Hockey Nerd

MYHockey will post one more 2009-10 season update on Sunday April 25, 2010. The Telus Cup, Canada's Midget AAA Championship, will finish up on this day and MYHockey will post its last ranking of the season later that evening.

A reminder that MYHockey does not follow spring hockey or spring teams. While this can be a good experience for kids and families, it is extremely difficult to follow and MYHockey has chosen not to work the spring/summer season.

MYHockey acknowledges that it does not contain every youth, junior and college hockey score played this season and it never will, but anyone who would like to get their game results into the system must do so before Sunday evening, April 25th. All guest entered scores will be accepted (or rejected if believed to be incorrect) and factored into this last ranking of the season.

Enjoy the off-season.

USA Hockey crowned 28 youth champions on Sunday April 11th. Congrats to the 2010 Champions! Additionally, thanks to all the volunteers who put in countless hours making this possible for the players, coaches and fans. At all 8 locations there was an organization that made it all possible.

• Boys Tier 1 18U - Chicago Mission
• Boys Tier 1 16U - Colorado Thunderbirds
• Boys Tier 1 14U - Detroit Honeybaked
• Boys Tier 1 12U - Detroit Compuware

• Boys Tier 2 18U (4A) - Dorchester Chiefs
• Boys Tier 2 18U (3A) - Chesterfield Falcons
• Boys Tier 2 18U (2A) - Dallas Ice Jets
• Boys Tier 2 18U (1A) - Oklahoma City

• Boys Tier 2 16U (4A) - Niagara Jr Purple Eagles
• Boys Tier 2 16U (3A) - North Dakota Starz
• Boys Tier 2 16U (2A) - Montana Thunderblades
• Boys Tier 2 16U (1A) - Orange County Hockey Club

• Boys Tier 2 14U (4A) - Grand Rapids Griffins
• Boys Tier 2 14U (3A) - Indianapolis Racers
• Boys Tier 2 14U (2A) - Omaha Jr Mavericks
• Boys Tier 2 14U (1A) - Nevada Jr Storm

• Boys Tier 2 12U (4A) - Chicago Blues
• Boys Tier 2 12U (3A) - Affton Americans
• Boys Tier 2 12U (2A) - Atlanta Fire
• Boys Tier 2 12U (1A) - Delaware Ducks

• Girls Tier 1 19U - Assabet Valley
• Girls Tier 1 16U - Shattuck St Marys
• Girls Tier 1 14U - Team Pittsburgh
• Girls Tier 1 12U - East Coast Wizards

• Girls Tier 2 19U - Massachusetts Spitfires
• Girls Tier 2 16U - Massachusetts Spitfires
• Girls Tier 2 14U - Bay State Breakers
• Girls Tier 2 12U - Bay State Breakers

Again, congrats to all 28 National Champions!

Once again this year I attended the NCAA D1 Midwest Regional. This year the venue was the beautiful Fort Wayne Coliseum. On Saturday evening Miami OH bumped Alabama-Huntsville 2-1 and Michigan downed Bemidji State 5-1 in the semi-finals of the Regional. On Sunday at 8:00pm, Miami had a rematch against Michigan who handed them a 5-2 defeat in their CCHA semi-final game a few weeks back. In a great hockey game, Miami downed Michigan in double OT and advanced to the Frozen Four in Detroit's Ford Field in two weeks.

A couple thoughts. First and foremost, and I can't emphasize this enough, I am utterly surprised at how few people attend these games. I watched a number of games Friday on TV and most of the rinks looked relatively empty. Even after the NCAA changed up who played where (Yale was supposed to travel to Fort Wayne and Michigan was supposed to play in Worcester, but they were swapped to assist with ticket sales), it looked rare that a rink was half full. According to USCHO.com, the games averaged about 5000 fans, with a low of 3200 at the Michigan vs. Miami game late on Sunday evening. There were a lot of great games out there, I really can't understand why they are not better attended by hockey fans.

I realize that the NCAA didn't want to compete with their Basketball games, but starting a game at a few minutes after 8pm on a Sunday evening is not really fair. Around 1000 locals who attended the Sunday evening game left before it was finished. The crowd was down under 2500 when the game finished up at a few minutes before midnight. I didn't get home until after 2am and can appreciate why others who had to work Monday morning left early.

I was disappointed with the officiating. Denver lost to this years Cinderella team, RIT, when RIT scored it's game winning goal on a very iffy penalty in the third period of their game. Michigan should have scored the game winning goal in OT, but the official lost site of the puck and blew it dead less than a second before the never covered puck was put in the net for an apparent game-ending goal. But I was even annoyed by the sudden change in face-off standards that appeared this weekend. I've watched a couple dozen NCAA games on TV this season and never seen officials so intent on slowing down the game by constantly checking player position and tossing face-off men. When you finally decide to enforce the rules of the game in the end-of-the-season tournament after letting it go all season, you are going to annoy players, coaches and fans. Count me as annoyed.

So 30-40k of you have tickets to the Frozen Four in a week or so. Well, not too many of you who will be at Nationals. I know of a few people who are trying to sell their tickets as they now will be playing in one of the tournaments spread around the country. Who is buying? Not me. I just cannot get exited about watching a hockey game in a football stadium. I think the NCAA's greed is getting the better of them. The Final Four will be played this weekend at Lucas Oil Football Stadium in Indianapolis and the Frozen Four at Ford Field in Detroit. NCAA, please put these back into the venues that they belong. I have no issue with Michigan hosting Michigan State at the big house next winter for what could be the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game. It's a great novelty and historic event. But please play the National Championship game in a hockey rink.

Now if only USA Hockey and the NCAA could figure out a way to host their National Championships on different weekends...

MYHockey has identified all 324 teams that will be participating at the USA National Championships from April 7-11. Almost all have played enough games against other qualifying teams to be ranked and those that haven't, will show up in the rankings regardless to help you identify them as well. With the inclusion of a four class system this season, MYHockey has updated it's logo to help you identify the class that each of the Tier 2 boys teams will be playing in. Tier 1 and Girls will use the standard American flag logo signifying that they will be playing at Nationals.

Links to the 12 teams in each of the 28 divisions (note that 3 divisions will only have 8 teams) can be found on my previous post title USA Hockey National Championships. So you can view the divisions by either going straight to the rankings or by clicking on the links found in my previous Hockey Nerd column.

As always, you can submit missing games for any team, including those going to Nationals, by using the Report Scores link on MYHockey. Some teams, especially at the 1A level, may not have played another (or very many) qualifying teams so it's possible that no scores can be added. Still, I encourage anyone who can help to use the Online Guest Score Entry found on the Report Scores page if you know of valid missing scores for these teams.

USA Hockey has made some last minute changes to the rosters. Their website is still not completely up-to-date so it is possible that MYHockey has made an error somewhere along the way. Please let us know if you find any outstanding issues.

And as always, best of luck to everyone playing at Nationals.