Over the past few years we have focused on getting the opportunity to host a future Minnesota Hockey state youth hockey championships — the future is here! We were recently notified Rochester will host the 2015 Peewee B and Bantam B state tournaments. Great news indeed!
One might wonder why we do not host these tournaments each year. The nine age group youth boys state tournaments (and five girls championships) rotate around the state each year so when our region was to be the host, we wanted to make sure we were considered.
When you figure there are 16 districts and a wide variety of cities in each district, positioning ourselves to be a host city took some work and patience. A city that offers a sports commission to help host, numerous passionate hockey enthusiasts, six rinks, 200 restaurants and 6000 hotel rooms — we feel that now that we have gotten the chance we will be in the mix into the future.
So now we get two in 2015! Minnesota Hockey has a great system where they have no tournaments the weekend of the Minnesota state high school championships — wanted to ingrain the "state of hockey" into young players across the state.
So after a weekend of "rest" for these young future superstars state youth tournaments are held in 2015 on the weekend of March 13-15.
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So with two eight-team state tournaments both will be held at Graham Arena, right? Perhaps not – we are currently working with Park Department management to see if the ice can be kept in through these dates (other annual events are scheduled at Graham upon the end of the hockey season) so hopefully that can be worked out. If not, one age group will be Graham and one group at the Rec Center.
Minnesota Hockey, an affiliate of USA Hockey,is the governing body of youth and amateur hockey in Minnesota andthe premier developer of hockey players in the state. Minnesota Hockey hasaround since 1947 and still tops the country in hockey participation with 53,935 players (Michigan is second with 51,929. While there are the nine boys and five girls state tournaments annually, some age groups (such as Squirts and 10U Girls) do not have traditional state tournaments.
We are thrilled Minnesota Hockey has selected Rochester to host two of their exciting state youth championships. Now it is up to Rochester to put on a good show for the participating teams.
If you wish to be involved, get in touch with our office. We want to put a great team of our own together in order to make the 2015 states tournaments a special memory for the teams involved!
