James Gatz

So was I. I thought the notion of a 5 year old billeting was hilarious.

There are three players on the Aviators 2010 Blue team page who are listed on the roster of the PA16U2 PAHL team playing in the AA2 division. The Aviators PA16U1 team is a 2009 team playing in the PAHL A1 division. The Aviators 2010 Blue team is not a PAHL team and is playing an independent schedule. While not in keeping with the spirit of PAHL's claimed mission, I don't know that double rostering players on an organization's independent quintuple A team and their PAHL team is forbidden. The PAHL rule that address this is in the administrative policies. PIHL Governing Documents - Draft The rostering limitation provides: 4. A male player who appears on the roster of any Tier 1 team – or on the roster of a 10U or 12U team within an association that primarily fields Tier 1 teams above the 12U classification – at any point of the season shall not be eligible for participation in league games with any league team unless removed from the Tier 1 roster and submitted – or resubmitted, if applicable – to the league for approval for the league roster. The Aviators AAA team is not a Tier 1 team, so this rule would not apply as I read it. Aviators win again.

I enjoyed this announcement in the latest PAHL Pulse. I've been involved for a few years, and read all the linked pages. It is still and enigmatic process. This is the distribution for 12U based on my hockey ratings. And here is a similar chart showing the My Hockey ratings for the 10U age group. I've excluded the teams with a 0 rating in MHR, which happens when teams are on a "statistical island" and have not played outside of their grouping of teams.

PAHL permitted the transfer.

You can usually spot them. They are mature beyond their years because they started living with billet families during their Snowplow Sam years.

I think it works both ways, but agree with you it is worse when you team is the one that is severely outmatched. The developmental risk to being the better team is that it is harder for the coaches to get the kids to develop good habits playing the right way. Not a huge deal at 10U, but if those kids can skate it end to end and score, most will take that chance. They aren't having to see the game unfold and find passing opportunities. For the goalies in particular, playing on the dominant team is not great experience developmentally.

You are still in the placement season, so hopefully PAHL gets it right. Your scores seem to strongly suggest moving up, but your coaches can further push for that in their post-game reports and make it be known to PAHL that you want to move up. Being in the wrong division can make the year a lot less fun that it should be. I'd be in favor of PAHL having two short seasons with realignment in the middle or make the playoffs some sort of realigned process. For as much as USA Hockey belabors to "make it fun" we somehow become wedded to these set divisions for an entire 14-18 game season. Having two 7-9 games seasons would be possible albeit with a bit more administrative and scheduling hassle. Ideally, you want to be in a division where you end with a record close to .500. If your team is doing well above or below that mark, you are in the wrong division and development is suffering.

If you kid didn't participate in AAA Try Hockey for Free and a session of AAA Learn to Play, don't bother signing up.

The situation I mentioned was 12u or 14u. Placements were only recently completed. Petty sue it was 12u.

My understanding is that the old team isn't going to stand in the way. The concerns are from the other teams in the destination (lower) division.

How does PAHL typically evaluate player transfers after placements from a team in a higher division to a team in a lower division? Some parents on a team in a division asked me and I had no idea. The scenario is they are hearing that a team in their division has recruited a player away from a team in a higher division who was dissatisfied with their team's placement. The people that asked me are wonder if PAHL is going to permit their division opponent from bringing in ringer. I read what is on the governance page (requires approval of supermajority of placement committee) but I have no idea what this means in practice.

I looked at the next closest division to 10U and see some curious outcomes from the 12U final placements. Across the categories, there are some teams that seem like they should have moved up another spot or dropped down. According to PAHL's own administrative policies, the expected number of teams per division is 8-11, but that proper placement of teams shall take precedence over the quantity of teams placed in each division. Other than the 10U division, there are playoff implications for the size of the division. 11 or more divisional teams=top six qualify for postseason 6-10 divisional teams=top four 5 or less=top two PAHL further says, "The competition numbers compiled each season validate the effectiveness of the placement process. The PAHL seeks to have 50% of games within each division have a goal differential of 2 or less. Additionally, the league seeks to have 75% of all games have a goal differential of 4 or less, plus 90% of all games being within 6 goals. " With that background, here is what the 12U looks like. They did away with the A6 division entirely. As a result, the total number of teams and MHR spread from top to bottom of the division looks like the following: Division Number of Teams Highest rated team on MHR as of 10/16 Lowest Rated team on MHR as of 10/16 Spread from High to Low AA 8 88.43 81.93 6.5 A1 10 84.18 78.02 6.16 A2 13 80.32 74.23 6.09 A3 9 78.28 72.74 5.54 A4 12 74.68 70.08 4.6 A5 8 70.62 67.3 3.32 B 10 65.58 59.86 5.72 I know they don't look at the MHR numbers, but it may shed light on the expected goal differentials. There was some movement of teams after placements through appeals with some teams moving up and some teams moving down via the appeals process.

Sounds like you might be right. I don't think PAHL will consider that game. Their guidance to teams is pretty clear that only teams played against other PAHL teams, during the placement season, and scheduled in advance through PAHL will be considered.

The only way a game like that makes it on the spreadsheet is if one of the team managers adds it. I'm assuming this was a local tournament that created the matchup. I don't know of any rule preventing its addition, but they would have had to do it early enough to be assigned a PAHL game number. Not sure how the switch to GameSheet might factor if the tournament is using a different scoring means or even a different GameSheet setup.

No one really knows the PAHL formula, but I think for 10U especially the player's ages are a big factor in initial placement. The AA and A1 teams seem to have a high percentage of 2015 BY players. If the roster is heavily a 2016 BY group, the seem to be presumptively placed lower. If you want to make a run at moving up two divisions, try to schedule as many extra placement games as you can with teams in or above the division to which you aspire. They only look at the results from the officially submitted placement games.