The Big Nine Conference Champion Northfield Raiders (19-5-1) boys hockey team is the #1 MSHSL Section 1A Tournament seed.

There are three play-in games Tuesday, February 22, 2022.

#8 Red Wing (10-15) hosts #9 Waseca (5-16-1) with the winner going to Northfield Thursday, February 24, 2022.

#6 LaCrescent (13-10-1) has #11 Winona Cotter (1-10) in their rink with the winner going to #3 Albert Lea (17-8) on Thursday.

#10 Austin (1-20) is at #7 Winona (9-15-1) Tuesday.  The winner is at #2 Rochester Lourdes/Dover-Eyota (18-7) Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

The Faribault Falcons (10-15) are the #5 seed and go to #4 New Prague (8-15-2).

The semifinals are Saturday, February 26, 2022 at the Rochester Rec Center with the title game there on Thursday, March 2, 2022.

The Falcons ended their season with a hard fought 2-1 loss to state ranked Mankato East after defeating Rochester John Marshall 5-4 in overtime last Thursday.

If they can shore up their defense the Falcons could make it to the final four in Rochester.

Saturday they scored the first goal 11:38 into the game at the Faribault Ice Arena when 8th grader Thomas Kunze scored after classmate Jackson Kath and sophmore Oliver Linnemann doled out assists during a power playh.

Mankato East scored both their goals in the third period within a 1:11 span. At 11:34 Landon Metcalfe scored with an assist to Andrew Bastian.  The same two scored at 12:45.

The Cougars had 37 shots on goal and the Falcons 23.

Senior Seamus O'Connor was in net for Faribault stopping 30 shots in the first two periods.

Against John Marshall in Rochester last Thursday the Rockets opened the scoring with a power play goal 7:45 into the game.

The Falcons evened the game at 9:08 when Linnemann scored on a Kath assist.

The Rockets scored two more goals in the period to take a 3-1 lead into the first intermission.

8:23 into the second period John Marshall took a 4-1 lead.

Faribault scored three goals in the third period at 44 seconds, 10:35 and with 20 seconds to go to send the game into overtime.

Logan Peroutka had the first goal with assists from Jax Bokman and Caden Hart.  Parker Morrow scored the next on an assist from Peroutka.  Owen Nesburg sent the game into overtime with assists from Linnemann and Kunze.

:27 into the overtime Tanner Yochum scored on assists by Linnemann and Kunze.

Below are the final 2021-22 Big Nine Conference standings as posted on the Big Nine website.

According to the website listing of games Northfield played Mankato East three times. on February 8th they won 4-2, on the 12th 2-0 and January 25th 4-3.

That's important because the Conference champion is determined by total points.

The total possible number of points should be the same for each team.  44 total possible if you win every Big 9 game.

2021-22
Big 9 Boys Hockey Standings

                                                           Conference                                                                                                                                                                     Overall
School                  Wins   Losses    Ties       Points         Wins   Losses    Ties

Northfield1611411861
Rochester Mayo1122381653
Rochester Century1051311291
Owatonna9513110131
Mankato East9613114101
Faribault9902210150
Albert Lea880181780
Mankato West6110147180
Rochester John Marshall5100148150
Red Wing6901410150
Winona5110109151
Austin017001200

*Total points will determine conference champion.  Each conference game is worth two points unless teams play only once in the season, then the game is worth four points.  Tie games split the points.

Again I will point out the ridiculous nature of this system.

Faribault and Owatonna each had 9 wins in the conference.  Owatonna had a tie and Faribault did not.  The Huskies finished with 31 points, Falcons 22.

Let's celebrate the just concluded Winter Olympics.

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