Disclaimer: All opinions expressed in this article are solely those of Matt Carey and do not reflect the opinions of Wisconsin Prep Hockey or its partners. Matt presents his opinions based upon his lifetime of hockey experience and we present them unedited.
Growing up in the Madison area during the 1970’s and 80’s, it was easy to enthusiastically jump on the bandwagon to the WIAA state hockey tournament. The sectional playoff games were packed with people, it was loud, plus the fans were very animated and engaged with coordinated cheers. The local boys WIAA teams were state title contenders every year. Madison Memorial, Madison East, Madison West, Superior or Northland Pines were the only state champions the entire 70’s and 80’s.
If I didn’t have my own youth hockey game, I always attended the Friday evening state semifinal games. The first state semifinal game didn’t start until 5pm or 6pm so plenty of time existed to attend school and get to the Coliseum to watch the back-to-back semifinal games. However, as a kid I would not have attended a single semifinal game if the 2023 WIAA game schedule was in existence.
The current WIAA boys’ state hockey schedule has all semifinal games when schools are in session. D-2 are Thursday 10am & 12:15pm, and D-1 are Friday 10am & 12:15pm. Four semifinal games over two days and zero games are in the evening. For over 50 years semifinal games were held during the evening. Not anymore. The current game schedule of the WIAA boys’ hockey state tournament could be a skit for Saturday Night Live or written in The Onion as satire regarding how to increase attendance and grow interest.
Let’s look at the history of the WIAA boys’ state hockey tournament to gain a better perspective on where we are today.
In 2020 we went to two divisions, which has brought us the good, the bad and the ugly. Good: Players and coaches at small schools have a greater chance to qualify for state in D-2. Two teams now win a state championship. Bad: Players and coaches in D-1 now have less of a chance to make it to state. How is this? D-1 has almost 2/3rds (63%) of the teams, and thus the result is D-1 teams have lower odds to compete in a state tournament than they did prior to two divisions. The remedy is to expand the number of D-1 teams that qualify for state. Ugly: No evening semifinal games, plus the divisional semifinals are on separate days and the divisional championship games are not back-to-back.
Two modifications that should begin with the 2024 state tournament:
Recommended modifications for future tournaments:
I have attended boys state high school hockey tournaments in Massachusetts, Michigan, Colorado, and Minnesota, in addition to Wisconsin. Only Minnesota exceeds the caliber of play in WIAA. However, we in Wisconsin currently have unequivocally the worst game times and tournament structure. WIAA players and coaches are doing their jobs. Hopefully the new WIAA leadership for hockey will continue to be open to listening, as they did with moving the tournament out of the Alliant Energy Center, and help us make improvements.