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2017-2018 Preseason Notebook
After 255 high school hockey-free days, the puck drops on the 2017-2018 regular season the day before Thanksgiving. The fun starts early, as the opening weekend includes two excellent tournaments featuring some of the state's finest, and just about everyone else will be under way over the next two weeks, too. I'll devote a full post next week to a Duluth East season preview, but here's a heap of things I'll be looking at right off the bat this season.
You can find additional coverage from me here: Preseason AA Rankings | Preseason Podcast
Early Season Storylines
Can anyone catch the Hornets and Hawks?
Edina's assemblage of talent is up there with the best teams they've ever produced, and that is, of course, saying something. They were already in contention for preseason favorite before they added Demetrios Kouzmontzis, who tore up the fall Elite League, and now that Blake McLaughlin has defected to the USHL, Sammy Walker is the favorite for Mr. Hockey. The sky is the limit for the defense, and if they live up to their potential, this team won't be giving up more than 15 shots on goal most nights. If they can get respectable goaltending and Curt Giles can instill enough physicality in a somewhat small forward group, they'll be hard to stop.
In Class A, meanwhile, two-time defending champion and eight-time defending finalist Hermantown is number one yet again. But, for what it's worth, they do look more beatable this season: they lost a ton of talent, and these next few classes, while still elite by A standards, aren't quite on the level of the past couple. They've got two top-end forwards in Tyler Watkins and Blake Biondi, and the defense is rock-solid, but they don't quite have the overwhelming depth of the past two seasons. That leaves a couple of other teams with some genuine front-end talent and deep defenses within striking distance, most notably St. Cloud Cathedral—though they'll have a battle to get past Alexandria in a tough 6A.
The 2AA Free-for-All. There's a lot to like about Minnetonka's depth and talent, but they're no sure thing in 2AA, which is once again the most loaded in the state at the top. Four-time defending section champ Eden Prairie is right there behind them with a deep offense and a coach who can usually get his team to lock down. Holy Family, after falling a goal short in last season's section final and enduring an offseason filled with comings and goings, still boasts a potent top line and a strong defense. The second tier in the west metro is also very strong, so we'll be set for an entertaining run here.
The Hill-White Bear War. Stillwater has interrupted one of the state's great rivalries these past few seasons, but with Ponies in a reload year, White Bear and Hill-Murray have a chance to collide in 4AA again. Both combine a few veteran talents with exciting youth at their core, and if these two make it through to the 4AA final, Aldrich Arena will be a zoo. On paper they're both maybe a year away from state title contention, but if the kids grow up quickly enough, both could be in the equation. Which of them will show the most potential early on?
Last year's Class A Tournament: fluke or new reality? Fans were treated to the most entertaining Class A tournament in years, if not ever, last season, as the entrants from 1A, 3A, and 5A, long punching bags for the favorites, were all highly competitive. 1A is wide open after defending section champ Northfield got shifted to 4A, while Luverne is the prohibitive favorite to repeat in 3A. 5A features a North Branch team that has a chance to be this season's MAML behind Brady Meyer, so long as a high-scoring top line can get some support; Pine City, which returns a deep group, may be their most serious obstacle. The metro area, meanwhile, will have to prove it has a real Tournament contender: Orono has some good talent but didn't make it out of a section quarterfinal a year ago, and Mahtomedi is deep but needs some players to take the next step. There might be a gap for a rare surprise in 2A or 4A.
Chasing the Northern Frontrunners. Hermantown, Duluth East, and Moorhead are all clear favorites to make their way back to St. Paul, but nothing is guaranteed, as there are large chase packs in both AA sections. In 7A, Greenway and Virginia may be somewhere in the equation if there are any cracks in the Hawks, though the odds remain long. 8A, meanwhile, is shaping up to be a decent two-team race. East Grand Forks is another top-end Class A team with a rock-solid defense, and Warroad, led by another Marvin, brings back a lot and will look for its first trip to St. Paul since 2010.
Games to Watch in the First Few Weeks
Youth Hockey Hub opener. Outside of Edina's Lake Conference games with Minnetonka, there are only three regular season games among the top five. Two of those come in the first weekend of the season, as St. Thomas Academy collides with Moorhead and those Skippers. Games against Tonka could well decide the top five, as they're the only ones who play all of them. It's a great four-team showcase, as the Spuds look to pick up where they left off last March and take care of some unfinished business, the Skippers look to join the state's elite under a new coach, and the Cadets try to prove they can overcome their recent playoff upsets. Lakeville North is also in here to play spoiler.
Grand Rapids vs. Greenway. This classic Itasca County rivalry figures to be the first game I attend this season. The Thunderhawks are, of course, the defending AA state champs, but will look nothing like the group that won a title a year ago. They return a number of their depth players at forward and they've got a goalie who can steal one in Gabe Holum, but there are a lot of question marks beyond that. They head into the Snakepit to face an interesting young Greenway team that has two D-I commits on its roster. Both have a lot to prove, and should come into this one hungry.
Wayzata's early run. As usual, the Trojans host the Turkey Trot on the season's opening weekend, which features a toss-up game with Maple Grove and a follow-up with either Holy Family or Edina, the top-ranked team they've eliminated from the playoffs the past two seasons. After that, they take a road trip north to face Hermantown and Duluth East. The 2016 champs have their usual remarkable depth, but we'll see how their two top-end forwards jell with their defensive style, and if they'll spend a portion of this season wandering in the wilderness as they did a year ago.
Blaine vs. Centennial and Maple Grove in mid-December. The first round of 5AA battles comes fairly early, and the Bengals, with a strong leading duo of Bryce Brodzinski and Will Hillman, will get a chance to prove they belong up there with preseason section favorite Centennial and defending champ Maple Grove.
East Grand Forks at Orono. An early collision between hyped teams that will have implications for the Class A top 5. The Green Wave doesn't have a ton of returning scoring, but does have a stout defense, while Orono is deep and had a lot of success at the youth level.
The wait is finally over. Let's play some hockey.
November 19, 2017 karlschuettler 2017-2018, edina, hermantown, hockey, preseason Leave a comment
Exit Bruce Plante
Farewell, dear Bruce: one of high school hockey's most colorful and recognizable coaches has decided to head for the exits. He led the Hermantown Hawks for 28 years over two stints as head coach, went to 13 Class A State Tournaments, won three titles, and produced an NHLer of a son along the way. Bruce, 68, goes out on top, having claimed his second consecutive title just a month ago.
When I first started attending State Tournament press conferences in 2012, Bruce immediately stole the show. He was passionate, he was insightful, and he was downright hilarious, with some memorable quip coming out of his mouth with every other line. What more could you ask for out of a coach? He did it all with his heart on his sleeve, and it wasn't hard to see why his players loved him and usually managed to stay loose in big games. His feisty teams that hung with St. Thomas Academy teams drowning in D-I talent channeled their coach full-stop, and the sight of Bruce chasing the referees all over the ice after St. Thomas topped the Hawks on a questionable series of calls late in the 2013 title game will always be among my State Tournament favorites.
The News Tribune's write-up tells some of the early details about Bruce that got lost in his later coaching success. It's a superb redemption story, as a man coming out of a divorce and a drinking problem put it all together to become a community pillar, as recognizable a face as any in a town on the rise. His players were always approachable, respectful, and shared in more than a little of that infectious charm. Mike Randolph at Duluth East is probably the only other coach in the state who is deeply wrapped up both in the history and as the present-day face of his program as Plante was at Hermantown.
Bruce will go down as a program builder, a person who took a school that had been a hockey afterthought and turned it in to a power. It was a slow but steady process, as they first broke through with a second place run in the '98 Tourney, built their way into a Tourney regular, went through year after year of agony as runners-up, and then finally started claiming crowns at the end. He had some perks, to be sure: Hermantown runs right up against a busy commercial corridor in one of Minnesota's larger cities, and (unlike that neighbor, Duluth) has ample tracts of undeveloped land for new single-family housing on large lots. As history has shown us, this is the exact formula for building a great program, and few have done it without such favorable conditions. (At about the time the announcement came, I happened to be driving around Hermantown for work purposes, and it was hard not to notice the amount of new home construction under way.) A variety of situations with neighboring school districts also helped the Hawks along. Still, it takes a committed leader to guide that process over many years, and Bruce was a steadying influence every step of the way.
Bruce won by inspiring confidence in his players and turning them loose. While he could at times be creative tactically, he never seemed to fancy himself a chess master, unlike some of his fellow longtime Duluth area coaches. Instead, he just lets his forwards fly and apply constant pressure. It's fun hockey to play and watch, though perhaps worth noting that it is much easier to win with this style in Class A than in AA, and if there were a few playoff games that his Hawks probably should have won but didn't, they came against big, tough defensive squads, as with the East Grand Forks team that knocked them off for a second straight year in 2015.
I can't write this column without mentioning the controversy that plagued the Hawks in Bruce's final years. After years of being the plucky upstart against Class A's private powers, Hermantown suddenly became that power themselves. The Hawks' advantages were obvious, and the program came to enjoy a combination of perks that no other Class A public school could claim. The 2017 Tourney, in which they frankly did not play anywhere near their potential throughout three games (two of them against vastly less skilled opponents) but still won it all anyway, seemed to underscore the tiredness of it all. While I'm not in the "Hermantown must move up!!!" camp—it's their program to run as they see fit—I was a little disappointed that someone I'd come to like a lot seemed stuck in a rut of denial.
Hermantown will stay in A for at least two more years, though, and while they will still be a power, Bruce's successor will start out with a slight down cycle in Hawk talent. This program has become big time, and the pressure will be on, both from inside and out of Hermantown. The position should attract some big names. For now, though, I suggest we take a moment to drop the class warfare and the pressure of the post and stop to honor Bruce, who was as rich a character as there was in high school hockey. Whether we know it or not, we'll miss him.
April 13, 2017 karlschuettler bruce plante, coaches, hermantown, hockey, retirement 1 Comment
Of Vacation Rentals and Density Debates: Duluth City Council Notes, 4/10/17
The Duluth city council was on the forefront of urban planning debates this past Monday, as it discussed vacation rentals and density within the city limits on the same night. In both cases, I'm going to poke at urban planning orthodoxy mildly, not because I think it is wrong, exactly, but because I think Duluth needs to ask some questions rather than simply accepting trendy thinking. The details:
Vacation Dwelling Units and Neighborhood Effects
The first debate involved a permit to allow a vacation dwelling unit (VDU; think Airbnb) on Berwick Court, a cul-de-sac off of Arrowhead Road near Hartley Park not far before Kenwood Avenue as one heads west. John Ramos at the Reader covered this one in detail when it was before the Planning Commission, so I won't belabor the background. At Monday's meeting, several neighbors said the VDU was wrong for many reasons, though they gave only one concrete one beyond the vague "character of the neighborhood" stuff one always hears on this sort of issue: an immediate neighbor is old and not exactly in possession of all of her faculties, and may have some unfortunate run-ins with VDU guests. Council President Joel Sipress delicately described his interaction with her as "challenging" when he went up to do his due diligence on the property. As a result, he and Councilor Em Westerlund amended the permit to require the addition of a screen between the VDU and the elderly neighbor. Both the amendment and the permit passed 8-1, with Councilor Noah Hobbs preferring to stick with the original screenless recommendation from the Planning Commission, and Councilor Howie Hanson opposing the thing entirely in a screed against an the "erosion of neighborhoods."
This was an issue that blew up normal battle lines and inspired good debate. As with the Uber debate two weeks prior, the normally solidly progressive Sipress expressed considerable leeriness of this supposed progress, and went into his nuanced monologue mode to worry about the effect on neighborhoods. Councilor Barb Russ seconded this, and suggested the city revisit the criteria for VDUs and find some way to limit dramatic changes. Councilor Jay Fosle, normally the voice of no to this sort of newfangled scheme, showered love on VDUs, saying they created economic activity and scoffing at the suggestion that "a bunch of nasty people will come and rent the house." Hobbs, meanwhile, brought up the biggest sticking point with any neighborhood-based policy: how on earth do we devise a "hierarchy of neighborhoods" for awarding of VDUs without making some potentially prejudicial decisions? Sipress and Russ both readily conceded this point. Anyone who's observed city politics knows this runs the risk of just opening up a door for whoever yells loudest to get permits denied, and that these people are inevitably going to be older, more affluent people who have the time and resources to devote to hammering city councils.
If the city does revisit this and sees a need for continued limits of VDUs, I would advocate for quotas within neighborhoods, set by some blanket standard such as population. This would remove the influence of well-connected neighbors and prevent the emergence of "vacation rental ghettoes." That phrase sounds silly as I write it, which perhaps betrays my natural bias here: in principle I think VDUs make a lot of sense. However, I prefer not to make unfounded assumptions about how their consequences at a large scale, and while this is a different phenomenon from the fashion in which neighborhoods tip from majority homeownership to long-term rentals, a neighborhood that achieves some critical mass of homes without long-term residents does probably start to erode some. (No, one or two houses on a cul-de-sac do not represent that sort of critical mass.) I also think decisions that take good single family housing stock off the market may pose some problems in a city like Duluth, as the council's next great planning debate showed all too clearly.
The Great Density Debate
The other hot button issue involved a resolution that, as initially worded, would have encouraged the city to consider "high density zoning"—basically, taller buildings—in its ongoing comprehensive plan process. Councilor Zack Filipovich brought it forward, and took a beating for his trouble. A big part of the issue was the process, which Filipovich conceded: this resolution appeared seemingly out of the blue immediately before the previous week's agenda session, and Hobbs seemed to speak for many on the council when he said he'd wished they'd had a chance to debate this before it came before them all as a whole. He and Sipress, who once again seemed quite presidential in his ability to give a nuanced take on the concerns of the council writ large, offered an amendment which dramatically reworked the resolution, and instead pitched it as a call for greater density using all potential development tools, from infill to redevelopment to townhomes.
No one found this broader emphasis controversial, though Filipovich tried again to get at his original point, which seemed to come out of his conversations with city planning staff: they think the city is already doing what it needs to do on the infill and redevelopment fronts (which is mostly true), but needed this added pitch to encourage height. The rest of the council balked at this, given the political sensitivity of views; Hanson went off about how this might be in response to specific projects (which Filipovich roundly denied), while Fosle found the whole debate much ado about nothing, as it is the unified development code, not the comp plan, that ultimately settles these questions. While there is probably some merit to further outlining standards for upward growth, Duluth's planners need to do a much better sales job instead of ramming a quick resolution through. In the end, the councilors tabled the whole mess.
Discussion strayed far and wide and to interesting points, though, and one of the more frequent topics was Hermantown. Filipovich first noted that it is the fastest growing city in the region (which is true), even as its prices are not inflating, whereas Duluth's are doing so despite the fact the city isn't growing. Real estate listings in Hermantown are up considerably, whereas Duluth's market only seems to get tighter and tighter. Hobbs countered that this was a bad analogy for this resolution, as Hermantown's growth was anything but upward: instead, it sprawls outward far more so than Duluth. Given Duluth's relative lack of available land and aging infrastructure that is difficult to maintain, let alone extend, that sort of growth pattern is not a realistic option at any sort of scale.
The Hermantown debate also illuminated the battle lines between those who we might call the critics of the happy talk about Duluth's direction in recent years (Fosle and Hanson) and the liberal optimists' club. I will counter one of Fosle's critiques, in which he wondered where this supposed job growth was coming from in a city with a stagnant population: while the Duluth metro area may not be getting dramatically larger, its job growth over the past decade is reasonably good, and relative to its population growth is actually very good when compared to most peer cities. (If someone wants numbers to back this up, I can oblige.) As I've been at pains to note in other posts, the metro area has been growing steadily since 1990—not quickly, but steadily—and basically all of this growth is beyond the city limits, namely in Hermantown. As Hobbs noted, these outlying areas have the obvious perk of having a lot of available land, and Fosle and Hanson tagged on a few additional concerns that may lead people to move beyond the city limits, such as perceptions of crime or newer infrastructure or a desire for space. (No one mentioned the other major driver I'd put up next to land availability, though. Hint: it involves a different Duluth elected body that I cover on this blog from time to time.)
Still, I think the Hermantown-Duluth comparison is illuminating, though perhaps not in the way councilors thought it was. Whatever the benefits of density, large new apartment or condo complexes do little to make Duluth appealing to a lot of the people who are electing to move to Hermantown and its ilk. To the extent that housing decisions drive this move—and they certainly do—any response by Duluth to try to stem that tide will require an expansion of the single-family housing stock. Given the relative lack of buildable land within city limits, that's going to mean renovation (or teardowns) and infill or bust. That isn't cheap, and requires further study to understand the costs, but if the city does want to retain younger families and build the tax base through housing development—a goal I firmly support—I see no other option at this point.
This doesn't invalidate the broader emphasis on density, which is spot on, especially when it comes to commercial property. On the residential side, I think the city can handle a few more Bluestones and Endis, and would wholeheartedly support them. However, I'm skeptical that the market justifies a broader glut of market-rate apartment complexes that would build the tax base. Duluth doesn't have a ton of upwardly mobile twenty-somethings, and those who are tend to get on the marriage-and-kids train faster than in other cities; for that matter, there is still a reasonably affordable single-family housing stock. (Yes, options are tight, but the market here still looks heavenly for this soon-to-be-house-hunting 27-year-old when compared to Minneapolis, to say nothing of anything on the coasts.) And while there have been some increases in other populations that lend themselves to density—seniors, low-income people—the sort of dense housing they need isn't going to prove a windfall for city coffers.
I'll quickly note that I'm not saying Duluth shouldn't build dense housing for these populations; the city does have some real affordability concerns, and I applaud the recent push to get more lower-income units in a development in Duluth Heights, which is both near jobs and may help de-concentrate poverty. We do need to be clear-eyed about the realities of who uses dense development, though, and recognize that there's a clear role for the Hermantowns of the world to house some of these people, too. The density gospel in contemporary urban planning gets a lot right, but it's not a panacea, either. We need to think beyond that to get to the heart of issues.
April 11, 2017 karlschuettler comp plan 2016, density, duluth, duluth city council, hermantown, urban planning, vacation dwelling units Leave a comment
A Whirlwind Week of Hockey
Between the past two Saturdays I attended seven hockey games in eight days, an exhausting string even for someone who watches as religiously as me. It was blistering tour featuring all of northeast Minnesota's State Tournament contenders, plus a pair of Lake Conference powers who came north to visit. I enjoyed long nights and raucous arenas, not to mention connections with friends old and new at all of them, except for the one in Hermantown, where I instead had the misfortune of being surrounded by Hermantown parents displaying typical Hermantown parent behavior.
It all got off to an inauspicious start, as Minnetonka came to play Duluth East on Saturday the 7th. After a start to the season defined largely by consistent efforts, the Hounds were MIA from puck drop at the Heritage Center, and the Skippers pummeled them to the tune of 6-0. It was one of the ugliest losses of the Mike Randolph era—an inordinate number of said losses do seem to come against Minnetonka—but it shows how far things can all go to pieces when a normally disciplined team lapses. The Skippers, meanwhile, looked like world-beaters, and while they have potential, they've failed to back that up with any consistency. They are a perplexing program, one with perpetual talent but just one trip to state in the past ten years. Maybe this new rising generation will be the one that changes things, but I'll wait until March to draw conclusions.
The Hounds were again on my calendar for Monday for their crosstown rivalry with Duluth Denfeld, and in the early stages, they again looked nothing like they should. Slowly, however, the offense took over, and while it took a few power plays that sent Denfeld coach Kevin Smalley into cahoots, the final shots (54-15) showed the completeness of the Greyhound domination from the middle of the first period on. Denfeld goalie Benjamin LaFont gets credit for keeping it somewhat close, a feat he repeated during Thursday night's 5-1 loss to Hermantown. This has been a dark year for the Hunters, with just two wins to their name and no junior varsity. After stringing things along for a few seasons thanks to a handful of strong bloodlines and transfers, the bottom seemed to have fallen out. But this week's rivalry games showed a group of Hunters that still have their pride intact, and look stout enough to at least make things interesting in the 7A playoffs.
"Interesting" is not normally a word associated with the 7A playoffs these days, and the Hermantown Hawks reminded us why on Tuesday, when they outlasted AA power Grand Rapids for a third straight win over the Thunderhawks. This was the most entertaining game I've seen all year, a back-and-forth, open affair brimming with emotion. A coaching chess match came to the fore in the second period, when Rapids' Trent Klatt started looking for ways to get his elite threesome at forward—Blake McLaughlin, Micah Miller, and Gavin Hain—away from Hermantown's Ryan Sandelin-led top line. Sandelin and company contained the Big Three whenever they were on the ice together, and Bruce Plante was wily enough to keep up in the line-matching game. Hermantown, meanwhile, exploited the mismatch of the second lines, and Logan Judnick's goal held up as the game-winner. The Hawks were clinging to life in the late stages as the Big Three surged forward, but did enough for a 4-3 win, and some frustrated Grand Rapids defenesemen started a scrum in the corner after the buzzer sounded. It was a painful error: two of them were given game misconducts, and had to miss Thursday's contest with Duluth East.
Few regular season games were as anticipated as this one, as the Greyhounds welcomed in the team that ended their 7AA dynasty in exhilarating fashion the year before. The atmosphere at the Heritage Center was the best I've ever seen, and both teams had something to prove: East needed to win to show it belonged in the 7AA conversation, while a loss could consign Rapids to the 3-seed, despite their strong start to the year. With so many thrillers in recent memory between these two, it had the makings of another classic.
The game, however, didn't offer much in the way of drama. Thursday was one of those defining Duluth East games, a dominant performance that offered Greyhound hockey at its finest. East went on the attack early and never let up, controlling the puck for long stretches yet still showing enough discipline to make the Rapids stars seem fairly pedestrian when they did go on the rush the other way. They unleashed a barrage on Rapids goalie Gabe Holum, and while he held the game to 1-0 for a period and a half, the floodgates burst loose late in the second. The 5-0 final was East's finest statement to date, and after Elk River stumbled against Centennial on Saturday, they suddenly look like they're right there in the heart of the 7AA race.
The Thunderhawks, meanwhile, face a conundrum. Their amazing top line carried them through a dominant December, but with just one win in five games before a recovery effort in their win over Cloquet on Tuesday the 17th, there are some cracks in the walls. It's not hard to look good when a team returns a group of stars with incredible chemistry, but as the competition builds its own combinations and settles into its systems, it grows more difficult for a good AA team to thrive off sheer skill alone. If ever a team could, it's this Thunderhawk group, but a concurrent decline in team discipline has been their bête noir. Trent Klatt has played with splitting up his now-somewhat-stoppable trio, a move I've judged as wise give the realities of AA hockey: one-line teams seldom win tough sections. But the Big Three have a chemistry together that's hard to shrug aside, and Trent Klatt faces far more critical choices than he did a year ago, when he had the depth to run with the likes of East and Elk River. Few teams will be as interesting to watch down the stretch.
For East, the win was as much a display of talent as it was a win for the program's famed systems. Mike Randolph teams are renowned for their offensive zone cycling and ability to shut down the opposition, but they're at their very best when there are added wrinkles of creativity that display some of the natural skill on the team. We saw some flashes of that against Grand Rapids. Garrett Worth, the most technically skilled East forward since Jake Randolph, dangled all over the place. Ian Mageau was a physical force, disrupting the opposition and creating plays of his own, with three assists on the night. And while Luke LaMaster didn't have a huge night on the scoresheet, his poise in his own zone started many a fluid Hound breakout. The machine work is all lovely and important, but it's going to be these individual moments of brilliance that make or break this team's playoff run.
Those top line Hounds had precious few chances to show their greatness against Eden Prairie on Saturday. Matched against Casey Mittelstadt and the Eagle top line, they were left in a mostly defensive role, which they filled with aplomb, though at the expense of some scoring chances. For its part, the East system held up well against the state's most talented team. In a display of depth, the third line scored both goals, and the defensemen were equal to the task against Mittelstadt. The ending, however, was something no system can account for, as goaltender Kirk Meierhoff mishandled a lob in from the blue line by Nick Leivermann just ten seconds into overtime. It was an unfortunate twist for Meierhoff, who's shown genuine improvement and been a bright spot for East this year, and recalled memories of some previous overtime affair between these two that ended on a crazy goal. But, no matter: the Hounds showed this week that they have the formula to run with the best when they're on their game.
This was my second look at Eden Prairie on the weekend, as I'd seen them turn in a fairly pedestrian performance in a 3-1 win over Cloquet the night before. Under Lee Smith this season, the Eagles are the anti-Grand Rapids, deliberately avoiding heavy reliance on their stars in the service of a deep lineup and grinding performances. Perhaps it's an attempt to atone for last season, when the Eagles lost the title game to a deep defensive team, and it's not without risks, as games can stay tighter than they might be if they turned into a track meet. But winning it all in AA takes discipline, and with their new approach—and, one might add, with a certain hotheaded forward unavailable due to a misconduct the night before—Eden Prairie kept its poise and rolled its lines when East ramped up the pressure in the third period. Sure, East effectively shut down Mittelstadt, but the Eagles never panicked, and when a questionable call gave them a late penalty, they pressed in, creating a deluge of chances late in regulation before Leivermann's fateful flip.
Perhaps these are all important turning points; perhaps these moments in January are just little skips that won't be at all relevant when we look back in two months at the moments that defined these teams' seasons. Either way, these teams delivered some of the cheapest, most entertaining theater available out there. We're headed into the stretch run now, and it only gets better from here.
January 17, 2017 karlschuettler 7aa, duluth denfeld, duluth east, eden prairie, grand rapids, hermantown, hockey, midseason, minnetonka Leave a comment
How Good Is That School, Anyway?
How do we measure the quality of a high school? Some schools have high test scores or send lots of kids to good colleges, but family and friends and general atmosphere probably matter far more for students' odds at success. There are basic metrics such as the standardized tests du jour, which are very good at measuring how well students take standardized tests. The caliber of the hockey program is, of course, also an important consideration. (I jest…mostly.) Accurate measures are hard to find, though I'd still find more value in things like graduation rates and ACT or SAT scores, which, for all their flaws, are remarkably good predictors of college success. But assumes these schools are all starting from the same place, which they simply are not. A better question asks how schools work with the students they have, rather than wishing they had.
There's no elegant way to control for income and parents' education and all those things, but free/reduced lunch rates are one option. What happens, for example, if we graph average ACT scores from 2012-2015 in comparison to the free/reduced lunch rates at all traditional public high schools in northeast Minnesota? Well, this happens:
Click all images to enlarge.
Three schools stand out here: Duluth East, Esko, and Hermantown sit off by themselves at the upper left end of the graph. This shouldn't be terribly surprising, as basically all of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the region feed into these three schools. Those demographics are friendly to strong test scores, but don't necessarily mean a school is doing an especially good job in and of itself. Take Hermantown, for example: it's a growing town, and invariably, young people who consider moving there talk about "the schools" as one of the reasons. Yet this graph suggests that Hermantown's schools do a decidedly average job—even a slightly below average job—for the population they serve. People may think they're moving for the schools, but whether they realize it or not, they're moving for a demographic makeup that makes it easy to have a good-looking school by traditional metrics with far less effort. This is not to pick on Hermantown, which still does a reasonably good job of things, and there's plenty to be said for wanting one's children surrounded by other like-minded achievers. But it does show what a disservice we do when we rate schools by the most basic metrics.
At the risk of sounding a bit smug about my alma mater, East's over-performance is actually pretty impressive given that it is already toward the high end; that said, it's probably worth noting that East's attendance area, while holding more poverty than Esko or Hermantown, also contains some uniquely wealthy and highly educated neighborhoods that may pull scores up. Its large student body also probably insulates it from dramatic year-to-year swings. The larger Range schools, meanwhile, perform quite well, as does Cloquet.
Denfeld, which is too often the source of less-than-happy stories about local education, modestly overachieves compared to the region. The school's struggles when compared to its east side counterpart are entirely predictable based on who goes there, and this data suggests that's not really the fault of the school. There may still be reasons to be leery of a place like Denfeld if it's failing to offer the same advanced courses or difficult for students to build a schedule that incorporates those classes, but the school itself and its instructors seem to be doing fine. Places like Proctor and Wrenshall, though, where a number of kids in the Denfeld attendance area go to open enroll, actually underachieve. Floodwood, Carlton, and Bigfork all raise big red flags. High-poverty Deer River, meanwhile, exceeds expectations by a solid margin.
But wait, this may or may not be the most accurate way to do this: not everyone took the ACT until 2016, when the state of Minnesota required all students to sit for it. This is what happens when all students take the test, not just those who want to:
It's one year of data, so the smaller sample is somewhat limiting, but the shift after the new requirement was predictable. Scores dropped across the board, since a lot of students who are not college-bound sat for a college aptitude test. Generally, this change makes well-off schools look better, and poorer schools look worse, as the steeper trendline shows. The wealthiest schools all hover around the lowest score drops, which probably reflects the fact that the bottom end in these schools is a lot higher than it is elsewhere. Meanwhile, we see big drops on the Range and in some of the poorer schools, including some schools that looked pretty good in the data from previous years, like Virginia and Cloquet. (To Cloquet's credit, it still does pretty well.)
Drop in ACT scores when all students required to take test. The statewide average drop was 1.6.
There are two very contradictory ways to interpret this: one, these schools' great scores from before tear down the curtains and suggest they're not really that great, but instead serve their top students well while the rest shuffle along. Two, the ACT is not a great measure of what a high school is supposed to do: not every kid is destined for college, and maybe these schools are also educating the less academically-inclined kids well, and just channeling their talents in different directions. Most likely they are both true to some extent. (Worth noting: this region has an exceptionally high number of people with associate's degrees or other degrees that are "less" than a bachelor's degree, but can be tickets to good, steady employment in certain trades. At the same time, the region's average ACT score is somewhat lower than the statewide average, whereas its graduation rate outpaces the state.)
One way to plausibly better judge a school's performance is to measure graduation rates against free-reduced lunch rates. Even if kids aren't going on to college, they're still equipping kids with the basic skills and credentials for whatever they do next. Of course, one could also argue that these schools are just funneling under-qualified students through the system.
And, sure enough, if we correlate graduation rates and free/reduce lunch rates, we get a more complicated picture than with the test score graph, and see that some poor schools do an excellent job of getting students diplomas, while others do not. Here, the three affluent schools all under-perform the trendline mildly—though maybe the trendline should flatten out somewhat at higher levels—places like Greenway, Carlton, and Bigfork do a good job of graduating their students despite weak test scores.
The fundamental point here: just because a school has lower poverty rates does not necessarily mean it is good; just because it has higher rates does not mean it is bad. And yet educational reforms that supposedly aim to improve outcomes somewhere along the line, such as making all students take college aptitude tests whether or not they're going to college or efforts to block teachers from teaching courses for college credit—a pitiful example of credential obsession at its worst—only tend to make the rich look richer and the poor look poorer. The rest becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as students drain out of the weaker-seeming schools and flock to the ones that appear strong, whether or not they really are actually better. Few things make my blood boil quite like educational bureaucracy and the underwhelming efforts to get around it.
The idea of rating schools is always fraught with difficulty, and I wouldn't want to try to reduce the complicated things that go into an education to a single number. College rankings are trashy enough, and I say that even as someone who probably puts more stock in the value of educational prestige than most. If I had to pick out a few things I'd like to see to judge a school's performance, though, I'd look for a high school's college graduation rate (separated out for both bachelor's and associate's degrees). I'd also want a raw percentage of students earning the very highest test scores (say, ACTs over 30). And I'd control it by free/reduced lunch rate, because not all success is as it seems. It's not a perfect way to gauge schools, but it's at least an improvement over the poverty of current methods.
Data source: Minnesota Department of Education. Northeast Range High School (Babbitt) excluded due to lack of data.
November 29, 2016 karlschuettler act scores, education, hermantown, isd 709, poverty, public schools 2 Comments
A Hawkish Outlook
Just a couple of years ago, the Hermantown Hawks were the darlings of the Class A Tournament, the last public school bastion of defense against the march of Twin Cities private school machines. How quickly the tables turn: the longest-running and incessant debate on the hockey forum this offseason has been about Hermantown's dominance over Class A, and the competitive imbalance it creates. As with St. Thomas Academy before them, the Hawks' consistent ability to pump out elite teams has prompted frustrated reactions from those who are stuck going up against them and lose, year after year: shouldn't this high-powered team move up to AA?
As long as they kept losing state championship games, as they did for six consecutive seasons, they had an easy counterargument: for all their success, the Hawks clearly weren't on the level of a St. Thomas or a Breck. But on the seventh year of consecutive title game appearances, God rested in his torment of Hermantown, and the Duluth suburb took home its second state title in ten years. With a loaded team coming back this coming season, anything less than a convincing repeat would be stunning. The Hawks are the undisputed superpower of Class A, and no one is even close.
I've been mostly agnostic in the A vs. AA debate, as I have no strong Class A loyalties. I respect teams' rights to run their own programs as they see fit, and prefer not to throw stones when my own team makes scheduling decisions based on what it believes is right for its situation. Any complaints that spurted out of my Twitter feed were from an aesthetic standpoint; I want to watch competitive hockey at Class A State, not giant blowouts, and grew bored with some of the Hawks' men-versus-boys contests last season. Sure, I think it's fun when historic Range teams head to State, and as a northern boy, I'd appreciate another northern squad in 7AA so as to boot Elk River to a different section and carry the regional torch at State if they earn it. But this was not among the things keeping me up at night or making me mutter under my breath.
Hermantown defenders are right to make a few points. The school is playing where it was assigned, and its enrollment is nowhere near the AA cutoff. Nor are most of Hermantown's advantages the product of an evil recruiting scheme, even if there may be isolated incidents here or there. (I'm not close enough to say whether those rumors have any teeth.) The school boundaries around Hermantown do lend themselves to open enrollment. Townships to the west and northwest of are in the Proctor school district, despite being closer to Hermantown and not touching Proctor. (Numbers from these townships help keep Proctor a decent-sized school for an otherwise tiny community.) The closure of Duluth Central also pushed a decent number of Duluth Heights residents to open enroll across the border, as Hermantown was both convenient, and higher-performing than those students' new West Duluth schools. (Of course, it's worth asking how much of this has to do with anything unique to Hermantown, and how much of it is just demographic inertia.)
That said, Hermantown does have its share of advantages that most small hockey programs in the state do not enjoy. It is an exurban community in a respectably-sized metropolitan area of about 200,000. That's not huge, but it's substantial, especially when accounting for the wealth of local hockey history and the presence of a prominent D-I program, many of whose graduates stick around. It's growing, and adding young families. It's not the wealthiest part of the Duluth area, but it's certainly toward the upper end. Its basic urban design—large, sprawling wooded lots—does not lend itself to much density of lower-income residents, even if it also limits its economic and population growth potential. If we remember our lessons about urbanism and high school hockey, that tends to be good for hockey success, at least in the short run while the community is still growing.
The small size of the Duluth metro area also magnifies the Hawks' position. The closest comparison to Hermantown in the Twin Cities is probably something like Delano, which is starting to surge toward hockey relevance. Delano, however, doesn't have neighbors who aren't also affluent and growing; no one is open enrolling there to flee the shuttering or struggling schools of Plymouth or Minnetonka, or to dodge bizarre borders with other Wright County towns. In an area that can only support a handful of options, just a handful of player moves can throw things out of whack. Unlike some Twin Cities schools that may lose a bunch of players to open enrollment or private schools, places like Proctor or Denfeld aren't losing players all over the place; there are only two or three places that stand to benefit, and those places are likely in the same section. Duluth's smallness and the extent to which everyone knows each other make it obvious who the winners and losers of player movement are, and make the scapegoats easy to identify. (We Duluth East fans know a thing or two about this.)
The advantages that some schools have over each other are blurry, and there are gradations of advantage and disadvantage all over Class A. East Grand Forks also benefits from a decent-sized metro and a convenient D-I school; Mahtomedi lurks just under the cutoff bar for AA and thereby builds some of the deeper A teams out there. Even small, relatively isolated towns aren't all cookie-cutter; Luverne has surged to relevance in recent years, while nearby Worthington is at the bottom of the barrel, largely due to an immigrant-heavy population with no knowledge of hockey that has been drawn to its meat packing plant. The fans of the true small towns in Section 1A could probably gripe about how it's been dominated by schools in larger towns (Rochester Lourdes, the Mankatos), or towns on the growing exurban fringe (New Prague). It's worth remembering that even St. Thomas Academy was a Class A doormat at one time, and that it took years for Greg and Tom Vannelli to turn it into a consistent contender. These different levels of advantage are reality, and any assessment of a team can't be a snapshot at one point in time, but needs to understand its long-term record and accomplishments to date.
Hermantown is clearly pretty far along on this spectrum of success now, and that's to their credit. I don't think any team should ever be forced to opt up, and any pressure to do so should only come after a long period of dominance. I want to see good teams and players in Class A, and more than one or two new opt-ups due to Class A success in a decade would quickly drain the field. That said, when a program is consistently putting other top five teams in its class in running time, it's a clear sign of a mismatch, and the point at which even diehard supporters should see a case for a move.
There's no doubt Hermantown could compete in AA, and rumors suggest the program may make the leap after this coming season. The move may come a year too late: this year's squad, with a pair of potential Mr. Hockey candidates and depth across the board, could have easily contended for a AA title. While people might be able to cherry-pick a regular season result or two to claim they're better than a bunch of AA Tourney entrants, we'll never really know how good they are. (The AA playoff gauntlet is an entirely different animal from what the Hawks now face; just ask STA about its first three years in AA.) Beyond this year, Hermantown looks good, but perhaps not as good as last year and this year, and will face the 7AA minefield. If they do make that move, I'll welcome them in and look forward to the battles; if they don't, I'll be disappointed, but life will go on. Much as I'd love to see some success out of Range teams, they face their share of internal obstacles in the search for a return to glory.
The whole debate relates back to a deeper question: what's the whole purpose of the two-class tournament? The generic State High School League response will tell you that it gives more players a chance to play at State. That's true, but from a hockey development standpoint, its true benefit is in giving more players a chance to aim for State: to grow hockey in areas that haven't traditionally seen success, and to revive it in areas where it might otherwise have faded or died. Hermantown is as obvious a success story as any in 25 years of two-class hockey; it went from an afterthought to an unstoppable force, and probably wouldn't have done so without being able to take the baby steps allowed by Class A. The Hawks have succeeded. Now we'll see if they'll let someone follow in their footsteps.
October 12, 2016 karlschuettler 7a, 7aa, hermantown, hockey, opting up 1 Comment
The Story of Duluth in Data, 1970-2010
How do we tell the story of a city? The most compelling way probably involves walking across it, listening to stories and using one's eyes, letting the stories tell themselves. I've done that for Duluth before, and historians more learned (and aged) than I am could do a much better job of reaching back into history to create something far better than a simple blog post. No one can really claim expertise without truly getting lost in the woods—in Duluth's case, quite literally.
And then there's data. It has its limits. It's been overhyped in an era when reams of it are available with a few easy clicks. Too often, it's taken as destiny, its sweeping trends that elide the human dramas playing out every day, across the years and in ever little corner apartment or dead-end street on the hill. But it also takes all of those stories and boils them down into something we can see clearly, and allows us to better understand the broader forces that catalyze events in those lives. It lets us fly above the woods for a bit and see it all before coming back down to earth.
This post uses U.S. census data since to tell the story of Duluth since 1970. I use tract-level data, which usually lines up roughly with neighborhood boundaries. The official map for 2010 is here. I also include the suburbs and outlying townships in St. Louis County; these are an essential part of Duluth's urban evolution, and using longstanding city boundaries makes for an unhelpful cut-off for a dynamic process. (Someday, I might throw Superior and eastern Carlton County into the hopper, but this will do for now.) I won't bore casual readers with the methodology notes, but if you want to know how I made these categories, there's a section on this in the follow-up to this post, which also includes a bunch of supplemental tables.
Actual billboard from Duluth, 1980s. Duluth News Tribune.
This forty-year span was not kind to Duluth. The area of study clocked in 121,398 residents in 1970; just 20 years later, it was down to 108,024. Poverty climbed across the board. This is also only a snapshot: the decline really begins in 1960, which was the high-water mark for the city's population. Most of the second half of the 20th century was a depressing downhill slide, and stagnation followed before things began to tick upward again. To dig into the details, however, I've divided the city into four separate areas that tell different stories about the city and its changes: the east side, the center city, the west side, and the exurban areas. Each one reveals something different afoot in Duluth's neighborhoods.
Click any image to enlarge it.
After rock-bottom around 1990, though, things start to change. There's stagnation in some places and resiliency in others; growing gaps in some areas, and dramatic rises elsewhere. Sure, the city's population has barely budged, and the neighborhood descriptions a mid-90s real estate map I recently discovered—something a map-obsessed kid kept from his parents' move to Duluth when he was in first grade—could have been written yesterday, and I doubt anyone would know the difference. Yet there are subtle changes here and there, and one has to look beyond the city limits to understand things, too.
A couple of quick notes before we tour Duluth: I've tried to name the neighborhoods as they line up with census tracts, but I had to get creative in a few places. Apologies for any grave sins on that front, and check out the map linked to above to see actual boundaries. I'll also add the necessary warning for all 2010 census data: most of it was collected in 2009, in the depths of the Great Recession, and it therefore tends to make things look a bit worse financially than overall trends would suggest.
East Side Steadiness
Like all of Duluth proper, the east side lost population over the 40 years, but the rate was much slower than in the rest of the city. Population loss is no great surprise in built-up neighborhoods, especially as family sizes decrease. The poverty rate has also held pretty steady, and the few changes have more to do with college students moving in than economic decline. With occasional variation in the difference, incomes stay ahead of the national average. The old streetcar suburbs of Lakeside/Lester Park and Woodland are steady bastions of middle-to-upper-middle-class comfort—I was surprised to see "Lakeside" (roughly 40th to 50th Avenues East) was the lowest-poverty tract in the city. Congdon, meanwhile, remains Duluth's realm of highly concentrated affluence; if it were its own municipality, it would rank 13th in the state in per capita income, right behind some of the small, opulent enclaves along Lake Minnetonka. One of the more interesting tracts is East End, the area below 4th Street between 20th and 26th Avenues East, which lost a lot of population, but also saw a decrease in poverty and had distinct rise in per capita income. Many of the people who remain are in its grand old houses, and the longstanding Congdon area prestige has withstood Duluth's post-industrial phase.
Congdon, summarized in one image.
There were noticeable increases in poverty in Hunters Park/Morley Heights and especially Chester Park, though I'd hazard to guess that most of these are the product of growing numbers of college rentals in these areas. I included UMD proper in the east zone, so the school's growth may help hide some population loss on the east side, though the wider impact of off-campus housing has clearly changed neighborhood dynamics in that area. And while the colleges may cause some decline in the neighborhoods that immediately border them, they more than make up for this by providing very stable, well-paying jobs, both for their employees and their graduates. Time will tell if new apartment developments in the area will stem the tide of converting single-family homes into rentals.
The east side may no longer be the home of many captains of industry, but it has become the home of white-collar professionals, from teachers to doctors for the growing hospitals to the financial and government workers who run the city. Its income may flatline somewhat; there's not a whole lot of space for development left, and barring aggressive redevelopment—of which there has been some—home values tend to decline with age. But the key anchors are all still there, most indicators are healthy, and there is little reason to expect any changes to this anytime soon. East will remain east.
The Center Collapses
Central Duluth has been slowly hollowed out over the past forty years. It was at the bottom to begin with, but its poverty rate makes for a perfect scissors graph (to borrow a phrase from Robert Putnam), in which the plight of the poor gets steadily worse while the rich hold steady or do better. Duluth is often defined by its east-west gap, but its most glaring divide lies somewhere in the high teen Avenues East. The census tract with the highest poverty rate (Endion) borders the one with per capita income levels that would put it in the company of Edina and Minnetonka on a statewide list (East End).
A chunk of the Endion, East Hillside, and Lower Chester poverty is probably college-related, but those poverty rates glide easily into the neighborhoods in the center of the city, which are undeniably Duluth's poorest. There's really no way to spin the statistics for all of these neighborhoods in the center of the city; most were fairly poor in 1970, and are now very poor and continuing to shed population. The one obvious exception is Park Point, whose beachfront lots have only grown more attractive to developers; Observation Hill has also rebounded enough to escape the "lowest" lists, most likely thanks to those fancier houses up near the ridgeline. One other eye-popping statistic, Downtown's increase in population, dates to the first decade of the study, meaning the likely cause was the construction of high-rises like the Gateway and Lenox towers. It's been mostly flat ever since.
A tour of the Hillside today will reveal a few changes, from a few new apartments and urban gardens to some serious reclamation efforts of historic buildings, both by the city (as on downtown East Superior Street) and by intrepid owners. I don't think it's coincidental that some of Duluth's most committed public servants, including current mayor Don Ness and his likely successor, Emily Larson, are Hillsiders: these people see several different paths for Duluth around them every day, and are committed to making things right. Things seem to be moving in the center now, with some new low-income housing that will do nothing to disperse poverty, but should at least improve living conditions. Downtowns around the United States are largely on the rebound, and Duluth may someday follow suit. Still, it won't happen overnight.
The West Side: Post-Industrial Variety
There are a lot of things going on in the data out west, and it's hard to find an overarching story. The most basic rule to the west side is that wealth gathers on top of the hill: Piedmont ranks right up there with the middle-class east side neighborhoods in 1970 and isn't far behind in 2010, Cody and the area just above Denfeld does alright for itself, and Bayview Heights saw considerable new development, flipping from the high-poverty list in 1970 to the low-poverty list in 2010. (There's a decent case for lumping Bayview in with the exurbs, given its greater proximity to Proctor than any part of Duluth.) Lincoln Park mostly behaves like the center of the city, though its poverty has crept outward over time. Denfeld/Oneota, Spirit Valley, Irving, and Morgan Park are on the lower end of things, though not on the level of the center city. Smithville/Riverside/Norton Park, able to reap the benefits of the riverfront without any industry in the area, is somewhat better off, while Gary New Duluth/Fon-du-Lac has grown some, too. The city's west side redevelopment plan calls for taking advantage of the river, but the neighborhoods with good river access are already doing relatively well compared to the rest of the west side. (I'm not saying there's an easy policy solution to that, but it's worth noting.)
The most telling west side statistics may come in a comparison of poverty rates across time. In 1970, poverty was pretty evenly distributed on the east and west sides; two of the four lowest-poverty tracts were out west, and with a couple of exceptions, they are low across the board. The west side wasn't rich in 1970, but most everyone had access to decent-paying jobs and could stay out of poverty. In 2010, the script has flipped: only a handful of holdouts still have those low poverty rates. While not as extreme as the center, the gaps persist and grow.
Things came apart with the collapse of the manufacturing base in the 1970s and 1980s. A comparison of per capita incomes over time shows fairly steady lines for most of the regions (and the nation as a whole), but the west side takes a sudden detour downhill in the 70s and especially the 80s, the decade in which the U.S. Steel mill in Morgan Park shut down. The west side has bounced back some since, but on the whole, it subtle scissors graphs show a trajectory closer to that of the poverty-stricken center than the steady east or the rising exurbs. This is the demise of blue-collar America in one simple graph.
The Rise of the Hinterlands
A glance at Duluth's population stats would suggest the city has had flat growth for a long time now, but in reality, the region has been growing since the population bottomed out in 1990. Some growth has happened in areas up "Over the Hill," but most of the growth has happened beyond the city limits, in a number of townships and Duluth's two incorporated neighbors, Hermantown and Proctor. Excepting central Proctor and the part of Hermantown that bleeds into Miller Hill Mall, these areas are very sparsely populated; this is why I've called them "exurbs" rather than "suburbs."
In 1970, these exurban areas had low poverty rates, but also low income rates; they were mostly basic rural areas where not much was happening. That means they've had plenty of room to go up, and have indeed dominated the lists of greatest 'climbers' ever since, both in population and income. Proctor and Midway Township have had modest population losses since 1970, and Rice Lake Township, which was already somewhat built up, has only grown slightly. Otherwise, these areas have all grown by 20 percent or more, and this growth has been accompanied by concurrent gains in wealth. (The only exception to that is the sprawling Kenwood census tract, which has the college population to contend with.) Especially impressive is the strong rise in income between 2000 and 2010, despite the effects of the recession. (The Duluth area as a whole actually held up quite well through the recession, as the center and west declined less than the national average and the east stayed even.) While only a few of them have cracked the "highest income per capita" list, they are on the way up, and poverty remains universally low. Duluth's middle class, so hollowed out by the industrial decline, has been able to rebound somewhat in the exurbs, where land is cheap and taxes tend to be lower.
So long as the regional economy grows, this trend should carry on. There's still plenty of space out there, with the caveat that much of its allure stems from its rural character, and that could change as it gets built up. Poverty has made its move toward the inner suburbs in many larger cities, so it will be interesting to see if Duluth follows suit at all; Duluth doesn't really have inner-ring suburbs, as it had stopped growing at the time most of those arose nationally. That may actually wind up being an asset, as neighborhoods with uniform housing stocks all decay at the same rate, and many Duluth neighborhoods (probably by accident) do a decent job of avoiding that. And while the exurbs have nearly closed the gap in income with the east side, I also suspect that may level off at some point; it's not as if Duluth has a booming class of nouveau riche, and the pace of development isn't enough to justify an explosion of McMansions that could topple Congdon from the top of the income list anytime soon.
Thanks a lot, Proctor.
Duluth coexists awkwardly with its exurbs. Township members have forcefully rebuffed occasional attempts to annex territory, and the city has been largely inelastic over the past century. Predictably, township residents have little interest in paying taxes to prop up Duluth's underclass, and predictably, Duluth points out how much these townships enjoy jobs, shopping, and cultural opportunities without paying to support them. It's an endless cycle that has been played out in countless cities, though the state of the squabble is usually a good indicator of the economic health of the metro area. When the area is growing, everyone does better, and growth in one area need not come at the expense of another; when things are more stagnant, one's neighbors become the easy targets for blame. During the worst of the downturn in the 1980s, the exurban areas lost population, just like the rest of the city. Exurban growth is now reality, but stands to gain even more if the more downtrodden parts of Duluth can get back on their feet. It is not a zero-sum game.
Not much here is wildly surprising to anyone who's paid attention to these things around Duluth, but the numbers and trends throw things into sharp relief. It also fits pretty cleanly with the dominant narrative of American cities since 1970: widening gaps, the isolation of the super-wealthy, the hollowing out of the center, the loss of blue-collar jobs, the rise of the exurbs, and a new creative class. Duluth fits the general mold and that is unlikely to change, though it will be interesting to see if some of the Don Ness Era innovations can push Duluth to the vanguard of the changes instead of trailing along behind the rest of the country. The City of Eternal Air Conditioning is beyond the point where it can just ape the narrative of other mid-sized cities on the Great Lakes. It has to write its own.
See Part II (Tables and Methodology) here.
July 1, 2015 karlschuettler census data, duluth, east vs. west, hermantown, history, proctor, robert putnam, urban planning, west duluth renewal 4 Comments


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Rather small technical changes for HID Wiimote. First one is primary a fix for Unity3D, when you want to use the Wiimote as gamepad. Unity3D uses RawInput instead if DirectInput, when reading from generic non XInput Gamepads. It seems RawInput has some issues with axes that have a negative value range, e.g. -127 to 127. So the change is to simply use a value range from 0 to 255.
The support for the Balance Board and Guitar Hero Guitar are completely untested and therefore pure experimental. I do not have a Balance Board nor a Guitar, therefore i am not able to test it(i might get a Balance Board in February). So use on your own risk, but you are welcome to report any issues and i'll attempt to fix them.
Downloads are available on the HID Wiimote page.


Monday August 20, 2018 - National Assembly Majority Leader, Aden Duale, has called on the Judicial Service Commission to investigate the Chief Kadhi for contradicting Interior Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiangi, on Idd-Ul-Adha celebrations.
CS Matiang'i had declared that Idd-Ul-Adha will be commemorated on Tuesday, August 21st as a public holiday through an official Government Gazette notice.
However, the Chief Kadhi faulted the directive insisting that the holiday ought to be marked the following day, Wednesday, August 22nd, drawing the irk of the Majority Leader.
According to Duale, Sheikh Ahmed Muhdhar had largely expressed abuse of office and that his sentiments had the capacity to cause huge splits among the Muslim faithful.
He vowed to lodge a complaint to the Judicial Service Commission to have Ahmed investigated.
"We shall send a petition to the Judicial Service Commission to discuss the conduct of the Chief Khadhi for abuse of office in the discharge of his duties as provided in article 170 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010," Duale said.


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Eric Biddines Talks About His MTV Hit "Railroads Down/Unfinished"
David Rolland
| Interviews |
David Rolland | April 22, 2014 | 7:04am
You do not turn to adjust your set. The stations have not been renumbered. It is not a local channel you accidentally landed on playing Palm Beach rapper Eric Biddines's new video. You are in fact watching MTV Jams which has put Biddines's "Railroads Down/Unfinished" in heavy rotation.
The song, off his 2013 album Planetcoffeebean 2, with its Southern roots and playful samples is earning him comparisons to Outkast. Which is one of the ultimate compliments.
New Times caught up with the homegrown favorite who is in a bit of shock over his newfound yet long-time-coming fame. Excited about his future, Biddnes discussed the making of the video, his further explorations of Planetcoffeebean, and researching professional basketball players.
See also: Eric Biddines Is So Obsessed With Coffee, He Even Raps About It
Rapper Eric Biddines Digs Deep to Embrace His Southern Roots in The Local Café
New Times: Congratulations, on your new video for "Railroads Down/Unfinished" being put on MTV Jams. How has the response been?
Eric Biddines: Incredible. I couldn't see this coming until five years from now. Nobody from Palm Beach had ever made it on MTV. A lot of network program directors, PR people have been reaching out to me. Baron Davis, the basketball player tweeted something real cool to me. I don't follow sports, but one of my homeboys was like, "Yo, Baron Davis one of the best point guards in the game likes you." I had to Wikipedia him, but it's real cool for an athlete to mention me.
How did the slave plantation theme for the video come about?
When I made the song, I originally had the idea for an African beat with live instrumentation. From there, I went to a scene and a scenario with runaway slaves and if we're going to do that we need a plantation. Luckily, we went out west of Jupiter and someone actually had everything we needed, even the dog.
Ryan Snyder directed it. Once he heard the song and lyrics he came up with a complete tech list and really wanted to capture the story of a slave escaping. When you hear the chains breaking he added that which gives it a completely different perspective.
When New Times caught up with you last year it was before Planetcoffebean 2 came out and you said you recorded 50 songs, but that album only had 12 tracks. What happened to the other 38 songs?
Five of those songs are going on this new project Elephant Wings that we're probably going to release... I don't even know right now. We're going to see where this video takes us. It was supposed to be a transition, but now it got picked up by MTV and there's so much interest on my catalog that's currently taking place. But yeah, I got all those songs and I'm in love with recording so I got a lot more too. I'm 200 songs deeps now. I'm set until 2017.
What inspires all these songs?
I would say the greatest inspiration, and I hope this makes sense, is having the cushion to be able to make music the way I want to. There's nothing more uninspiring than being forced to be inspired. I let my ideas flow, I don't have any deadlines or expectations.
How did you come up with the title Elephant Wings?
You know, I got the Planetcoffeebean, that's my own planet I created. I love science fiction like Avatar, anything that is out of this world. On this Planetcoffeebean there's this legendary invincible creature called the Elephant. I named the project after that animal. The further we get into my catalog in the next few years, you will start learning more about Planetcoffeebean, the creatures, the landmarks.
You're performing this Sunday at Propaganda. What can we expect at the show?
Makiin, who is like a sister to me, has set up this benefit concert that she brings out all these artists annually. Everyone comes far from it and I'm happy to be a part of it to be in the giving back situation. It's all ages with $10 admission. I'll probably do a few new songs. It's my first show back at home since doing South by Southwest and all the TV things.
How do you prepare for a live show?
I know it sounds backwards, but I can't listen to my music too close to the show because it makes me forget the words. It's happened to me a few times. If I start overthinking it and rehearsing it you get constricted when you're on the stage. Sometimes I will work on my improvising and my transitions to tailor it for the actual event. So I'll work on my dialogue and my chemistry with the audience a little bit.
Eric Biddines with Makiin, April 27, at Propaganda, 6 S J St., Lake Worth. Visit facebook.com/PropagandaLakeWorth.
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Share this Story: Wildrose MLAs stand behind Jean after call for leadership review
Wildrose MLAs stand behind Jean after call for leadership review
Ryan Rumbolt
Alberta Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean. Photo by Larry Wong /Postmedia News
Members of a Wildrose constituency association now say they stand behind party leader Brian Jean "unconditionally" after calling for a leadership review earlier this week.
On Tuesday, the Wildrose board in Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills passed a resolution asking the party's executive committee for a leadership review at Wildrose's Oct. 28-29 annual general meeting. It also asked for an amendment to the party's constitution to allow for annual reviews, instead of "at least once in every three general meetings."
Wildrose MLAs stand behind Jean after call for leadership review Back to video
"The motion (we) advanced was specific to the Wildrose policy amendment as part of the party annual general meeting process and procedures, and in no way reflected the board's lack of approval for Mr. Jean," the constituency association said in a statement Friday.
Jean's leadership was tested in recent weeks after party opponents criticized finance critic Derek Fildebrandt's roasting of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne . Fildebrandt was later suspended after endorsing, and then apologizing for, a homophobic Facebook post aimed at Wynne but was reinstated shortly after.
Despite the controversy, Wildrose MLAs around the province have been speaking out in support of Jean.
Wildrose MLA Leela Aheer. Calgary Herald
"He's meant for leadership," said Leela Aheer, MLA for Chestermere-Rocky View. "I had no clue the amount of work that went into this position; he just keeps going. And he still managed to bring us all back together as a family, under one roof."
Jean has also faced criticism from within party ranks by members who are "uncomfortable with setting a bold new vision for Wildrose" through encouraging co-operation between the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties.
"Well, it's not really a surprise," said Jean of the call for a leadership review. "I've travelled to every corner of the province and it's apparent that Wildrose is growing and I've challenged the members. The vast majority of Albertans that I speak to want to see Wildrose broaden our tent and consolidate conservatives heading into the next election."
Jean said the party is "more united than it's ever been," and is not concerned with the call for a leadership review.
"Wildrose is strong, stable; we have a united caucus," said Jean.
"These distractions are not helpful, but that's exactly what they are — distractions. And we must focus on the most important thing, and the most important job that we have, which is to make sure that the NDP don't have any opportunity to form government again in Alberta."


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Thanking you very much team SEED Education.


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Equal Pay Agreed for Ireland Women's Football Team
By Ryan Harmon 31 August 2021 455
The Football Association of Ireland is proud to announce that football players representing the Republic of Ireland Senior Men and Senior Women's international teams will receive equal pay on international duty with immediate effect in a ground-breaking deal for Irish sport.
The historic three-way agreement between the Men's and Women's squads and the FAI was brokered by FAI CEO Jonathan Hill and Ciaran Medlar, advisor to the male and female international players, alongside captains Katie McCabe and Seamus Coleman.
Ongoing talks between all parties reached a successful conclusion ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup qualification games involving Stephen Kenny's Senior Men's side and Vera Pauw's Senior Women's team.
The men's squad have agreed to reduce their international fees, with the FAI matching their contribution to ensure that the Senior Women's team match fee is increased and all male and female players receive the same match fee from the September international window onwards. The FAI has also agreed equality of approach with the Senior Men's and Senior Women's squad with regard to any future Tournament qualification.
Welcoming the announcement today, Ireland Senior Women's Team captain Katie McCabe said, "this is a great day for Irish football. We have taken a huge step forward with this deal and have shown the world what can be achieved through unity as we offer male and female international players the same opportunities. I am very proud as Ireland captain of the work that has been put in to get us to this point, not just by the current team but by so many Irish players in the past. They are the real heroes in this story, they took a stand and they passed on the baton to the current generation. Seamus Coleman and his team-mates in the Senior Men's squad also deserve credit for being brave enough to support us in such a progressive way on this issue. It is really appreciated."
"I also want to thank Jonathan Hill and Ciaran Medlar for their roles in this agreement. The relationship between the FAI and the Senior Women's team is stronger than I have ever known it and we look forward to continuing to work together to make Irish football better for everyone who plays our game, regardless of their identity or background."
Senior Ireland Men's team captain Seamus Coleman added, "on behalf of the Senior Men's squad, I welcome this news today. We are delighted as players to do what we can to ensure that our female international players are treated equally and fairly and we remain fully committed to doing whatever we can to achieve that goal together. This deal is the right one for everyone who plays international football for Ireland, no matter which team they represent. We have been working towards this agreement for some time now with Katie, Jonathan and Ciaran and I hope this acts as an inspiration to many other nations to follow suit."
FAI Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Hill commented, "speaking on behalf of the Board of the FAI and myself, we are delighted to announce this historic agreement today. As we celebrate our Centenary and begin to build out the strategic plan for a new FAI, the Board agreed unanimously that this is absolutely the right thing for us to do as an Association. This is another important milestone in the FAI's own transformation journey and I believe this equal pay programme shows us to be the progressive footballing nation we have always aspired to be."
"It is also another step forward in our key strategic goal to grow the women's game in Ireland in a sustainable and systematic way. For some months now, I have been working with Katie, Seamus and Ciaran on this agreement. Katie and her team-mates are role models to all the young girls playing football in Ireland whilst the actions of Seamus and his fellow players in our Senior Men's squad to make this equal pay proposition possible should not be underestimated."
"When the proposal was first discussed, the Board was also united in its commitment to support the approach which we firmly believe is the right way forward for a modern, progressive and inclusive sports organisation. Our women footballers have worked tirelessly to get to this point and I am delighted to see their ambitions for equality come to fruition with today's announcement, one which all involved with Irish sport should celebrate. We now wish Vera, Katie and the whole team the very best for their upcoming FIFA Women's World Cup qualification campaign."
Source: Football Association of Ireland
Tags: Equal Pay FAI Women's Football
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By Ryan Harmon 20 September 2021
dlr pilot Ireland's first disabled accessible EV parking & charging bay


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Sunday Money Roundup - Please Donate Edition.
Sunday Money Roundup – Please Donate Edition.
If you haven't already, PLEASE give at least a few bucks to the Haiti relief efforts. We all have it way better than they do on a daily basis, never mind when an earthquake hits. Please do the right thing and give a couple of bucks – it means a lot more to them than it does to you.
Cash Money Life wants to talk about paying off your second mortgage early.
Five Cent Nickel, on a similar note, has paid off their mortgage in under 10 years. Congrats!
Lazy Man & Money doesn't care for Fandango Bucks… do you?
The Wisdom Journal offers us 4 tips to finding a job we really want. What better time for a post like this?
Gather Little By Little gives us tips for saving money and protecting yourself on vacation.
My Dollar Plan helps you score free stuff on your birthday. Sweet!
Frugal Dad wants to know Are You Saving Money Just to Save, Or Saving With Purpose?


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War and Pieces: Quilts through America's War Years
Neva Hart
On Thursday, August 22, Neva Hart delivered a banner lecture entitled "War and Pieces: Quilts through America's War Years."
For soldiers in the field or citizen soldiers who declared the moral equivalent of war, quilts have been used throughout America's history not only as comfort, but to further "the Cause." It wasn't the Boston Tea Party that started the fight! Learn how quilt makers, impacted by textile trade and social trends, were influenced by the Revolutionary War to today's Middle East conflicts. This illustrated lecture featuring examples as early as the late 1700s, discusses embargoes to the Colonies, development of America's textile manufacturing, the Underground Railroad, Civil War, women and politics, development of the Red Cross, Quilts of Valor, and virtual quilts.
Neva Hart served as president of the Professional Association of Appraisers-Quilted Textiles and as a board member for the Virginia Quilt Museum. Editor and contributor to Quilts of Virginia, 1607–1899 (2006), she writes, lectures, researches, and collects antique and art quilts from her home near Roanoke.
The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
Want to listen to an audio-only version of this lecture? Listen now on Soundcloud.


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Donald Trump Reportedly Held a Private 'Joker' Screening at the White House
Todd Phillips's Joker was plenty controversial on its road to box-office dominance, and it appears that controversy attracts controversy. That would explain why President Donald J. Trump hosted a screening of the film for friends and family at the White House.
Whether or not his middle initial stands for Joker is yet to be confirmed, but the antihero in chief still managed to wrangle a group to watch Phillips's transgressive Scorsese homage.
A senior White House official confirmed to Yahoo! News that Trump hosted a private screening of the film for "family, friends and some staff." Further, the White House official confirmed that Trump enjoyed the film.
He's not alone. Joker, which prominently features a song from convicted pedophile Gary Glitter, is the most profitable comic book movie of all time.
More Todd Phillips
More Donald Trump
More Joaquin Phoenix
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