JMS Hockey

FROM THE STRIB Minnesota’s first-ever online high school set up to provide intensive hockey training has produced a girls’ team that is charging toward next week’s state tournament. Regarded as “a new animal walking among the herd” by one high school coach, Achiever Academy is the top seed in Section 4 heading into Tuesday night’s Class 1A semifinal game. The private school offers students, including those on a boys’ team also playing well this season, up to three hours of hockey training in the morning and an online academic curriculum in the afternoon. That unusual approach is raising questions in hockey circles about Achiever’s legitimacy as a high school program even as its new owners, who took over the struggling business in January, scramble to provide answers. Full story here: http://www.mngirlshockeyhub.com/news_article/show/348591

UPDATE: MSHSL reviewing eligibility of some of Achiever's girls' hockey players Amid a growing outcry and with a state tournament berth just one victory away, Achiever Academy and the Minnesota State High School League spent Wednesday trying to answer eligibility questions about six of the girls’ hockey players on the online high school team. Achiever Academy had “conversations with families” on Wednesday to verify eligibility information, said Matthew Resch, the school’s lawyer. The school also forwarded information to league officials, who are in the process of reviewing it. Eligibility questions intensified Tuesday when the league forwarded Achiever an unsigned e-mail listing seven players’ names and information from Internet searching, including property records and screenshots of girls’ Twitter accounts. The e-mail, obtained by the Star Tribune, cited players being ineligible either because parents lived out of state or families did not relocate when players transferred to Achiever, a private online school that offers intensified hockey training. The e-mail suggested that one player recently moved out of state. Strib story continues here: http://www.startribune.com/sports/245302081.html

Achiever Academy withdraws from playouffs: http://www.startribune.com/sports/preps/245432791.html Achiever Academy pulled its girls’ hockey team out of Thursday night’s scheduled section championship game after coming under scrutiny for using as many as six players whose eligibility was called into question. The private online high school, which offers intensified hockey training, and the Minnesota State High School League issued a joint statement Thursday afternoon after meeting for much of the week to try and resolve the concerns. (FYI -- this means our JMS game at STIA tonight will be earlier!)