next year.
“We plan on getting 100 percent of our targeted players next year,” noted Elite D Director Charlie Graves. “The affiliate agreement and the reduction of the number of teams helped us move to another level. We were all happy with the competitive level of play.
Next year’s Elite D will have roughly 60 percent sophomores and 40 percent juniors. That fits in very well with the Elite League where roughly 35-40 percent are juniors and 60-65 percent are seniors. No Bantam-eligible players are eligible for the Elite D unless they have already played high school hockey the previous year. The Elite D will be looking at this year’s (2010-11) second-year Bantams, as well as freshman and sophomores that are playing on high school teams.
For the Elite League, the number of scouts was higher than ever, this year. The Tuesday “game of the week” at New Hope Arena drew 30-35 scouts and more. While the number of NHL draft picks may be slightly down this year because many of the top players are smaller, the colleges don’t see any dropoff.
The question I get asked more than any other is how we pick Elite League players. The primary determinant of a player making the league is how they play during the high school season. That is the same for Elite D, except it also includes the Bantam season for some.
We scout the high school games with dozens of people, including Elite League coaches, high school coaches, junior, college and NHL scouts, and other interested hockey people throughout the state. There are really no top players that don’t get scouted at least once. We also solicit player recommendations from all of the high school coaches in the state (that are High School Coaches Association Members) in December, then again in January/February.
Most high school coaches are dedicated to their players and feel their top two or three could play in the Elite League. The truth is that there are less Elite League positions than there are high schools. Except for the top-ranked teams in Class AA, most other teams have maybe one player, two at the most, that will go on the prospect list.
The Elite League develops a prospect list that will reach over 300 by March. Literally every player on that list will get a look – during high school games, Advanced camps, Model camp or the Xposure Tournament (an Elite League/Shattuck joint event; next one is March 18-20). The top-rated players are invited “IN” and notified in March, after the state tournament. At that point, there are roughly 85-90 players already “IN,” including the 40-45 remaining from the previous season (so 40-45 new players).
Then in July, another 120 players are invited to participate in a day-long final evaluation, where the final 35 or so players are selected. The final evaluation players are graded and ranked by 15-20 Elite League coaches and scouts. This final evaluation is then added to the information already provided by the year-long scouting to make the final decisions. The players bring their previous scouting record with them to the final evaluation.
Once players have been selected to the Elite League as underclassmen, they are automatically included for the next year unless they have performed poorly during their high school season – or unless they have other problems. Under these rare occurrences, they are warned that they are subject to being put back into the evaluation process for the next season.
The Elite D process is a little more complicated because second-year Bantams are involved; so the Advanced 15 process becomes part of the determining factor. The final evaluations are also more complex and longer.
The Elite League assigns most of the final evaluation sophomore or junior players from their process (that don’t make the league) either directly into the Elite D League or to the Elite D final evaluation process group. So once a sophomore or junior is selected for the Elite League final evaluation camp, they could be: 1) selected for the Elite League, 2) selected for the Elite D League, 3) selected for the Elite League final evaluation camp or 4) eliminated; there are few in this category.
The seniors cannot go to the Elite D process, however, since they are not eligible, except for special circumstances.
The key for high school players is to play hard every shift of every game if they want to play on the Elite or Elite D League. Poor effort or poor teamwork will not get a player selected, even with good skills. The same applies when players get to junior or college. Scouts and coaches have little tolerance for poor effort and poor team work.
The Elite Leagues are thriving. They need sponsors, however. Finances are definitely an issue in all of the leagues. Contact John Russo if sponsorships are a possibility.
Check out the Let’s Play Hockey list of college committed girls and boys to see how important the Elite Leagues are.
John Russo, Ph.D., is founder and director of the Upper Midwest High School Elite League. He was a captain at the University of Wisconsin, and his Coaches’ Corner columns have appeared in LPH since 1986.
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