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Wisconsin Women's Hockey 2021-2022

OS is owned and run by Winny Brodt, the godmother of Minnesota womens hockey. It begins with some youth programming, but really takes off in 7th and 8th grade centered around some summer training programs and with the Futures and Prospects weekend tournaments in June and July. These events draw almost all of the top college coaches to evaluate Minnesota kids. OS eventually collects all of the top metro area, and most of the top kids state-wide, by high school. There is significant overlap in staff with the upper midwest high school elite league, the top teams of which are made up almost entirely of kids that participate in OS. These teams hold the tier 1 charter for Minnesota, and the winners of these leagues compete with Shattuck to represent Minnesota at the U16 and U19 tier 1 national tournaments.

The Tradition Cup is in its second year, and is a free-to-play, invite only tournament made up of Whitecaps players (one, this year), Minnesota-based D1 players, and a small number of high school seniors (there is also a youth version running concurrently). Three of the last four Ms. Hockey winners are participating (Peyton Hemp, Maddie Wethington, and Olivia Mobley), along with a variety of other Gophers, Duluth, Mankato, Ohio State, Ivy and players from various other colleges. The four teams are divided up somewhat haphazardly, and play a three games series. Neither Jungels nor Enright, the two Wisco commits from Minnesota high school hockey this year, participated. There are only a few uncommitted players participating (Broz, Sandberg and J. Wethington ('23s), and Zhan ('24) and Mac Jones ('25)). Video is avaiable here (for a fee): https://linktr.ee/mnhockeytv
 
PuckLover said:
OS is owned and run by Winny Brodt, the godmother of Minnesota womens hockey. It begins with some youth programming, but really takes off in 7th and 8th grade centered around some summer training programs and with the Futures and Prospects weekend tournaments in June and July. These events draw almost all of the top college coaches to evaluate Minnesota kids. OS eventually collects all of the top metro area, and most of the top kids state-wide, by high school. There is significant overlap in staff with the upper midwest high school elite league, the top teams of which are made up almost entirely of kids that participate in OS. These teams hold the tier 1 charter for Minnesota, and the winners of these leagues compete with Shattuck to represent Minnesota at the U16 and U19 tier 1 national tournaments.

The Tradition Cup is in its second year, and is a free-to-play, invite only tournament made up of Whitecaps players (one, this year), Minnesota-based D1 players, and a small number of high school seniors (there is also a youth version running concurrently). Three of the last four Ms. Hockey winners are participating (Peyton Hemp, Maddie Wethington, and Olivia Mobley), along with a variety of other Gophers, Duluth, Mankato, Ohio State, Ivy and players from various other colleges. The four teams are divided up somewhat haphazardly, and play a three games series. Neither Jungels nor Enright, the two Wisco commits from Minnesota high school hockey this year, participated. There are only a few uncommitted players participating (Broz, Sandberg and J. Wethington ('23s), and Zhan ('24) and Mac Jones ('25)). Video is avaiable here (for a fee): https://linktr.ee/mnhockeytv
Click to expand...

Very informative. Thanks for the quick response, and for the link to watch those games.
 
PuckLover said:
OS is owned and run by Winny Brodt, the goldmother of Minnesota womens hockey.

Neither Jungels nor Enright, the two Wisco commits from Minnesota high school hockey this year, participated.
Click to expand...

I fixed your post on line one. Line 2 perhaps they are already in Madison or the goldmother did not invite them for some strange reason.
 
"Goldmother" - I hear you, but let me offer an alternative point of view:

Given the relatively small size of the sport and the number of players in Minnesota, two top teams at each age level means the third team is well behind those two in talent, which means her program is a natural monopoly. That's reinforced by her role in girls hockey in Minnesota leading her to also be in charge of the elite league, a key part of the development programming for the top players. Like any natural monopoly, OS has pricing power and has been less motivated to improve the product and innovate.

That said, Minnesota hockey has a very significant benefit (in my opinion) over club hockey elsewhere which is under appreciated, and Winny's management of OS and the elite league has helped protect that advantage. Every Minnesota kid grows up playing on more different teams than is the case for kids in most other states, and those different teams have age cutoffs different than calendar birth years (elite league and HP/USA by calendar year, high school and OS prospects events by school year), which helps to counteract the "Outliers" effect. And unlike a kid playing for a club like Caesars or Shattuck (not to pick on them, but as an example), who plays with the same kids every year and in the same role, a kid in Minnesota has the chance to play a top role for one team, a bottom role on another, and a role player on a third. That's true for everyone, including the super stars, because she'll put the stars up against and with older and better competition. It would have been easy and a natural "innovation," and undoubtedly more profitable, for Winny to do things like develop a year-round elite league for the top 60 or so kids in each age group, play a 70 game tier 1 schedule and destroy MN high school hockey. Things like that exist on the boys side without destroying high school hockey because the talent pool is so much deeper, so the high school product remains pretty good even as stars are siphoned away to the NTDP and USHL.

OS has some major flaws, both administrative (return phone calls? emails?), in team formation (social promotion of kids who haven't kept up with their peers, letting dad coaches be WAY too involved) and on-ice (the summer training quality is a missed opportunity, and too many events are low stakes and therefore low effort), but all in all Minnesota hockey is a great developmental experience, and OS is a key part of it.
 
Time to move over to the 2022-2023 thread! The roster is posted and the season will soon be upon us. And, I wish we could get more information out of the national camp--
 
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