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.

• 1971 thru 1974. 8-team tournament, plus it included 3rd place and consolation games. 11 tournament games in this format. Grade A.
• 1975 thru 1985. Reduced to a 4-team tournament, but it included a 3rd place game. 4 tournament games in this format. Moving from 8 to 4 teams should result in fail, but a passing grade because each team had a second game. Grade C.
• 1986 thru 1988. Remained a 4-team tournament but the 3rd place game was eliminated. 3 tournament games in this format. Terrible. Grade F.
• 1989 thru 2019. Returned to an 8- team tournament but no 3rd place or consolation game. 7 tournament games in this format. An improvement from prior, plus in 1998 Sections began seeding and in 2019 State began seeding. Grade B.
• Beginning in 2020. Two divisions; D-1 primarily for large enrollment, and D-2 for smaller enrollment. Two champions for the first time. Each Division has a 4-team tournament, with no 3rd place game. 6 tournament games in this format. WIAA still needs to make changes because it was a step forward and a couple steps backward. Grade Incomplete. Need to finish the assignment as highlighted below.

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:

1. D-2 & D-1 semifinal games should be on the same day.
2. D-2 & D-1 championship games should be back-to-back/consecutively with no other game between.

Recommended modifications for future tournaments:

1. Increase the number of D-1 teams that qualify for the state tournament to 8. Based on numbers at D-2 and girls, it would be equitable for D-1 boys to have 8 teams at state. For 2023, girls have 28 teams, D-2 boys have 32, and D-1 boys have 53. If the number of boys WIAA teams remain the same in the future, D-2 at 28 teams and D-1 at 57 teams creates a playoff with approximately the same odds for teams in each division to reach state.
2. Add a 3rd place game. WIAA hockey did in the first 15 years of the tournament. Other state’s currently do. For example, Minnesota has an 8-team tournament at each division. Every Minnesota team plays at least two games at state, and 6 of the 8 teams get a third game.

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.