Don’t know how many folks have attended this tournament, but they’ve messed it up, and I’m pizzed.
The New England Prep School (NEPSAC) tournament is the premier high school tournament in New England. The crowds aren’t/weren’t anywhere close to the Minnesota high school tournament or even the Massachusetts high school tournament, but the hockey is excellent. The level of play has dropped somewhat in the past few years since junior teams have siphoned off some of the talent that used to go to prep schools, but you can still be guaranteed that you’d see several future college D1 players and some really competitive hockey. You could tell who the D1 signees were, but they didn’t dominate the play, and often teams with D1 signees would lose to better teams with slightly less talent. The semifinals and finals would all be in the same place. Since there were at least two (big school, small school) and in recent years (open, big school, small school) tournaments, it was two full days of great hockey.
This year they’ve screwed it up by putting the semifinals on-campus, and only the finals in one rink (this year at Yale). While Yale is decidedly inconvenient for me, I can’t gripe about it too much, since that’s a lot more fair to the Connecticut schools, but I can complain about moving the semifinals on campus. It’s a bummer for me as a prep school hockey fan, and unfair to the teams, who will now have to win a game Saturday and then bus to Yale (which for some schools may be hundreds of miles) for a Sunday game.
Oh well. Maybe now I have more excuse to take in the Hockey East tournament or the Worcester NCAA Regionals.
The New England Prep School (NEPSAC) tournament is the premier high school tournament in New England. The crowds aren’t/weren’t anywhere close to the Minnesota high school tournament or even the Massachusetts high school tournament, but the hockey is excellent. The level of play has dropped somewhat in the past few years since junior teams have siphoned off some of the talent that used to go to prep schools, but you can still be guaranteed that you’d see several future college D1 players and some really competitive hockey. You could tell who the D1 signees were, but they didn’t dominate the play, and often teams with D1 signees would lose to better teams with slightly less talent. The semifinals and finals would all be in the same place. Since there were at least two (big school, small school) and in recent years (open, big school, small school) tournaments, it was two full days of great hockey.
This year they’ve screwed it up by putting the semifinals on-campus, and only the finals in one rink (this year at Yale). While Yale is decidedly inconvenient for me, I can’t gripe about it too much, since that’s a lot more fair to the Connecticut schools, but I can complain about moving the semifinals on campus. It’s a bummer for me as a prep school hockey fan, and unfair to the teams, who will now have to win a game Saturday and then bus to Yale (which for some schools may be hundreds of miles) for a Sunday game.
Oh well. Maybe now I have more excuse to take in the Hockey East tournament or the Worcester NCAA Regionals.