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The top guys move on while some guys decide to play AA and/or HS instead. It happens, it's nothing out of the ordinary, and it shouldn't diminish the good runs those team's had.

In the instance of 14u 2009 and 16u 2007, these local organizations are just trying to get to nationals. If there are aaa players coming to try to get on a team that they really think is national bound and either got cut or think a certain team really could make it to nationals, a team won’t cut someone new coming in that will help them achieve that for someone who has been there 8 years. That’s just the reality of it. A lot of times at that age, kids that have been playing aaa are sick of the travel and want more of a social life heading into high school and will end up just staying on AA teams anyway.

So when all these AAA kids move in and displace good players who are loyal to their organization, is it really the right thing to do and load up with all these outsiders when the odds favor the one and done scenario where next year’s AAA opportunity will be their next destination?? In the process you’ve lost a nucleus of your team but you potentially have lost the talent LOYAL to your organization. Thus losing the ability to field a given birth year. is blowing your load to be all in on the obsession of going to nationals worth it for your organization if it means losing the long term viability to ice a competitive team of LOYAL players that can have a shot year in and year out? I think some organizations are potentially playing with fire.

This is absolutely true. Also, the orgs want the players, because players pay to play. You'd never see an org agreeing to combine teams with another org unless it would be under their own label.

Agreed, and if you have a kid that is true AA level I would stay away from any organization that is having a supplemental tryout to fill their AA teams. NP, Allegheny and SCIR would be safe bets to field teams with true AA level players. Word is players that got cut by Esmark / Vengeance are finding homes at these orgs AA teams. I hope the parents of "former" AAA teams that bought all of the AAA swag are OK with their kids playing at the AA level. My guess is most of the kids are good with it, mom and dad not so much. Hopefully they will realize playing at the AA level with a chance to go to Nationals is better than having their kid play for a diluted AAA team that wins ten games in a season and is out of the running for MidAms qualification by November. Look no further than Preds or Icemen teams from last season.

Why combine them when you can do this instead?