James Gatz

There are plenty of ways the tryout season could work. The current model is basically a free agency free for all. I am not sure that's not the best. It let's the kids play where they want to play and lets organizations build teams. Players have to be selective with where they tryout and have commitment fees at stake if they want to play the field. The system isn't perfect, but it works. Thinking through potential alternatives each have their own issues. The independent teams add a layer of complexity, for a league like the PAHL, they could have some league rules tryouts/offers. (of course those rules would have to approved by organizations, who are not likely to vote against their interest). Option 1--An offer clearinghouse. It could work like residency placements for doctors. Players tryout at different places. Players and organizations submit priority list to the clearinghouse and the clearinghouse matches players with teams. Players have no choice but to play for that team. Does anyone really want this and trust the clearinghouse? Talk about taking away a coaches role in building a team. Option 2--Impose geographical boundaries on team formations. Any takers? Option 3--Schedule tryouts so there are few overlaps and require organizations to keep offers open until league-wide commitment date. No organization would vote for this and it likely would lead to lots of supplementals. I'm sure there are other approaches, but I can't think of any that improve on the current approach. The current approach maximizes the individual player's freedom of choice. Some of those choices have consequences...

Look no further than Michael Bunting as a shining example. Never played AAA Midget until his final year of eligibility.

@zam hits on an important point, and that's that parents of "tenured" AAA players are not always accepting of new additions if they were historically AA/PAHL players. An established AAA team loses a couple players for whatever reason. As they replace them, other returning families assume there will be a drop-off and then one or two more pull out. At some point there is a run on the bank as more leave what they see as a sinking ship to find a chair somewhere else before the music stops. Its not necessarily that there are not customers, it is sometimes that existing/returning customers, don't accept change.

But in the Mighty Ducks TV series, they seemed to do away with districting and went with a tryout model where kids that enrolled in camps and private lessons had a leg up on making the Ducks. A few of us could benefit from listening to the speech about the "the stakes could not be lower" from the first episode of the TV series.

Paid coaches, skills/goalie training, dryland, 12-15 summer practices, 2-3 weekly practices in season, 50-55 game schedule, 4-6 showcases, HUDL video, nicer locker room for Frozen Pond, THF schedule, feeling of superiority over Tier 2 Icemen and Yetis.

I am having a hard time thinking of any organization around here with more than 3-4 travel teams per age group. The deepest programs can, and should, field multiple 10U teams. The numbers thin as in the upper age groups through attrition. very few programs are big enough to have a robust house program. I don’t see that many problems with local travel. The trend towards AHF/non-local travel at the youngest age groups is worth discussing, but even those organizations doing this have no more than one team per birth year.

Goalie development is unique and lonely journey. I am a big proponent of supplementing with private lessons. There are a handful of people out there offering private goalie instruction in all four cardinal directions from downtown. Some of the organizations also offer 2x/month goalie clinics. They are okay, but not as useful as private lessons from my experience. When it comes down to the individual teams, much less the different organizations, your mileage will vary greatly when it comes to what the coaching staff knows and does when it comes to goalie coaching. Some do provide coaching during practice and others provide virtually zero instruction. It is a position where the kid has to be a self-motivated, dedicated individual to coach themselves a fair amount. It can be a struggle to apply what you learn in private lessons/clinics to practice and a battle to reinforce good habits vs. forgetting all they learned in the lessons/clinics. I don't think there is any one organizatoin that does it best; the individual team/coaching staff matter most.

And for most of PAHL organizations I've looked at, their advertised costs disclose that the numbers of tournaments played are decided by the individual teams and the costs for those are extra. The advertised price generally just covers practice and the PAHL schedule.

I think you are right. The main problem with manager input was the FPP screw-ups. Eliminate that and restore the manager input. Problem solved.

I don't even know if this is correct this year. For at least the level I follow, everyone's game count stopped in late December/Early January. That's not even being input any more.

The scorekeeping is going to be inconsistent. It is dependent on largely untrained, parent volunteers serving as the scorekeeper. It is probably worse at the younger age groups where some of the parents, like the players, are new to the sport and the role. Everyone should be willing to accept this and know the stats are not the be all end all. Not posting the stats, however, does beg the question of why keep them at all? Why not just report the final scores and penalty minutes and move on? The answer lies in that the leauge does keep and use the stats. I suspect they are useful in making placement decisions in subsequent seasons. If the league is going to keep the stats, and use them internally, what is the real harm in publishing them? I've seen two theories put forth and address each below: 1.) Post-game parent complaints. The PAHL could adopt a rule/policy position along the final lines and post it on their site. "All scoring is final once signed by the appropriate officials and submitted to the league office. The PAHL will not hear any appeals regarding scoresheets....." 2.) Other teams leagues will use public scoring to poach/recruit. Who cares. It's a small community here and for the most part people know who is who. Frankly, the managers, coaches, and member organizations have the scoresheets and could use them for recruiting purposes already. Not publishing the scores is not the best way to govern recruiting issues.

The Frozen Pond/Icemen are moving younger age groups towards the AHF as well. Looks like they intend to field AHF/Icemen teams from first year squirts up. Time will tell how many PAHL teams the Yetis are able to field.

Why should the PAHL care about how the athletes prioritize their time? I can see why people might care at an organizational or team level, but what concern is it of the league? If you buy my premise that the league shouldn't care, the next question is why are they trying to legislate this at all? I get if organizations want to have some internal rules/expectations, they can, but the organizations also have some control over scheduling. For the double-rostered, we are talking about a handful of players in each organization and the managers of the two effected teams should be able to coordinate scheduling. For the other rule banning Tier 1 players from playing on PAHL, the devil is in the details of defining a Tier 1 team. On some level it makes sense for PAHL to define itself as a B-AA league, so excluding true Tier 1 athletes, regardless of gender, makes sense. Saying that the second 10 girls PPE team is a Tier 1 team, however, is not consistent with everyone's definition of Tier 1.

One way to mitigate the double rostering litigation risk without gutting organizations ability to field multiple girls division teams would be to make all players eligible to double-roster under the old rule for girls? The old rule includes the limitation that "A maximum of five (5) girls may be double rostered between girls’ teams. Double rostering under this rule must be within a single association and may not cross over to other association girls’ teams." The old rule says that double rostering within the girls division, the second team must be in a different division. Remove the gender limits and allow organizations 5 double-roster spots to be use however they want. So, if an associated is limited to just 5 double-rosterings, there won't be a deluge of boys doubling up. The organizations would have to chose how to use those spots. Most would likely be used by girls in those organizations fielding girls teams. Under this tweak, girls would lose the ability to roster on both a youth and girls team within an age group, but they could still play up an age group. This approach would mitigate the litigation risk, while still allowing 5 girls to double roster. The expense would be that girls could no longer play co-ed at their age group and on a girls team. A second cost would be that some organizations might chose to use their 5 spots to allow their favorite boys to double-roster and play up.

There are two proposed rule changes related to roster limitations girls. Both cite litigation fears as a rationale for the rule change. This is the second.