Saucey

It's a legit question. 2005 was a low birth year. Few programs have been able to field AA teams full of 05 AA talent, let alone fill the slots of the three or four AAA teams floating around. The number playing at all keeps decreasing each year. So it's not that hard as a somewhat talented 05 player to make one of these teams. For that reason, I doubt anyone is 'butt hurt' for not making a team, because I think you could get on one if you wanted. So I want to know....where are they expected to materialize from? And sorry, being good in Mid Am, our small hockey market, doesn't somehow mean you are competing with the big boys. I care in that, as I have said on this board over and over again, I think a parent's desire for the extra A does not make for a very good hockey market around here when the talent doesn't match the desire. Maybe those kids would have developed better sticking to AA (or A, a good number of them.) I challenge the idea that AAA develops a player better with all the 'extras' WHEN YOU ARE NOT AAA. Wasn't that the big complaint with the PPE black teams, that this was really a AA option with a very expensive AAA price tag? But parents want it, and there is always someone out there willing to provide it.

Not enough 05s. Where would they come from?

This. People playing in these AAA teams will tell you that they are doing it because of the superior coaching, more ice time blah blah blah. What dropthepuck just said. But then when it becomes clear that their kid isn't going anywhere....their kid either quits hockey entirely or wanders back to AA. Totally doing it because they think their kid is going somewhere. Or they say they didn't want to crush their kid's dreams. Suddenly, when they return, it's ok 'just to play for fun.' Shoot, it was always ok to just play for fun. This scenario plays out over and over. Everyone wants to think their kid is special. Many kids will say when they are little that they want to play in the NFL or NHL. I never told my kid he couldn't go pro when he was ten expressing this. I never 'crushed his dreams' by telling him no directly. (A frequent complaint expressed on this board by the coaches expressing frustration when they can't talk a parent of a kid they are trying to recruit to their 'AAA' program.) But I also know the facts and didn't go chasing down these things. He didn't know about faux AAA teams. We just didn't go there with him. He missed out on nothing. And then when he hit high school he figured it out on his own. Summer leagues, etc when he would see some of these 'AAA' players. See the rankings. He has actually told us thank you for not getting caught up in that. He doesn't want to travel to Texas, etc to play these crazy tournaments. He isn't bitter thinking we stomped on his dreams. There is so much you have to have to make college or the NHL. Natural athlete. Work ethic and drive. Luck. Connections. Money. People whose kid never made a AA team in PAHL go on these AAA teams. That's just crazy to me. They just don't want to listen to people who may know something. 'Don't tell my kid he can't do it.' Ok, have fun. My kid can also go play club hockey somewhere if he wants while playing PAHL and school hockey. And we are amused by the return of all the players who left PAHL at peewee or whatever, tired of spending the money and time now that it is clear their kid is not going to be playing D1 or D3. So yeah, it wasn't about the coaching or dry land training or whatever we heard when they left. In our market, parents drive what is good for development. But most of them don't know squat about hockey or the makeup of hockey in our area. We have BY teams not because people who know hockey think this is a good way to develop players around here. We have it because someone sold it to parents not wanting to disappoint their kids. They sold it because they want their kid playing on a high level team. Or to hand pick players. Or to make mioney for themselves. Or because they think their kid is going D1 if they do this. And slowly, it became hard to attract people to your program if you don't offer it. Almost all the big programs offer a 'AAA' and BY option. Because parents demand it. When youth sports became all about elite options, adults screwed up sports for kids. Big time. The biggest loss to me is the kid who quits playing. He or she lost their love of the game, because playing was all tied up with making it. Or got burned out. Anything below that AAA option is not worth playing. Why? Sports are important. They teach important life lessons where the worst thing that can happen to you as you are learning these lessons is a lost game. Friendships that last a lifetime. Learn to compete. Work. Discipline. Good sportsmanship. How to fail. How to win. Tie it all up with being 'elite' and I think kids and the sport suffer. This sport is already so expensive. It keeps getting more expensive. The sacrifices asked from families are high. You drive people into this other level of hockey that requires even more money and time, on a false premise....that is good how? You connect success in sports to a scholarship or whatever, when that doesn't happen and the kid exits the sport entirely....you missed what is valuable about playing sports in the first place. I'm glad to see those kids return if they do. But boy, it would have been nice to continue playing with them all along. So when I hear...why do you care where I spend money and play...I care because the system as a whole suffers when adults overreach. My kid may have had better competition where he plays, without being told you can find that if you come play all over the US. (And not true when many of these teams lose A LOT.) High school hockey could be a higher level of compete. I don't think these 'AAA' programs help hockey in Western Pa. Those promises that coach made to you and your kid....they don't materialize.

I hate the BY model for our area. The year to move up is not the first year of checking imo. That 07 SHAHA team has some talent but play very timid on the ice. And now you've ruined confidence and you may lose kids next season. I think it hurts development if you overreach on your 'challenge'. It's no different than taking AA players, forming a 'AAA' team and getting your butts handed to you all season. So I don't think you should knock Allegheny for that. Pretty much damned if you do damned if you don't in the BY model around here...they moved up to AA Major, they may have had the same season as SHAHA 07, and hurt development. Bantam are tough years for development. Kids put on their adult height and weight before others. Size starts mattering. So...I also think development hurts when you have no challenge and when all your games. You can address that a bit in your tournament play and independent games. I didn't look at everything the Badgers did this season, they may have tried to do that as best you can in a COVID year. Until we have a market where teams can really put together AA quality players at every BY, I don't think we should do it. I believe my boys did better with checking and learned more as a whole by playing with and against some players who knew how to do it on a mixed BY team playing in A Major. They learn from each other as much as trial and error. When your mixed BY three team can beat the BY team, your first year Bantam kid is playing on a better team with A Major and against better teams than on that AA minor team. And don't forget the 07 BY is just as low numbers as the 2005 BY, so many programs don't have enough 07 AA quality players on their teams. BY is just a mess when you don't have the numbers. In our small hockey market, we frequently don't. We look at large hockey markets and think we should do what they do instead of looking at the reality of our area and building from there.

Is that even happening this year?

There was little time for division placement this year due to COVID. Coaches and programs got their requests for the most part I think this year. Usually, this is one thing I think PAHL usually does really well. But those birth year teams can be hard, like someone else mentioned, because we aren't set up for by in Pa..

Bit of an elitist aren't ya? Theses teams let kids play who normally would not have the opportunity at their school. it's a start. The girls who signed up were happy to play and there was enough interest. It wasn't designed to be a huge commitment.

Why does it matter if they did? It only matters if you are placing a great deal of importance on ranking 11 and 12 year old youth hockey teams. You've got posters inviting other posters out to the proverbial parking lot. It's just dumb for grown people to get worked up over this stuff.

COVID makes this whole argument dumber than usual. With players not being able to play, being quarantined, being sick...all rankings/comparisons get a side eye from me this year. I've had that conversation with my kid, whose team has assumed victory over another based on looking at that website and then were surprised to get beat...truly, all bets are off this season. Plus, any teams crowing from an Alpha rink that has been known to continue to operate despite shut downs, particularly gets raised eyebrows. You get an edge just from playing when no one else could. You don't need to toot your kid's horn anonymously on a message board. It becomes clear on its own if the Vengeance program is better than the Pens. All I think when I see these threads is Jesus, so glad that crazed parent is on someone else's team. Not a good look.

This was the PIHL plan. They were all set to go but for COVID.

I guess it's better to argue over how super your Pee Wee is v. the AAA squirt or mite. ?‍♂️

From link above: Black Bear focuses on clusters of rinks in its target markets across the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. Clustering its rinks provides for optimal management and programming. Working on their cluster I guess.

One of our tournaments got shut down right BEFORE COVID last year. After much effort, we got half our money back. I think the private tournament companies are shady as hell in good times. I try to pay as last minute as possible as a result.

They may lock certain times... livebarn gives you that capability. My kid just played there last weekend for a visiting team and I was able to watch later on livebarn.

Yay! Hockey again.

Aw. This all sucks. You will get use out of that beyond being quarantined. My boy went through something similar last time.

I'm dreaming of adult discussion...that doesn't involve name calling or COVID 19. I miss hockey....and slamming PPE. .and arguing whose squirt is going pro....

I also vouch for Bairel' s program. That program does not play a regular season of teams from other programs, just some games with RMU and jamborees. In my opinion, that is better at this age, and if you know anything about hockey you understand it is not at all important to play games like that until at least squirts. There are countries and programming that hold you off longer. Don't be in a rush to get on any hamster wheel for elite programming, make sure he is having fun and developing the basics.

Masking is not a recommendation. It is an order.

My hockey rankings should always be remembered as a tool for that purpose, but not dispositive. I hate when the players discover its existence...if their team is ranked high, they sometimes get a big head. If low, underestimate their abilities. I caution my players that any team can fall or win on any given day, depending on what they bring. In that sense, it becomes an Iinvaluable tool for teaching about the mental aspects of a game... because that plays out, the team loses to a much lower ranked team and vice versa. Don't we see that play out with the pros across many sports? (They play to the level of the team, etc.) Coaches should be aware of chatter about these rankings on the team. Too much weight either way, can affect play.

Considering the various and uneven playing field everyone is operating under this year, with teams not getting to play at all etc, I think that is a great idea.

I thought MD shut down to travel?maybe they are planning to quarantine after.

Actually, I think this letter would be a pretty effective deterrent. I've been saying it, even precovid, parent behavior is so bad it's just going to be easier to kick them out than continue to deal with all their BS. New York started doing it, gave the refs authority to kick everyone out. And they do it! Then you know who starts policing the bad apples? The other parents on the teams who want to watch their kids play. They tell the idiots to cut it out. We've all been on teams with those parents. If we complain to our team manager and organization, maybe then the bad apples get banned from games by the home organization and we can all watch in peace. The business owner doesn't need to get involved . The ref doesn't need to stop a game to address someone in the stands. No police. Don't they have better things to do? We ask too much from business owners sometimes, I think. Why do we put the onus on them to police the behavior? It's not like the rinks make big bucks. Let's start pushing back on the bad eggs ourselves. But wait....no one wants to say anything to them. Afraid to get involved. After all, they are kind of crazy.... Then why should we ask a fifteen year old kid making minimum wage to do it, if we as adults who know who the idiots are on our team don't want to do it? Or the rink, who may have other things to deal with at the time other than monitor 'grown ups'. I think it is time that we as a society start demanding better behavior from the people around us. The people who are tasked with doing it are tired. Too often we look away. Otherwise, the bad apples will freaking ruin things for everyone. They already are. Can't get people to ref, harder to find volunteer coaches...how far down this path do we want to go?

I haven't been to a rink that doesn't require masking. But there are still people who disregard, and I don't blame some kid making minimum wage for not getting into it with those folks. The scofflaws will ruin it for everyone.

Some people weren't wearing masks at Westmoreland and Armstrong. There are still plenty of people refusing to follow rules.