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Can we please reserve talk about calling ANY U12 or below team a "powerhouse" until they at least reach U14 and checking comes into play?

It’s missing an A. Or two.

I agree with you 100% AA Major and Minor makes a whole lot of sense. That's probably why it won't happen.

12 year old “powerhouse teams” ? ? teams ranked below 50 in tier 1 are basically very good AA teams. When you get into that 75 and further range, they turn into mediocre AA teams that the majority of top 30 AA teams will beat. I just noticed (U18) team Ohio tier 2 AA beat the vengeance tier 1 “AAA” team. It’s all about the extra “A” for parents, it’s not so much the kids.

Going BY at 10U or 12U is a good idea if you are a larger organization with enough players at each year to field teams. Going BY would be bordering on the impossible for smaller organizations like Beaver County, Altoona, Indiana, State College, etc. There is also a misconception that being BY equals a higher level of play, it does not especially at 10U/12U where the skill/talent level between AA teams can be enormous, and that is not even considering the skill/talent level between the players on a given team. When the skill gap from team to team becomes too large, that is when you are going to see teams go independent at the younger ages. I have the feeling from talking to parents that the frustration is with teams being misplaced within a given division and games not being competitive. I think we can all agree that nobody wants to get up at 6AM on a Saturday/Sunday morning just to go to a rink and watch your players team either win or lose 7-0.

I don’t think renaming a turd makes it any less of a turd. I mean at what point does it stop? Theoretically we could just rename every level AA and have a AA-AA Major all the way down to a AA-B Minor and it’s still the same problem. And I truly do appreciate that you want to improve the product.

I disagree with this only in and of as much as I have found the rankings REALLY helpful in finding teams + or -30 of mine in the rankings to play for very competitive games.

But My kid is too good to play in PAHL,,,,,,,,

What a shame, but I've seen it all before. So they'll play eleven year-olds from 4 hour drive away, and backfill their schedule with local tournaments like MyHockey A2 and HockeyTime A2 in which they wind up playing PAHL teams anyway. It's pretty contemptible to think that eleven year-olds can't develop in PAHL, and morally bankrupt to convince others of the same. The good news ahead is that the average hockey parent is pretty smart will eventually figure this BS out. Sometimes you just have so spend enough of your money and your time to realize what's going on.

Because then they aren't "better" than A major. Never mind that they aren't AA and will probably be in for a long season. But the water cooler talk must not get that in-depth.

MHR is picky when it comes to naming minor year birth year teams. The roster must be verified with them. It's a whole process. There are more than three 12 BY teams, just not all have jumped through the hoops yet. And I think you're right about 2012 and 2010 BY teams struggling against mixed teams. One of the reasons that the Aviators 2010 team initially wanted to play PAHL AA, but after some scrimmages they realize it's just not going to happen. So instead of dropping down to A Major Black or lower, they'll just go independent. That's the problem I'm seeing. (I don't know any of this first hand about the aviators, just heard it from someone so could be wrong.)

Exactly. I know MHR takes flak for the chest-thumping parents who just focus on which team is above who. But, those rankings are a real godsend for any diligent coach or manager trying to find appropriate competition. Even among teams well below the top 50, there is a considerable range of talent and MHR can help a lot in figuring the schedule out. Do not get rid of the rankings because of idiots.

Great article and pictures. Thanks Brian!

A step to end this independent AA and faux AAA BS is to remove all Tier 2 and AAA rankings below No. 50 (and thats’s a stretch) from My Hockey Rankings. There’s no point in ranking these teams as they are irrelevant on a national scale.

I had a deja vu moment but this time it was AA instead of AAA.

With PIA having new ownership, who knows what will happen in the future. Black Bear may introduce their own programming and push some organizations out. Pittsburgh has too many places for the disgruntled with stars in their eyes (pun intended) to go. These BY teams don't work in the long run in our small market. That nice team of 07s that you think will stay together forever, won't. Butler Valley may have thought that group didn't have the talent to play at AA or as a BY in Butler Valley's opinion and refused to hear otherwise. It falls apart eventually, but in the immediate, it hurts an organization, who might have thought this would not be good for the development of the kids. Sorry, but parents shouldn't determine the makeup of a team, where the team should be placed and whether there is BY. "But people should be able to play where ever they want..." sorry, no. The Aviators are a perfect example of a disgruntled dad keeping things alive. I have to caveat that with it's been a few years since my boys played an Aviators team, but I never liked having an Aviators team in my division. They don't have a home sheet so it is problematic to schedule with them. Games don't go off smoothly or get cancelled, again due to their ice issues. And the player/parent behavior was frequently atrocious... because that kind of team attracts the disgruntled. They were fond of sandbagging tournaments, adding AAA players when playing in a division of A Major teams. Pittsburgh could use less of these places to go. Parents have too much power here and I think it hurts overall development and the hockey community as a result. I mean, most of you can't even skate, but somehow you are an expert in how to best develop your kid.