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I'm going to take a guess that at the upper ages, especially 18u, that kids are deciding to play for school only. And why not? I think it's hard for a lot of kids to do both, or have little enough interest in anything else to have the time to do both. Now if these club teams just played PAHL and a few tournaments, that's one thing. You can do 20 games, maybe 4 tournament weekends, 20 school games, and the practices to go with it if you wanted to. But add another 35-45 independent games to that, and now you're playing more than an NHL'er. And going to school, and trying to have a life in there on top of it. Makes it not very easy. They come to the realization that chasing PAHL/Independant isn't worth what they might have to give up. Hockey is supposed to be a fun thing, maybe there are other things they enjoy, too. Whether it's spending time with friends, a part time job, spending a lot of time looking at colleges, wanting a few nights to play video games, or whatever else they could be doing instead of being at the rink 6 nights a week. Friends going out to the movies this weekend? Girlfriend wants to go to the school dance? Too bad, you have to drive to Philadelphia or Columbus to play a handful of games to count towards your My Hockey Rankings. It's stressful, it consumes a big chunk of free time, you might get split up from your friends you like playing with, higher costs, etc. And it becomes increasingly apparent for just about everybody that there is no scholarship to Notre Dame or getting drafted to the OHL coming any time soon. Or alternatively, you can play for school. Still be part of a team, still play good hockey, and actually get a crowd engaged in the game, other than half a dozen dads yelling over the glass at you. And unlike the independant teams, you're actually playing for something. You're at school half of your day, 5 days a week with your peers. It's more likely some of those kids you go to school with care more about talking about and cheering for their school team than the Pittsburgh Icemen, or the Allegheny Badgers did over the weekend. I don't know if I'm right, but my guess is that is contributing to where these players have gone.

I follow your argument, but I disagree entirely. It's been my experience that closed tryouts are far better for both the organization and the players. I do not agree with the implication that most organizations are holding closed tryouts to hide the actual potential playing level of the resulting teams from parents. From an org's perspective, you don't have parents yelling at their kids during tryouts, or accosting evaluators during or after tryouts about their kids. From a player's perspective, observing closed tryouts both as a parent and as a coach/evaluator for years has convinced me that most kids play better at tryouts when their parents aren't watching and preparing their withering car coaching speech the whole time. Most parents have no idea how to evaluate their player relative to their peers. That's just a sad fact. There are many things about how organizations run tryouts that I have issues with, but I am absolutely convinced that the benefits of closed tryouts far outweigh any costs.

This^^^^^ PPE coaches have been included in the evaluation process and lo and behold, many gold buckets always seem to advance ahead of those that were more deserving. I think MidAms are a sham and a complete waste.

Exactly. It's funny that we are all having productive discussions here, with each of us offering suggestions -- right or wrong -- as to what the problem may be. The more I read, however, the more I feel it's just a combination of everything. It's not just one reason. You guys are saying eleven declines is abnormal, but I know of at least three teams that had eight declines or more. I honestly don't know why. I agree that you normally see one or two declines on teams. We are seeing crazy declines, movement like we've never seen, and supplementals after supplementals because of it. I can say it's sad, though, because it's the good kids and their families who ultimately suffer.

For ease of reference, I started a new topic for teams to post supplemental tryouts. SCIR will have the following supplemental tryouts at Alpha Ice Complex: 12U Mixed Year Thursday 5/11/2023 - 6:00 PM We have room on our mixed year rosters for additional skaters and goalies 16U A Major and A Minor Thursday 5/11/2023 - 8:00 PM We have openings on both of our 16U Mixed Year teams including one goalie position 18U Mixed Year Monday 5/15/2023 - 6:00 PM We have player positions available on our 18u Mixed Year 1 team Please contact coaching@scirhockey.org for all of the above or fill out the player inquiry form

Tryout season has been made way more difficult than it needs to be.

PAHL would solve a lot if issues if they had AA Major and AA Minor divisions at 12U, 14U (already exists), and 16U. Prevents the scenario mentioned here and also prevents peewee minor teams from going independent, which is when that nonsense starts to happen. PAHL needs to understand that the birth year model is here to stay whether they like it or not. Adapt or become irrelevant.

At most organizations, the top teams are picked by the coach. They can say it is by a committee, but it really is up to the coach. And the coach always considers more things than just what the player did on the ice during the tryout. So, having a great tryout isn't enough because the coach definitely knows if the parents are crazy or if player isn't coachable. Most of the times the picks can be made quickly.

I guess it means there is a new Sheriff in town.

bet they left bc their little johnny might get seen at PPE. PPE is known nation wide not matter who they lose to. 99 percent of teams west of say MICHIGAN have zero clue who the PGH Vengeance even are.

Well where should I start? I’ll reply to your comments from bottom up. The locker room/new facility is a joke. The gym is small and half assed. The locker room is actually cool but the other locker rooms are a waste of space. It’s not even finished yet and they promised it last summer. What a joke. but they raised the cost $2k. Power struggle? Hahaha that dude that ran it but wasn’t running it but thought he was. You know the meathead everyone can’t stand. I heard he finally got the boot. The money man has an ego bigger than anyone I ever ever met. A group of us tried to help recruit for all levels and he said f everyone who doesn’t naturally want to come here. The other two weren’t bad guys and just left because their kids deserved to play on a real team. The 08’s are at the age where they need to move on or they will be stuck in a broken system. The 09’s had issues and collapsed before the season started. It goes deeper but I won’t post that here. no one talks about the 06’s, 07’s, 10’s, 11’s that all had issues and disbanded too. The 06’s dropped off the face of earth and D that runs the place didn’t give a shit. The 07’s fell to a AA status or maybe even A when they forced the coach out. The 2010’s lost their 2 best players and kept a coach that everyone hated. Speaking of that coach he forced out 9 kids in 3 years that were all better than most of their current team. But they were better than his son so no wonder they were forced out. It became pretty clear why they lost their 2 star players this year. Then you have the 2011’s that were the top team in the country and the entire team left 2 years ago. Then this year they were supposed to give Berky the 2010’s and that would have saved that team. There were kids coming from other states to play with the 2010’s until D decided to keep the coach and force Berky to coach the 11’s. We feel bad for him. One of PGHs best trainers got screwed by the organization. Give it time and more birth years will fold under the red buckets. The main problem with that place was the meat head that left. He tarnished their reputation all over the country on all levels. Their lack of communication, organization and not caring about developing the kids is why people left. If they would have tried or even cared a tad, they could have top 10 teams for 08’s, 09’s, 10’s, 11’s and more. Now they are lower than Esmark. it could have been a great thing for people but instead it’s the joke of the city.

“For anyone crying foul on the whole process, throw out some specific ways it could be improved. What are your ideas?” You can start with independent evaluators that have zero interest in their former players advancing. The fact that PPE coaches dominate this process is a joke. I’ve seen it multiple times at the U14, U15 and U16 levels. Get these “evaluators” to swap districts or bring in those that are not tied to any of the organizations. Everything looks fair when the cuts go from 100+ to 60. When it gets really fun is seeing the list of kids that advance to natty camp and see the sea of yellow buckets. I will stick by what I said - it is a sham.

I don't know much about this, and really don't care to. What I will tell you is that I know some kids on those lists who were made to look stupid against some A Major and AA kids when they played against each other at Varsity/JV/Middle School this past season. I saw the shaming occur live with my own eyes, so that makes me question the whole process/purpose.

There are usually 7+ evaluators over the course of the weekend. And the evaluators don't know the kids. It's a good process.

I heard that same thing when an 8U parent during an evaluation skate said they went to 3 different 8U tryouts.

Honestly, the AA team you just described may compete perfectly fine in PAHL. Just not beyond that. It's that diluted. But I hear you. Maybe they won't place in AA. I don't know about that with closed try outs. Maybe you have a point. But kids seem to relax and play better without parents watching. I have never watched my kid try out, so I don't quite relate to this need. Do you really think a parent who has never played hockey before really needs to be in there to then crap all over the try out process? Parents are truly just awful these days. It's not everyone, but enough made that bed with behavior and are working to have it so that they can't watch games either. I don't have much sympathy on that. These are volunteers you are abusing. Working g on no refs too.

I expect this to be a very popular thread this year

Most times that is a group of delusional parents of players who are NOT AA level but the parents will never accept. An organization will eventually agree to host their tryouts and when all is said and done, they are either placed in A Major where they belong or get into AA and have an awful season. Some orgs will always have AA teams at all levels that matter and some will be facilitators of the delusion. AA Orgs North Pitt Allegheny SCIR Preds Southpointe Foxes Most others are a year to year crap shoot

A lot of people on here like to bash the "extra A", "faux AAA" teams, and parents just wanting to call their kids AAA. And there is plenty of reason to criticize this phenomena. But I think what MANY of these players and parents are really seeking is just a higher level of training and competition that these teams bring. What I think you get on a typical "A" team, and even some "AA" teams is an inexperienced coach, a couple shared ice practices, no dryland or video and a couple moderately competitive local games a week. The roster is likely to have a few kids that truly want to put in the work to get better, a few kids that are happy with their current level of play, and a few kids that would be just as happy skipping practices to play basketball or video games. So you aren't getting that same competitiveness of 18 AAA players all pushing each other because they all think they are on a path to The Show. So if you're one of those kids/parents that wants something "more" then you're going to be attracted to these mediocre AAA teams. And if you're a kid that played a couple years of top level hockey and then was cut, it's probably difficult to get excited to play and train with Mikey's Dad who just started coaching hockey. I think if you had a few local organizations that practiced and trained like AAA programs but didn't fly to Chicago to get their butts kicked every weekend there wouldn't be problems filling rosters.

I think you say that like it's a bad thing, that they should still be deliberating on who to select. If after 2 or 3 days of tryouts you don't have the results by the time you hit the driveway, you can assume something is amiss. The coach and evaluators know who they want before the players even leave the ice. If it takes several days for them to give you results then you can assume you were their second or third choice. Think of it as getting a wedding invitation the week before a wedding. They did everything they could to find someone better but in the end settled for you. And shame on these organizations for keeping families wondering for several days while other tryout opportunities pass the kids by. Personally I think they should do away with the charade of "tryouts." Have a couple open skates maybe, but let the kids be free agents. Have a 2 week signing period. The coaches offer spots to the kids they want until the roster is filled. The best kids still get multiple offers and make their choice. The weaker kids fill in what's left.

Yes, the old hornets are the Pens Elite.

Is there an award for having the most supplemental tryouts? If so the Aviators win by a land slide!!

This is the kind of thing that devalues this board. You make a statement like this as if you know it to be fact and it's 100% false. Tier 1 coaches are allowed to evaluate the kids they have just finished coaching, but not allowed to evaluate kids they will be coaching next season. They know the tier 1 kids better than anybody.

Listen up, orgs! I have the next big moneymaker— Elite Learn-To-Skate. It's a gold mine waiting to happen.

My quick takeaways without dissecting - there are kids who aren't on the list who should be (no idea why they may have declined or whatever) and there are kids who are on these lists who were literally cut from their teams which tells me they shouldn't be on the list.

If you believe that this will get better in time....... here's one that will change that opinion. I can confirm that 8U parents(nutjobs) are declining 8U placements. 8U....... declining placements That's............................. 8U ............................... declining................................. their placement

SCIR is looking for the following: 18U A Major - We have player positions available on our 18u Mixed Year 1 team 16U A Major and A Minor - We have openings on both of our 16U Mixed Year teams including one goalie position 12U and 10U Mixed Year All Levels - We have room on our rosters for additional skaters and goalies at our younger mixed year teams. Please contact coaching@scirhockey.org for all of the above or fill out the player inquiry form

Some of these posts are quite amusing. From a view on the inside, here was no internal sabotage. The person in question has two other kids in the organization and is a head coach of his youngest son's 2010 team. He was also part of the group that did the rebrand/rename from Rink Rats while I was doing designs. I think he just asked his oldest kid which team he wanted to play on and it ended up it was the one his friends were still at. Every other family that declined made their own separate decision.

As a few people have pointed out, the significant amount of declines is suspect, 1 or 2 is normal, 11 is abnormal. The Rebellion 06 squad was a solid group that had been together for a few seasons. It sounds like about half the team would have been returning players and half new players. That sounds reasonable considering the Rebellion team was on a similar MHR rating level as the Preds "AAA" team and was one of the strongest AA teams south of Pittsburgh. If some of the "AAA" players felt snubbed, that just shows you the entitlement... The Preds "AAA" team would have been the 5th best Tier 2 AA team in Mid-Am last season. From what I can gather, the majority of the declines appeared to have landed at Mt. Lebo, which had a low turnout for their original tryouts, which were also held the same weekend as the Rebellion tryouts... So the Rebellion went from 50+ kids at tryouts with a strong returning core, to completely folding in a week... While Lebo went from a few returning kids and low numbers at their initial tryouts to swelling with numbers and having a solid team in a week... Something definitely happened behind the scenes to cause such a drastic shift.

After watching this tryout season debacle from so many angles and age groups, I have what I think may be a HUGE reason behind the craziness: A few years ago only a couple organizations -- mainly AAA -- had CLOSED TRYOUTS. Now everyone closes tryouts, and I think THAT is a large part of the problem (at least at the A-level). I get the reasoning behind it: "We don't want to deal with the parents saying 'my Bobby was better than that other kid who was selected!', so let's keep the parents out." BUT think of it from the other perspective: If parents can't see in that rink, they are blindly following either the word of an organization that will say anything to keep their kids, or their kid themself (and we know how objective THEY are). The parents don't know how many players actually tried out, they don't know the skill level of the kids who tried out, and they are always second-guessing themselves. And yes, A-level parents, too. So no one knows if they are safe, and keep moving on. Everything is fluid, and parents are glad to eat a commitment fee to ensure their player is on a solid team. My guess is that there are still a lot of orphans out there, so I agree with the poster who said it may make sense to start a thread for orphan players looking for homes. I still get contacted (just got two more today) from panicked parents asking me if I knew where their kid could play. In my opinion, closed tryouts are freaking stupid to the Nth degree. If you are who you say you are, what do you have to hide?

On @Sauceypoint - don't want to quote because it is too long. Someone made a good point a couple weeks ago that rotating third liners isn't going to make or break any team (substitute d-pairing If you want or fourth line if you have a huge team). I really feel like that's where teams can build loyalty. Obviously you get a first line/pair stud you need to put him on the team and probably cut a third line/pair and you have a substantial upgrade. You don't need to replace a third liner who has been on your team for 2+ years for another third liner. Most likely won't do anything for you. Goalies I just feel bad for because they are going to be replaced when someone better or perceived to be better comes along no matter what. Going further, the lower the level of play, the lower the stakes should be. If my kid is playing lower a major or a minor hockey why not surround yourself with friends and have a good time. Forget replacing anyone.

I think parents and all these AAA options have created this try out monster, quite frankly, and it is not quite fair to blame organizations. What do you really want them to do? If the goal is to put together a National bound team and it was advertised as such, then that has to be the goal, to win. But....you do need to cast a side eye at someone who has...tried out every year and never accepted a spot on your one team. Or not played AA for years. F those kids, I don't care how good they are, they never stay and you then annoy your long time family who frequently walks away. Stuff like that. It's hard to know what people's intentions are. No one can read minds. But those ones are easy red flags. Maybe make a call first to those players, ask if they are going accept the spot before you announce the team. It's a lot of work. You hear conflicting complaints on this thread.....that loyalty is not rewarded. That spots should not be offered to AAA kids. Then you hear complaints that teams are hand picked and try outs aren't fair. Well, if you are rewarding loyalty rather than picking the best that came to try out, then yes, they are hand picked. And the team that goes to Nationals should be good, otherwise they are going to get their butts handed to them in Nationals. It is very possible around here that Mid Am teams won't be able to hang at Nationals with how bad AA is becoming. Look at Nationals results from 14u last year. And....you would be hard pressed to find any organization in Pittsburgh that doesn't already have an idea of who they want. You are usually trying out for a few spots if you are an unknown to an organization, so you better be good and stand out, because bubble players are interchangeable with many other players, usually, and quite frankly, those spots should be offered to the family that has stayed with the organization. When close, tie goes to the loyal. It just should, because again, you risk that unknown player walking AND you lose the long time player. It causes lots of damage. In an ideal world, you only go to try outs where you want to play for that team. But....if the try out for the team you really want is far away, I know people use tryouts to keep their kid on the ice. If you don't, then they don't look as good as the kids who were doing this. It is sometimes really hard to find ways to keep on the once the season ends, particularly as your kid gets older. And not everyone can afford to pay for privates. I think the organizations really struggle to field appropriate AA teams and it is a multi faceted problem. For the first time ever, my family chose not to play on the lowly A team when not offered a spot on the top team at an organization. It used to be that your kid could develop on those teams and I would say you should take that spot and not be offended. But everything is so diluted, that this thought is no longer the case. The drop is sometimes huge between the top teams and the next team down. So no....not paying thousands of dollars for that. Hockey isn't just for fun. It also has to be for development. Winning comes after development, but it has to be there and appropriate for your player. Otherwise just save your dollars for when they can play beer league. PAHL is headed to no AA, quite frankly. The independent teams are going to start winning Mid Ams.

DJ Stubenrauch

They cut Johnny Gaudreau years ago and they make light of it as if he wasn't actually good enough and "slipped through the cracks". RJ, you seem to be the new expert on the block but your naivete is obvious. I don't feel as though my player was slighted. he made the 68 camp as someone in the top 25% or so but was never going to be selected to go further and that's okay. He got to evaluate himself against those players and knew exactly where he stood. He knew Mitch Miller was a freaking stud but he also knew he was a scumbag for what he did to that kid. Yes, they knew, everyone knew wayyy back then but MidAm didn't care. Send him through. Lots of lessons to be learned if you pay attention.

I will 100% agree with that based on what I witnessed when my son did these mid-am tryouts. Also, the kids that for sure knew they were making it didn't even try hard, and still made it. If they have pre-selected people it becomes a big waste of time and money for parents who's kids won't even be looked at. Felt that it was an honor to be picked by the org to go to the midam tryouts but thought it was a waste of time. Reminded me of our high school tryouts which were also a total joke of pre-selected nonsense. Literally 12-14 kids dicked around at those and still made the varsity team.

I thought I'd add my two cents regarding the mid-am camp tryout process with hopes of helping future families navigate the situation. Full disclaimer, my son is an '08 and this was his second year at the tryout...He did not advance to the mid-am camp either year. I can only comment knowledgably on the 2008 group. My understanding (which could be incorrect) is that this year the number of players a coach could nominate was loosely determined by the team's ranking at the end of the year. Obviously, with two strong national-finalist squads in the Pens and Vengeance, both teams deservedly had many players attend. I say loosely determined, however, because there were a couple of lower-ranked Western PA organizations that seemed to have a disproportionate number of players in attendance. I'm not fully certain whether or not something changed from last year, but in 2022 we noticed nearly entire teams present for some low-ranked WPA squads. Fortunately, that wasn't the case this year. My son's team had eight players at the most recent tryout. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that it was clear that there were a number of high quality players that were not among the roughly 175 players that attended the tryout. Also worth mentioning is that as part of the registration process parents are asked how many points the player scored in the most recent season, as well as where, and what level he/she played in the most recent season and seasons prior. As a coach and evaluator myself (not hockey), I fully understand that tryout/Evaluation process is difficult and flawed by nature. That said, I was disappointed to see only ONE evaluator present during each of my son's four games. The evaluation areas were clearly marked and it was easy to determine that just one evaluator was trying to take notes on roughly 35 players across a 45-minute running-clock game. Evaluating is difficult...it's imperfect...it's stressful...But having the expectation that ONE person can objectively and effectively evaluate 30+ players, let alone in such a short time, is absurd. I can't speak to whether or not the single-evaluator model was in place for all games, but can only speak to my son's games. While I watched many games that weren't my son's, I didn't pay attention to the evaluator situation for those games. Unfortunately, I don't recall the evaluation situation in 2022. With all of that in mind, I firmly believe that a player's full body of work should be a factor (clearly not the only one) in situations like this with his/her most recent season's performance given the most weight. If there were five evaluators present for each game, I'd suggest the weight should be low; but with just one evaluator present the weight has to be higher. Part of the problem is that the talent divide among all players trying out is ENORMOUS! Contrary to popular belief, the hockey is not very good at the tryout. This is where it seems clear that certain organizations and individuals (namely coaches) have superior, and sometimes undue, influence. The list of players advancing in 2022 supported that, and by looking at the '08 list of advancing players this year, it seems clear as well. Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of players on the '08 list are fully deserving, but there are more than a few head scratchers on there--Players that looked completely lost. Certain organizations/teams had an improbable number of players that advanced to the camp. It's no coincidence that those organizations/teams had a strong presence and influence at the tryout. tl;dr Tryouts are imperfect in nature and evaluators have a very difficult job. Mid-am makes the job more difficult by not having enough evaluators present for each game. Not all of the region's best players attend the mid-am camp tryout. Certain organizations/teams/coaches have more influence in the mid-am district than others. If making the mid-am camp is your lone goal find an organization/team/coach with mid-am influence. One goalie showed up for the first night, played 12 minutes, faced three shots, and then left the tryout. He advanced to the mid-am camp. Is he deserving based on his body of work? Absolutely!! Is his selection "fair" based on the tryout? You be the judge. Anecdotal evidence as discussed by many parents suggests that if you're a forward and you get your name in the goal column a couple of times...you're going to advance. All goals are reported to the evaluator in real time.

Yeah, I’d be upset too if at 15u a coach recruited my kid to play for him and then after committing find out he won’t be the coach (unless for a good reason). 15u is a big year and the coach is a huge part of selecting the right team for your player. I’d be even more upset to find out it was to accommodate a younger BY.

I’ll tell you a story from some moons ago - there was a culver defenseman who was the star at the 15U camp (kids that just finished their 14U season). Every PPE kid was moved on, along with 90% of the PPE black kids (if memory is correct only two didn’t make it) this was the Morehouse birth year. This kid from culver was clearly the best player on the ice for this birth year. He ended up in the ushl when he turned 17, while MOST of these PPE players eventually got cut by PPE the following season or just finished out at ppe, didn’t make it anywhere. There was a few that left PPE on their own and have had some great success. culver raised hell about this situation. 3 PPE heads were the ONLY evaluators for this birth year camp at Sylvania. If you’ve been around a little im sure you know who these 3 people were (one was a dad) Back then, At this age there was no national team camp tryout to make (is there now ?) Kids were just moved onto a second “celebration camp” with the best players making it to “all star weekend” then it was over. I can’t be sure of the exact 100% detailed outcome (I truely can’t remember) but for the most part I THINK every PPE kid was cut within the first 2 days (most on day 1) I THINK none made it to allstar weekend (there has to be a record of this somewhere ?) word at the the time - usa hockey was pissed off about the culver kid & pissed off at mid am. They sent a message by cutting all these ppe kids on day 1. I really do wish I could remember all the details. Regadless, sounds like nothing has changed over the years.

That kid was fun to watch when I went out to Johnstown with my brother. He's got too much personality to be a hockey player 😂 In all seriousness talking to his dad I think they have multi-kids in multi-sports. Might not be something he would be interested in anyway.

You missed at least 2 SHAHA 08s

He did say varsity and JV and... I would expect AAA players to be worse at checking from my own experience. They seem to be soft and expect not to be hit because they are used to being in games where the physical game is undervalued.

And I'm guessing some players that absolutely should have been there were not nominated and thus not even there, and some were nominated that are questionable. If you are familiar with those groups and that list there are some names you expect to see, definitely several from this pgh 09 group that are missing (and assume did not go because other wise they would be on the list) and some on the list that would make you shm and wonder.

Not all nominated kids get to go.

I heard that Tier 1 coaches are the evaluators and it is pretty much of a predetermined list. Everyone wears their colors and are easily tied to their organizations. But it is a good chance for some kids to be seen.

I re-read your statement… Some of these allegations seem ridiculous. "Internal sabotage"... c'mom man! If you’re going to throw some of these things out into the wind, you better be willing and able to provide some detail and context. If not, your credibility is trash.

That makes sense considering that Mt Lebo did not have a 16UAA team last year. I believe their 16UA team was pretty good. I know their 18UAA team was very good! I know people in the South don't like to go North so I couldn't figure out where those kids from SP went, Will be interesting to see how many 18UAA teams play in PAHL this year. There were 9 last year.

I've been out of this for a long time, but it seems to me that the faux AAA stuff is also partially in response to there being 6-8 levels of A hockey. I hear "lowly A" a lot, obviously people think their kids are not A level players. I get that you don't want 20-0 blowouts in A, but when you have 6-8 divisions in A, you are probably trying to slice it too thin. I get why they don't have B at older age groups anymore, they think kids will quit instead of playing B. The whole birthyear idea has significantly complicated it too. A long time ago that birthyear idea was only for the high level teams, so I get it. Your team is "better" if it is a birthyear team. But I think a part of the problem is the vast majority of the teams are forced into some flavor of A level hockey. The best A level teams in a lot of cases really are good enough to be AA teams, but because PAHL has to fill up every on of the 6-8 A level brackets, they have to play "lowly A". Then everyone gets angry and creates hybrid and faux teams and makes it worse. Personally, I think there should not be any birthyear teams permitted at the A level. You should just let more teams into AA, which I know is the opposite of what people here think. If you want to be a birth year team, then you automatically are in AA. I don't care if they deserve to be AA or not. It simplifies the process a little, because you know if you make a birthyear team, you are playing AA. Besides, the birthyear thing is generally a sign that the team is considered more serious, which is another complaint around here. I get that too. If you are more serious about hockey, you want to be on a team of like-minded people. I realize this would mean some bad AA teams will be out there. If they get destroyed every weekend, fine. That's what they asked for. Someone has to be the worst team in every division. Way back on the "old days", i.e. 90s and 00s (the years, not the birthyears of the kids), B was inexperienced players. A was less serious but better than house level and they played PAHL schedules and 2-4 tournaments a year. AA was where all of the serious players went and they played a lot more games than A. Of course, yes, there was AAA too, some of which was legit, and some was not so much. On a side note, it is funny to me that the Pittsburgh Stars, now known as Esmark, were originally a "faux" AAA team started by a doctor who found a group of players angry at the Amateur Penguins. The Am Pens are now the Vengeance and probably now they are the "faux" AAA team of those two.

They did not field a single team. I've heard conflicting stories as to why. First being they cut most of their players for "AAA" players, and those "AAA" players bailed after accepting their placements for a different team. I have also heard they cut better players to accommodate their returning players, and that's why those "AAA" players left. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. It's been amusing to watch how absolutely absurd this 18U tryout season has been. I have never seen it this bad. That's a good coaching staff at the Rebellion that now inexplicably doesn't have a team to coach.

Brian (bb2j3z) designs the social media and does a great job :)

Preds definitely have issues with Ice time for AA teams. Beware and ask questions about ice time. I know of more than one AA Preds team that was lucky to get a half ice slot per week and maybe a full ice slot once a month. If you check their website no where do they tell you what practice time you will get. Was thinking about trying out there but unless you are Faux AAA you won't get ice time. Buyer beware!!!!