Minnesota Girls Hockey Coaches Association

 This years festival will be at a new location.  The move to Dakotah will give us a chance to offer more amenities to our visiting college coaches.  Currently Junior Festival is the second most recruited girls tournament in North America, and our hope is this will help push our attendance even higher.  We also hope to make use of the spaces at the arena to offer some classes on nutrition, injury prevention, and other topics that will be helpful to the athletes as they enter their final year of high school hockey, and prepare for the collegiate game.

This will be the second year we will use the two pool format.  This format originated at the request of college coaches.  Our Division I coaches often request just to see only the top 20-30 kids play. They want to see these kids play against the most talented kids, and get an idea of how they will handle the college game.  While our Division III coaches would prefer to see our top 150 kids or more, as sometimes they are looking for specific qualities from a potential athlete. They typically feel the more kids they can see, and talk to, the better.  The two pool format, while we have to make some tough decisions about placements, allows us a chance to keep both sets of coaches happy.  The new home of the tournament will allow college coaches to see both rinks from the upstairs concourse, where coaches will be able to see both rinks with little hassle.  We also have one cross over game.  We offer this so kids who feel they were placed in the wrong pool will have a chance to show their skills against the opposite pool, while the majority of our coaches are in attendance.

We are excited about another great summer of Minnesota Girls hockey, and know our kids will represent our state well!  We are always looking for ways to improve our tournament, so if you have suggestions in order to make the experience better for future players you can send them to grossman.jaime@gmail.com

Click on the link below to access minutes from the Spring Membership Meeting at the River Center in St. Paul. Congratulations to Ray Dahlof from Buffalo who was elected as the President-Elect!