Arlington sticks to plan
Seniors get big reward for staying
In the moments following last Sunday’s Super Eight championship game, John Messuri stood in the hallway to the locker rooms at the Garden and beamed with pride.
Messuri had just led Arlington to its first state championship since 1971. While talking about how it all happened — not only the overtime goal to beat Central Catholic but completing the goal of restoring his alma mater to its glory days — Messuri made a big-picture observation:
“This was a win for high school hockey.”
He was referring to a group of seniors who played such crucial roles in the Spy Ponders’ rise to the top. In a time when many high school hockey players can’t resist the lure of the promise of prep school or junior hockey, the Spy Ponders stuck together and reaped the reward on the biggest stage.
“I think it’s good for all of high school hockey that a group of seniors that could have left and played at any prep school or juniors decided to stay,” Messuri said. “And a lot of them are landing at the top prep schools anyway.”
Arlington became the third public school to win the Super Eight, joining Reading (2008) and Hingham (2010). The win against Central Catholic also was noteworthy in that it was the first championship game in the 27-year history of the Super Eight that didn’t include a member of the Catholic Conference.
What remains to be seen is whether Arlington’s win is the beginning of a trend. But for one year, at least, it was proved that public school hockey is not the dead end that many believe.
Changes coming?
One thing that is almost certain is this will be yet another transition year for the Super Eight.
It’s worth noting the final four games of the 2017 tournament were decided in overtime. From
BC High’s Game 3 thriller against Walpole, to semifinal victories by Arlington and Central Catholic, to Mic Curran’s bank-shot goal 15 seconds into the extra period a week ago at the Garden, it was a showcase of the best the Super Eight has to offer.
Unfortunately, much of the time, the five-year experiment of the best-of-three quarterfinals never lived up to its promise. Only six of the 20 series during that five-year span went to a deciding third game.
The MIAA ice hockey committee likely will vote for a change when it meets in a couple of weeks, and right now it looks like a return to the double-elimination format could happen. Double elimination was the preferred format for the first half of the Super Eight’s history from 1991-2003 but eventually was scuttled. Some were concerned about the imbalance in the number of games team play, but that is the nature of double elimination — it pays to win early and often. Also, it was a much more pure and fair format than either the best-of-three or Olympic pool play, in that every game had equal stakes for both teams.
That includes the championship round, which was another bone of contention for some. A pure double-elimination formant means a team coming out of the winner’s bracket has to be beaten twice. That’s the way it was in the 1990s, when most Super Eight games were at the old Garden and schedules weren’t as tight. But there is no way to have a pure doubleelimination final and guarantee that last game would be played on “Championship Sunday.”
So if the double-elimination format does return, teams will just have to understand that the championship round will be a one-game affair and let the chips fall as they may.
Power seeding gains steam
There are other things on the agenda for what should be a busy and critical offseason for the future of high school hockey in Massachusetts.
Spearheaded by some veteran girls hockey coaches in the state, it appears the idea of power seeding in all MIAA hockey tournaments is gaining favor. Whether it’s the Walker system used in Western Mass., or some other system like that of boys lacrosse, don’t be surprised to see it happen.
Oddly enough, this was a season in which power seeding wouldn’t have done much in girls hockey. The two top seeds, Needham and
Notre Dame, clearly were among the state’s best and reached the Garden, Notre Dame winning it all again in Div. 2 while Needham fell to third-seeded Woburn in the Div. 1 final.
Alignment needed
The MIAA also has realignment on the table, but the guess here is that it will be cosmetic at best. Which is too bad because Div. 3 is in desperate need of an overhaul at the statewide level.
More than one coach has expressed frustration about how a school like state champion Shrewsbury, with 750 boys in grades 10-12, is competing at the Div. 3 level. It’s a problem that hasn’t been properly addressed since Central and Western Mass. dropped all of their teams to Div. 3 back in 1994.
The issue, of course, is that there are only 21 programs overall in Central Mass. and 19 in the West, and that includes both Div. 3 and 3A (more on this in a bit). The imbalance became particularly glaring this postseason when there were 21 teams in the Div. 3 South bracket, compared with 21 in the North, Central and West combined.
So moving some of those “power” schools to Div. 2 would make matters even worse. What we would suggest is going with just two regions in Div. 3 — East and West. A handful of current East teams — say, the Tri-Valley or DCL/MVC — could be shifted to the West to balance things out. So the “power” teams still would be an issue, but no longer would they need to win just 2-3 games to get to the Garden.
Taking it one step further, we would like to see Division 3A expanded statewide. We also would go with an East-West format with the new Div. 3A East consisting of a variety of programs — co-ops, vocational schools, Boston City League, etc.
Privately, more than one coach from Central and West has complained that the current Div. 3A state final isn’t played at the Garden. Adding a division certainly would make “Championship Sunday” even more unwieldy than it currently is, but at the very least, all teams in the state should have the opportunity to play at a premier venue in the Boston area, even if on a rotating basis (like with the Super Bowls and Gillette Stadium).