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Santa Margarita wins 2nd consecutive Div 1 High School National championship

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RW:
Interesting. Hard to argue with someone who is obviously more informed than I. It was just explained differently to me by an Edina parent recently.


Anyway, congrats the Santa Margarita kids, coaches and parents.  Great accomplishment for them.

lcadad:
I think the truth is closer to RW's comment.  Edina has ridiculous depth as pointed out, but even so has had players progress from Jr Gold A to Varsity in subsequent years.  There is no debate that the Edina varsity team is on another level, but that also makes the Jr Gold A team a lot better as shown by their results.  The team most likely skews younger than much of their competition, but Jr Gold A players routinely make varsity as Jr's or Sr's.  When you have a 100 kids trying out for 20 spots, that just isn't the case anywhere else but the Prep school hockey factories that are recruiting far and wide.  I also have to point out the simple fact that Edina is an AA (large school) and a perennial favorite who just won again this year for the 4rd time in something like the last 10 years.  It's not like SM beat a bunch of scrubs from one of the lower 400 ranked MN schools.

Pop:
Edina and many metro teams don’t allow seniors on jv.  And many programs like Edina have 80+ kids trying out for varsity. And kids don’t routinely go from JrG to varsity. My friend has to sons playing in Edina. One is a sophomore #2 defense pairing on their varsity already committed to D1 team in MN.  The other is a jr on jv. The jr was on JrG A last year, cut from both. Made jv this year, and according to dad will play JrG next year(no chance of making varsity).   


There is a stigma with playing JrG in MN.  It used to be for the potheads and other kids not interested in school sanctioned sports with all the rules with grades and everything else that goes with varsity sports. Fighting was common and hockey was low level.  Last 10 years or so it has changed for the better. The league has really cleaned itself up and the hockey has improved.  But the stigma is still there(undeserving).  Kids in MN grow up wanting to play for their hs so it is a disappointment for them when they hit cut(parents too). They started going to nationals a few years ago as a bonus and incentives for playing JrG, the first year they sent 2 teams Edina(state champs) and Wazata(state runner up). Wazata beat Edina for National Championship. The following year Edina didn’t go because it was held over spring break and the parent didn’t want to go to the city hosting it for spring break.   


There are around 120 hs teams in MN with the top 64 in enrollment size playing class AA and small schools have the option of playing up,  Top JrG teams would beat the bottom class A schools jv hat don’t have jv and only have enough for 2-3 varsity lines. But they will not beat the upper class AA schools. 


Edina’s depth is had to beat. Hell their bantam B2 has a dad coach from CA that moved to Edina in hs (mid 80’s) then played for WI and in the AHL.  But there are many MN teams that beat Edina’s top teams.  Edina’s AA and A bantams didn’t win state this year.

Maverick:
Now this is why I look at Cal Hockey.  Most of us will never hear about the details of the Santa Margarita win like we did here.    Thanks for the clarification of who SM played and beat.  Congrats to them, still an accomplishment taking the Junior Gold title in my book. 

RW:
To add more context.  Four of SM’s top six forwards at the tournament were sophomores. One other top sophomore forward who is fairly well known didn’t go to Nationals.  Their starting goalie is a Sophomore. One of their top 4 D is a Sophomore. Another is a junior and a third pairing D is a freshman.  They all played huge minutes in Cleveland. That’s from a parent on the team.  Pretty impressive for that group to do what they did.

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