MSHSL Looks To Find State Tournament Locations

Oct 7, 2012

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

The Minnesota State High School League Board of Directors met on Thursday in Minneapolis to discuss upcoming uncertainty in the near future regarding the locations which
several sports hold their state playoffs in the Twin Cities.

One of the first issues addressed was the state football tournament which is currently held at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The High School League is looking at different options for the state tournament for the years 2014-2016 while the Minnesota Vikings new stadium is being built.

Howard Merkle of the High School League said there are discussions with the University of Minnesota about the potential of using TCF Stadium for the state football playoffs and hopes to have the plan and agreement finalized by the end of this school year.

The High School League is also looking at options for the state soccer tournament which is also held at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Jody Redman of the High School League is currently working on more options for the state soccer tournament.

Besides the football and soccer issues the most pressing issue the High School League needs to deal with is the state boys and girls basketball tournaments. The Target Center which has held the boys and girls tournaments since 2003 will be unavailable for one or possibly both tournaments beginning the 2013-2014 season.

The National Collegiate Hockey Conference will hold their conference tournaments at the Target Center through 2018. This came about because of with schools belonging to the WCHA leaving the conference to play in the new Big Ten Conference leaving both the WCHA and the NCHA depleted in college Division I teams, thus forming the new conference alignment.

Representatives of the High School League is currently looking at several venues for the tournaments and also looking at restructuring the current format of the state boys and girls basketball tournaments.

Looking ahead, some of the issues also include potential conflicts with the University of Minnesota and Williams Arena in the future. There are many options, including moving one or both basketball tournaments to a different week, or shortening the number of games in the Twin Cities by going to a Final Four format.

The Final Four format would have four teams in each class coming to the metro area, also beginning the tournaments on Tuesday instead of Wednesday is being looked at as well as it might be possible that start dates for the basketball seasons also could change.

The Board of Directors also announced that the state boys baseball tournament championship games for
all three classes will be played at Target Field. The Minnesota Twins and the High School League have set the championship game date as Monday June 17th for the Prep Championship Series.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com