As somebody who doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of every town, city and school in the state, every year when the WIAA releases their tournament brackets, I get lost and confused.
It doesn't help that the WIAA's team names don't often match with what the team calls themselves (see the Lakeshore Lightning & Cedarburg Co-Op, which are the same team).
This year when the brackets came out, I asked myself three questions, some of which I also asked in the past:
1) Girls section 1 only has 7 teams, but section 2 has 8, and sections 3 and 4 each have 9. Can't the WIAA find somebody to move to section 1 so the top seed doesn't get to skip both regional rounds entirely?
2) Why is Wisconsin Rapids in boys section 4?
3) Why is Waupaca in boys section 5?
I could have answered all these questions simply by looking at a map, but that seems too straightforward. So instead, I logged into Google Maps and mapped the state's WIAA hockey teams.
Below you'll find maps for the WIAA girls and boys hockey teams, each on their own separate map.
Note: These are just maps. I am not passing judgement on co-ops vs individual schools, nor making any commentary about them. You bring any animosity to the map yourself.
In each of the maps, the image to the left will appear in the top left corner. You can click on this in the map to show a menu that will allow you to add or remove layers from the map.
The maps contain 3 layers: