Feature Story
Elite League requires elite selection
By Melissa Zeleny
As the Upper Midwest High School Elite
League rounds out its seventh week of play with Team Northeast, led by veteran
coach Chris McAlpine, winning the regular season
title for the second year in a row, many fans and spectators have asked how
these players became part of the league.
Although many people believe that the
selection process begins with the start of the high school season, the league
actually holds “try-outs” all year round, explains program director John Russo.
With over 300 nominations for only 130 spots (including alternates), the league
depends heavily on input from high school coaches throughout the state who see
these players each day in practice, scrimmages and games. Each year, coaches
are asked to submit a list of their most talented players to the league for
consideration
High school coaches begin giving input
early in the season, while many Junior A, college and professional scouts
regularly weigh-in with players they feel deserve consideration. Elite League
coaches and staff then scout and monitor all of these recommended players.
Every March, during state high school
tournament time, the high school coaches meet by their geographic section to
make their final recommendations to the Elite League. By June, the league
generally has 95 spots tentatively filled.
“Recommendations hopefully include a
consensus on players from their section that need to be placed in the league
‘for sure’ and those that need to be ‘highly considered,’” explains former Elite
League coach Kevin Hartzell, a NCAA Division I
National Champion winner who played for Herb Brooks at the
While Hartzell
was with the Elite League, his team won both the 2002 playoff and regular
season titles. Hartzell then went on to work for the
Sioux Falls Stampede of the USHL where he is currently the General Manager/Head
Coach.
“Certainly, mistakes are made,” contends Hartzell on the selection process. “But I would argue that
the league has identified 95 percent or more of the ‘right’ players.”
By high school tournament time, the
junior, college and professional scouts also have strong recommendations that
are taken into account. Since hockey in
There are the Select 15, 16 and 17
festivals put on by Minnesota Hockey, in which the Elite League is again
involved, as well as many other opportunities for players such as Team North’s
Matt Hemingway, a junior goalie from Alexandria who played in the USA Hockey
Advanced 16 National Festival in Rochester, N.Y., last June or Edina junior
forward Zach Budish who played for the U.S. in the
Under-17 Select Team at the Five Nations Tournament in the Czech Republic last
August to “try out” for the league.
A final step is a review of the Minnesota
Hockey Select tryouts. League personnel attend the tryouts and conduct their
own evaluation. They then review the final team selections as part of their
analysis. A player does not have to attend the Select tryouts to be eligible to
play in the program. The program then invites certain players directly into the
program while other players might be invited to try-out for the league.
With the program targeting only the top
115 juniors and seniors (plus alternates), being invited to wear one of the
Elite League’s sweaters is a definite honor for any young high school player.
These players are generally on their team’s top lines, among their team’s top
scorers, and are often all-conference selections with at least one full year of
varsity experience.
Once players are identified, the league
makes the best efforts to put them into teams geographically representative of
their area. For the most part, this is a straightforward process that keeps
most public school players, who attend schools based on attendance lines
together but at times splits up private school scholars like Blake’s Josh Birkholz who plays for Team Northwest and Jack Barnes who,
because he lives in another part of town plays for Eric Johnson on Team
Southwest.
No matter which team a player is assigned
to, under the
dedicated leadership of program director Russo, the mastermind behind the High
School Elite League concept, assistant Director Richard Student and many
talented coaches like
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