Corsi

The AHF looks to be intended to being done in addition to an organization's "traditional" league. Honestly, looks like a way to ensure that the rinks sell every single ice slot. The closest thing I can think of is the EJEPL (https://www.ejepl.net), which operates up and down the coast and is a way for teams to play a "split season" schedule and not have to be scrambling to fill game slots. Ashburn, Montgomery, Tomorrow's Ice, and Team Philadelphia have all played in EJEPL in the past. The AHF has over 250 teams in the league providing high quality competition at every age group and lev

Parents have to be the driving force because I haven't met a kid yet that can foot the bill for hockey at any level, let alone at a "AA" or "AAA" level. I don't think we should look at this as just a "hockey" issue though, it is prevalent across all youth sports and I'm sure it also seeps into other activities in kids lives. If someone's son or daughter is a talented musician who wants to pursue that passion, I'm sure that those parent are more than willing to present them the chance to work with the instructors who are deemed to be the "best" or the "most accomplished". I would also be wil

I think we are going back to a post that was made earlier that essentially asked "why is playing at a high level always equated with the kids not having fun?". I know from experience coaching and playing that the better kids almost always enjoy the higher level play more, while the lower level kids parents are the ones that make the assumption that they aren't having fun. In my opinion, the reason those parents have that perception is because either they, or their player are not willing to put in the work to be able to play at that higher level, so thus if they aren't willing/able to do it,

I've been an evaluator at a number of tryouts over the years. Believe me, it sucks when they are open to parents and you are getting calls from parents that you are friendly with because they "thought that Billy or Sally was better than Bobby or Kelley at tryouts, so why is he/she on the lower team". The best way I've seen tryouts run is when they there are evaluators present, but that the head coach has a say in the makeup of the final roster, not 100% based off of scores from 2-3 hours of drills and scrimmages. The reason tryouts are so early is because all the teams are competing f

My son has worked with Marianne Watkins in small group sessions and clinics over the years. If you chose to work with her, she is pretty old school and will call out the students if they are not paying attention or screwing around. The player need to understand that, because I've heard of parents and players that have complained about this. My son likes that style of coaching and reacts well to it.

The other issue to look at beyond the "parent coaches" is how the organization implements ADM. There has to be some room for flexibility based on the skill level of the skaters. While it is fine to have all the players refine and practice the basic skills, if a player has moved well beyond the basic and needs more complex skills and drills to be challenged, then that flexibility should be built in, instead of simply rolling out the USA Hockey drills for "Week 5 - 10U", or whatever age level is being worked with. The other issue with ADM is how it builds the game awareness, it is great to ha