Hermantown (class 7A team) just beat the two best teams in class 7AA. What an absolute joke that they are playing in single A when they would be the favorite to win 7AA if they were in it.
OT: MN High School Hockey Thread
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GordieGallant
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I would say the entire east metro and western Wisconsin. One kid is from Roseau.
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That's their choice. I really wish people would leave it alone. Their enrollment says they can be class A so they're class A.
Northerner
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- Feb 23, 2017
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The ghost of Bruce Plante wants to avenge all those STA losses in State.
Personally I have no problem with them in A, since they are a small school.
That said, would rather they didn't recruit/pull from surrounding schools.
Personally I have no problem with them in A, since they are a small school.
That said, would rather they didn't recruit/pull from surrounding schools.
I actually agree with Mike Randolph on this topic:
"I think it would do local hockey better for them to be up in our section than be in single-A hockey,” he said. “They play a double-A (regular-season) schedule and then beat up on everybody (in the playoffs) and go to the single-A state tournament, when they could win the double-A tournament with the teams they’ve had over the years."
Prep boys hockey: Duluth East-Hermantown matchup decades in the making | Duluth News Tribune
"I think it would do local hockey better for them to be up in our section than be in single-A hockey,” he said. “They play a double-A (regular-season) schedule and then beat up on everybody (in the playoffs) and go to the single-A state tournament, when they could win the double-A tournament with the teams they’ve had over the years."
Prep boys hockey: Duluth East-Hermantown matchup decades in the making | Duluth News Tribune
I'd want an explanation of how it would do local hockey better.
Also...he says a lot of their teams could win the AA tourney...when they've only won the A tourney 3 times. Played in the final 10 and gone 3-7. Haven't won it since 2017.
They're a good program but it's not like no one has a chance.
Also...he says a lot of their teams could win the AA tourney...when they've only won the A tourney 3 times. Played in the final 10 and gone 3-7. Haven't won it since 2017.
They're a good program but it's not like no one has a chance.
Northerner
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All the sections up there - A and AA alike - are brutal to come out of. That's why getting to State is so special...it's just so hard.
Apparently not hard for Hermantown. They've outscored teams something like 78-7 in the section playoffs and haven't lost to a 7A team in many years.
Northerner
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I believe northern MN has changed quite a bit. There are not as many jobs up there anymore. I'm sure many places (Eveleth, Cloquet, TRF, Hibbing) have lost a lot of people through the years.
GuerinUp
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Why would the iron range lose people? Steel mining has always been important to this country....
Northerner
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Those small towns up there aren't the same.
Drive through downtown Chisholm last time I was up there and it's just so sad. It's not the same place it was just 20 years ago.
I'm not educated on the steel industry or if that industry has seen better days but I believe small-town MN like a lot of places has been thinned out. I guess I could be wrong about that.
Victorious Secret
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That's what they sell you on. Checking the population, cities listed have either lost a large percentage or stagnated for a few decades.
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District 5
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Easy. Over the years Hermantown has plucked away great players from other programs in the north. These other programs would field much better teams if they weren't poached. To the hawks defense, this happens all over but the point remains.
I am no expert, but I bought my first home in a steel town(you don't mine Steel, you mine Iron Ore, amongst other things). Steel Mills have been in decline for 3-4 decades, hence the term "rust belt" referring to upstate NY, OHio, MI, Pa.
The Iron Range has been losing good jobs and people for about that long, also. The days of Greenway, Eveleth, and the like producing power house hockey teams are way in the rear view mirror, partly for that reason, partly for the shift in hockey players coming from middle to upper middle class suburbs rather than working class(albeit well paid ones) small towns. It's the same up in Canada. Small places like Kirkland Lake way up north used to produce an outsize amount of NHL'ers. Now it's the suburbs of Toronto.
American Steel is simply a dying industry, and has been for many years. The firms that are looking to mine up in the Range now are usually looking for Nickel or Copper. They face all sorts of resistance from environmentalists, but are also vulnerable to market pricing(see; Oil prices), making them risky ventures.
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Traditional iron ore is 65% iron and can produce some of the highest grades of steel in earth. Minnesota hasn't had that level of ore in decades, what they mine in the Iron Range is low grade ore called Taconite. 35% iron or less. Much more costly to produce iron from, much lower grade steel results from.
This is a big reason for the steel industry decline in the U.S. We don't have the correct ore type anymore to produce the high grades.
You think if they moved up a class they wouldn't pull players away from other schools? If anything it would likely happen more.
The other teams in class A would have a legit shot at a tourney appearance themselves. Kids would think twice about it.
Right now, those kids in A see no other path.
The two class system was put in place because some teams couldn't compete with the big schools. Hermantown is not one of those teams, them beating up on Class A schools defeats the entire purpose of the system.
Either move up the teams that have proven capable of competing, or go back to a single class tournament.
It's also because of micro mills around the world in places like India. The US has no chance to compete with them(lower wages, less environmental protections, taxes, etc.,) unless they subsidize US Steel, or put tariffs on foreign steel. That has been tried in the past, and possibly still is, but it's a losing proposition.
I used to live in Hamilton, which is Canada's answer to Pittsburgh. It's hard to see more of your neighbors get laid off year after year, and the plants get shut down, one by one. After that you see the storefronts getting shuttered, and businesses failing, followed by schools closing, and an increase in crime, because there aren't any decent jobs.
The Iron Range is not coming back, nor is the Golden era of Iron Range hockey. They don't have the people, or the resources anymore.
I still think they'd pull as heavy as they do now as they'd want to win in AA. They aren't breaking any rules doing this and their enrollment says they they're an A school. Sorry but if you want to beat them...get better.
I never said they're breaking any rules, I said the current rules defeat the entire reason they created the two class system in the first place. The rules need to be changed to force teams like Hermantown to move up if they've proven they can consistently compete at that level.
But they don't. It's one team and they aren't doing anything that would necessitate a rule change. People just don't like it...but that's not Hermantown's fault or problem.
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