North Dakota Preps

    For those of you who questioned the validity of the Dakota Starz Tier II team you may want to check out USA hockey.com for an update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Starz won the tier II National Championship yesterday. They were undefeated in 6 games. They beat Detroit against the odds of home town refs (penaltys 15-3) in a SO 3-2. They than went on to beat NY 3-2, Medford 7-3, MO 4-2, NY again 5-2 and beat another home town team, Troy, MI in the finals 3-1.
The Grafton line was the most formidable offensive weapon in the tournament. Demers had 9 goals in 6 games. Schaefer looked great. Arnason won five games and gave up 7 goals with a .945 saves avg. Huguelet was a fore checking and back checking animal and won nearly every draw.
The USA hockey announcer repeatedly made comments that they were the fastest team on the ice this tournament. They consistently won puck chases and looked very disciplined. This despite the fact that they only played 36 total games this year including this final 6. Many of the were back to back to back just to get in enough to qualify. In contrast, Troy who they beat in the fiinals played 75 games this year (61-10-4).  The Starz even beat Shattuck-St Marys once and they played in the tier I Championship and lost to a hometown favorite 2-1. Officialing in the whole tournament was home team sided big time as you would expect.
Ten of these same players played in the National Championship game two years ago in Philly and lost to Phoenix in the finals.

cool

You wouldnt be a hockey player talking your team up would you?

    No hardly. I don't need to talk up a team that just won the National Championships.  Just an avid hockey fan that is a little appalled by folks that trash talk kids who pour their heart out to a game they love.
These same people trash talked the Souix, guess they are 0 for 2 because I see the Souix winning it all this year. Went to every game in the WCHA and they should have won that as well. Home town refs give a bogus five minute misconduct we skate off than a tripping call when a guy fell to give the rats a power to tie it up only to than win in OT on a falling down swat shot that frankly we should have stopped (as well as the first soft goal). Hopefully this is something you can appreciate as well.

Gp Starz, Go Souix, Go Wild!

As for the National Tournament, i listened to both games that were brodcasted over usahockey.com, and by stats chad demers from GPR had a great tournament as well as Andrew Vigen GFRR and Nick Schaffer GFRR......Patrick Arnason GFRR also had a great tournament with great stats........Congrats to the STARS! way to represent the state of Nrth Dkota very well.

scoreuppershelf wrote:    No hardly. I don't need to talk up a team that just won the National Championships.  Just an avid hockey fan that is a little appalled by folks that trash talk kids who pour their heart out to a game they love.
These same people trash talked the Souix, guess they are 0 for 2 because I see the Souix winning it all this year. Went to every game in the WCHA and they should have won that as well. Home town refs give a bogus five minute misconduct we skate off than a tripping call when a guy fell to give the rats a power to tie it up only to than win in OT on a falling down swat shot that frankly we should have stopped (as well as the first soft goal). Hopefully this is something you can appreciate as well.

Gp Starz, Go Souix, Go Wild!

Who on here has been trash talking the 16u team?

how is what i said appaling at all? ------I actually want you to answer this question...

 

i wasnt trash talking the starz at all i have a friend on the team and know several others  i was making a jab at you because it seems to me that you got your account so you could post this long descriptive summary of the game to gather some glory considering you made your account the day before than as soon as you were granted access to ndpreps you raved about the dakota starz my guess is that im correct

 

Clarification for those who dont know better: I was not trashtalking or Nay Sayin on the Dakota Starz team. I was belittling the the arrogant person who created the topic.

Just a little heads up, don't try to slam me. u nOOB!

 

Go Sioux, Go Starz, Go Canes!!

its great and all they won but tier II isnt exactly the top level of competition in the country

gf_siouxfan wrote:how is what i said appaling at all? ------I actually want you to answer this question...

 

i wasnt trash talking the starz at all i have a friend on the team and know several others  i was making a jab at you because it seems to me that you got your account so you could post this long descriptive summary of the game to gather some glory considering you made your account the day before than as soon as you were granted access to ndpreps you raved about the dakota starz my guess is that im correct

 

Clarification for those who dont know better: I was not trashtalking or Nay Sayin on the Dakota Starz team. I was belittling the the arrogant person who created the topic.

Just a little heads up, don't try to slam me. u nOOB!

 

Go Sioux, Go Starz, Go Canes!!

Thank you!! Good post sioux

How does one get on to the Starz ? Is there an open try-out ? Is it hand picked ? Do you buy your way on ?  Not trying to belittle their accomplishment just asking, since I've never seen anything posted on the NDAHA website.

hcky1616 wrote:How does one get on to the Starz ? Is there an open try-out ? Is it hand picked ? Do you buy your way on ?  Not trying to belittle their accomplishment just asking, since I've never seen anything posted on the NDAHA website.

you get invited to play

Invited by whom ?

hcky1616 wrote:Invited by whom ?

by the people who organize the the tier II team

As I suspected $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

What does that mean? You have to pay to play on every team.. They are the top 16 year olds in the state.

hcky1616 wrote:As I suspected $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

why would you say such a thing

brownbomber wrote:

hcky1616 wrote:As I suspected $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

why would you say such a thing

I could see a lot of people trying to pay to play i have already seen it before at younger levals

Pay to play??? It all cost money..

scrappy23 wrote:Pay to play??? It all cost money..

I think whats hes getting at is some of the political things that go on down in the younger ranks if your dad is the president of the hockey board, his kid is going to see more time, even if hes not as good as a kid that is below him i could be wrong, but i think that is what Csauce was getting at? Some places it just depends on who you are and who your daddy is. It might be different in other places, but in mandan it is a big thing that happens.

Well then that doesnt make any sense for this team.  Its not a my daddys cool team. I hate when people pull the politic thing. I would believe it if you could give me an example.

Its hard to give an example there mostly young kids no one knows so it doesn't make sense to give one

[font=Times New Roman]There are no examples because no-one knows the selection criteria. [/font]
A point is: this is not a sanctioned NDAHA team, and the Selectors (whom ever they are) could have made a team out of all skaters whose name start with “Dâ€Â

this team was picked by a previous select coach of this group of kids so he knew most of them and asked a few others because some rejected the offer

There are a few aspects to consider before someone on either side of this open their mouths too widely.  A National Championship, at any level, is an impressive feat.  If you cannot respect the fact that about 20 kids from North Dakota went to compete at a National level, and succeeded, then you have some issues that need to be addressed.

 

On the other hand.  In my opinion, winning a youth National Championship gets easier as the years progress.  This is because many of the top end players from these teams move on to play Jr. B (very popular out East) and Junior A hockey.  This is not intending to take away from the tremendous play of this young ND team but I think before someone criticizes the team, or a member of the team throws their head in the clouds, they should consider these aspects of the situation.

UNDHockey22 wrote:There are a few aspects to consider before someone on either side of this open their mouths too widely.  A National Championship, at any level, is an impressive feat.  If you cannot respect the fact that about 20 kids from North Dakota went to compete at a National level, and succeeded, then you have some issues that need to be addressed.

 

On the other hand.  In my opinion, winning a youth National Championship gets easier as the years progress.  This is because many of the top end players from these teams move on to play Jr. B (very popular out East) and Junior A hockey.  This is not intending to take away from the tremendous play of this young ND team but I think before someone criticizes the team, or a member of the team throws their head in the clouds, they should consider these aspects of the situation.

well said