If I have to wake up at 8 a.m. Sunday, please let’s have some fireworks.

The Class 1A and 2A conference calls with boys’ hockey coaches in the Minnesota State High School League office were much too civil. No shouting, complaining, or angst of any kind as the participating coaches seeded the top four teams in each class for the first time.

To confess, I missed the 1A call. It was over so fast. Took 15 minutes tops and started right on time at 9 a.m. What meeting starts on time?

But I was there for the 2A call. Early, in fact. And everything went smoothly.

There goes my Sports cover story. How am I supposed to make this intriguing?

Grand Rapids coach Bruce LaRoque injected the only hint of controversy into the call. He suggested you can’t really know who is playing the best.

That’s not much to work with.

And somebody must have passed out a copy of Let’s Play Hockey to the coaches. They pretty much followed that hockey newspaper’s last state ratings. Hey fellas, don’t you know the media doesn’t know anything?

You want coverage of this seeding meeting next year, you better promise some, “We got robbed,” and “How could they seed us that low?”

Or I might just sleep in.

On another front, Jake Hansen of White Bear Lake is gone. The 6-2 junior forward and his dazzling moves left the cities on Saturday, the day after the Bears lost 3-1 to Hill-Murray in the Class 2A, Section 3 final.

Hansen will be joining the Sioux Falls Stampede, a team his brother Zach plays for and as does another former Bears player, David Grun.

Hansen told Bears coach Tim Sager he is going to keep playing in the USHL next season and will not be back for his senior season at White Bear Lake.

That’s a big, unexpected loss for WBL.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Boys\' Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.