High school hockey | Kiwanis brackets

Posted by: Feldman

I'll be back later tonight with this week's High School Hockey Rewind (and I think we'll change the name, since from now on we'll use that forum to not only look back at the past week, but also to look ahead to big games in the coming week. That way I'm not repeating myself three times a week about each team like I did last season with High School Hockey Today). But first ...

The brackets for the 2012 Kiwanis Festival at the Graham Arena complex have been out for a while and I realized today that I haven't posted them on here yet. My apologies for that. Hard to believe we're less than three weeks away from the Festvial, which runs Dec. 27-29, a Thursday-Saturday.

A few notes: 

* Obviously, both 2011 Festival champions are back to defend their titles. Both are Rochester schools -- Century in Class AA, Lourdes in Class A. 

* We're used to seeing Century and Fargo (N.D.) South meet at some point in the tournament. If they match up this year, it will have to be in one of the placewinner games on Saturday. Century and South are in opposite halves of the bracket.

* Eau Claire (Wis.) Memorial, which lost in a shootout to Century in last year's Class AA final, is back. It's also in the opposite side of the bracket from Century.

* For the first time that I can remember (and perhaps the first time in Festival history?) half of the 16 teams in the varsity tournaments are not from Minnesota. Only three of the teams in the Class A field are from Minnesota.

Here are your brackets (click on the "CLASS A" and "CLASS AA" lines to link to the Festival's bracket page):

CLASS A
(All Games at Graham 4)
THURSDAY, DEC. 27
11:30 a.m. -- New Ulm vs. Dodge County
3:30 p.m. -- WSFLG (Wis.) vs. Verona (Wis.)
6 p.m. -- Ashwaubenon (Wis.) vs. Kansas City
8:15 p.m. -- Northland Pines (Wis.) vs. Rochester Lourdes

FRIDAY, DEC. 28
Consolation
1:15 p.m. -- NU/DC loser vs. WSFLG/Verona loser
3:30 p.m. -- Ashwaubenon/KC loser vs. NP/Lourdes loser
Semifinals
5:45 p.m. -- NU/DC winner vs. WSFLG/Verona winner 
8 p.m. -- Ashwaubenon/KC winner vs. NP/Lourdes winner 

SATURDAY, DEC. 29
1:15 p.m. -- Seventh place
3:30 p.m. -- Fifth place
5:45 p.m. -- Third place
8 p.m. -- Championship

* * * * *

CLASS AA
(All games at Graham I)
THURSDAY, DEC. 27
12:30 p.m. -- Eastview vs. New Richmond (Wis.)
3 p.m. -- Park-Cottage Grove vs. Rochester Century
5:30 p.m. -- Eau Claire (Wis.) Memorial vs. Rochester John Marshall
7:45 p.m. -- Fargo (N.D.) South vs. Rochester Mayo

FRIDAY, DEC. 28
Consolation
12:15 p.m. -- Eastview/NR loser vs. P-CG/Century loser
2:30 p.m. -- ECM/JM loser vs. South/Mayo loser
Semifinals
5 p.m. -- Eastview/NR winner vs. P-CG/Century winner 
7:15 p.m. -- ECM/JM winner vs. South/Mayo winner

SATURDAY, DEC. 29
Noon -- seventh place
2:15 p.m. -- fifth place
4:45 p.m. -- third place
7:15 p.m. -- championship