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Loach

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Everything posted by Loach

  1. Yeah, it is really good by the end of the season. You still have to play the games, but it's the best indicator and glad they use it for Nationals despite what Gunty is spouting off about. At 18u AAA, 10 of the 12 divisions have held their championships. In 9 of them, the #1 seed in MHR won. In the other one (which was Massachusetts and that was held back in the fall), the #2 seed won. It looks like Avon, Central Mass, either Bishop Kearney or Long Island (whoever loses their district next weekend, assuming one wins) and either Neponset or Mt St Charles will get the 4 at-large bids.
  2. I don't think Pens will get an at large bid this year at Nattys. I predict the bids will go out to non-qualifying teams based on MHR and I don't think the Pens are high enough this year.
  3. Since the original post was about the Black Bear vs MHR ratings, thought I'd revisit to take a look. Last weekend, the THF Central division playoffs took place in Chicago. No Pittsburgh teams there so there's no real vested interests on this Board probably. I'll stick to the 18s as that is the age group I'm most familiar with. 9 teams were there competing. Here's the MHR of the 10 teams: 1. Biggby - 94.04 2. RM Roughriders - 93.74 3. Team Illinois - 91.79 4. Colorado Springs - 91.69 5. Tri-State Spartans - 91.59 6. San Jose Sharks - 91.29 7. Soo Indians - 90.74 8. Wasatch - 88.81 9. Indiana - 88.74 Here's the Black Bear Power Rating: 1. Biggby - 40 2. RM Roughriders - 34 3. Colorado Springs - 18 4. Team Illinois - 13 5. San Jose Sharks - 12 6. Tri-State - 12 7. Soo Indians - 7 8. Wasatch - 4 9. Indiana - 4 The THF league-specific Krach ratings are ridiculously bad, not going to list those out. Small sample size and very uneven schedules as those with easier schedules tend to be way over-ranked. Final game was Biggby vs Roughriders, as predicted as a good probability by both rankings. Roughriders won. Other semi-finalists were Team Illinois and Tri-State (who bear Col Springs in OT). Springs seems a bit over-rated in the Black Bear rankings due to an easier schedule. End result - both rankings did a decent job of identifying the top teams from the bottom, and identifying the likely top 2 (if you were talking about using either rankings to determine regional or national tourney eligibility). MHR, despite its faults, still seems the way to go in my opinion. But as they get more data, both get more accurate and Gunty getting into a pissing match with MHR seems like a pointless waste of energy.
  4. He's not putting down Sid's production this year, I've deciphered it to: "Enter Sid and the participant numbers soar."
  5. OU has D1 and D2 ACHA teams. I haven't been to one yet, is it just the D1 team that sells out?
  6. I think I said this before, but based on personal experience, you do need both internal and outside evaluators. You still need the head coach to make the final call, but good for that person to have data to make the decision that comes from both assistants and independent evaluators. You need to have a fair and competent head coach who has a good group around him to hold him accountable. I've seen tryouts that lean too heavily on independent evaluations miss out on key players who are great contributors during the prior season but don't show well in the individual-oriented tryouts.
  7. I like the Colorado system where there are no AAA teams until bantam minor.
  8. Gunty is being an idiot, but yes, teams can just report their scores to MHR as before.
  9. I don't know Gunty at all but his twitter feed makes him come off as a self-serving idiot. Seems like a pointless crusade over something that could be fine-tuned but works pretty well.
  10. It's top six. (At least that's what it's been the last few years)
  11. MHR is a godsend for managers trying to figure out what tourneys to enter or what independent games to schedule. That was the initial purpose and it is very good at it. Like any algorithm, it needs data to become more accurate so it is much better in the mid to late season compared to the start. It is also the best tool we have for determining the best teams in the country for things like Nationals. I have some knowledge of 18U hockey right now, can't speak much for the younger ages, and I've watched games of many top 40 18U AAA teams this year. The ranking of the top 18U teams by MHR is way more accurate than the Krach rankings of some of these teams in THF. Very easy to game the Krach system by playing an easier schedule and racking up wins. People say you can game the MHR system by playing a tougher schedule, but I haven't found that is the case. MHR does run into issues when there are lots of games where teams are beating each other by more than the 7-goal maximum. The whole point of MHR in the first place was to try to provide data to prevent those match-ups from happening. If tourney and league organizers spent more time focused on that goal, there would be less issues all around. Not always possible but here's what every coach/manager should be striving for: try to build a schedule where you are predominantly playing teams rated within 3 goals of you, and then you just need to worry about winning the game (not covering the spread). I'm talking about higher level, older-age youth hockey here, where coaching to win should be occurring.
  12. If the coaches are honest with the parents/players regarding their level of talent, I'm generally fine with players playing on whatever team they choose. With MHR now, it's pretty clear to everyone what level a team is at, it really doesn't matter whether they have 3 A's or 2. If you are ranked at the bottom of the AAA teams and lower than a bunch of AA teams, it doesn't matter the label, everyone knows you are AA at best. It does bug me when these teams then schedule predominantly above their talent level, thinking they are going to magically compete. It's a waste of time and money for teams traveling distances to have to play some of these dreamers. I won't throw specific teams under the bus, but there were some examples in the THF tourney here this weekend.
  13. Weird league, some good teams and some terrible ones. Esmark 18s in it, but also Icemen 18s.
  14. Yes, the THF tourney is there this weekend. Great to have another sheet, although one would think that the planning for the non-ice amenities would have been better planned to be ready for season opening. Not a great look, hearing grumbling like this tweet from the Barons: https://x.com/U18CleBarons/status/1705276775821963265?s=20
  15. The rankings take awhile to even out for teams that haven't travelled yet to play teams outside their local bubble. Most AAA teams have played at least 2 showcases with teams from various regions at this point already. There will be some movement in the scores with larger sample size if a team had a really bad or really good game so far. But, I expect the overall AAA pecking order at the first ranking release will be a decent representation.
  16. I was looking at the THF showcases today and they have the registered teams listed for each one. Predators 18U AAA are shown to be registered for the Pittsburgh Sept 22-25, Hershey Dec 8-11 and Ann Arbor MLK weekend showcases. Icemen are registered for the same 3 showcases. So, I assume Preds must have an 18U team. No idea who is on it and how they compare to say the Icemen or the Vengeance.
  17. I don't have a current 16U kid, but if I was a PAHL board member I'd much rather have a league with some parity - maybe 5-6 teams that are all competitive with each other - than to have one team that dominates the league and is a national contender. So, whether or not the MidAm AA winner gets their 'clocks cleaned' at Nationals wouldn't concern me. If more high end AA/low end AAA kids are playing 16U AA this year and they are sprinkling across various teams, that's a good thing IMO.
  18. I'm going to call all the rinks and get their front desk person to sign up for an account here. That will save us all the phone calls and we'll get the info here, all in one place. Efficiency!
  19. It was a fair question that I also had passing interest in, hence why I clicked this link. But no, I'm not going to call the front desk girl, she's busy handing out rental skates...
  20. The times I went, the bar was closed off to the public and that's where the evaluators hung out. Guess there were some changes this year. It would make no sense to just have one evaluator but who knows with MidAm. As my kids have aged out, I'll defer to you and others with more recent info.
  21. I missed the first part of this paragraph. If that was true, it would be a step in the right direction, because as I mentioned above - there was nothing stopping any coach from just nominating their team before. They must have finally wised up to this, there needed to be some restrictions on nominations.
  22. I know a couple of people who have evaluated at MidAms the last couple of years (not this year, I don't know who was there) and they did not have any connection to the kids they were evaluating. So there has been an effort to bring in 'neutral' coaches. At the older ages, the few who move on to the USA Hockey camps are likely known prior to the tryouts, and yes, they typically play on the top AAA teams. In general, they are the best at the camp. My kid did two of the these MidAm camps, and the handful who were chosen to move to those camps were probably the right ones. The selections for the 'all-star' game at the end of the camps were pretty hit and miss though. Definitely some kids that seemed to stand out to me at the camp and weren't picked and others that didn't seem to do anything but were picked. Not sure if this is flawed evaluations or certain political favors. To the point above, I doubt there was one evaluator watching. The evaluators used to hang in the upstairs restaurant at the Tam where they basically got free food - they'd watch out the window or on the camera feed if it was on the other rink. Now, I think many of them were more focussed on the food than the ice, but I sincerely doubt there was only one evaluator 'on duty' for a given session. As for invitations, this is where it gets sketchy. MidAm solicits nominations from AAA and AA coaches in the midam district. There's no rules on how many players from their team they can nominate. Some coaches only nominate a handful of their better players. I knew a low-end AA coach a few years back who just nominated his whole team. This does a disservice to everyone at the camp because those players can fill slots and once those slots are filled on a first-come-first-served basis others can get shut out. So, very often, a lower AAA player might not get invited even though a lower AA player may, and this is just based on how selective their coach is with the nominations. Not a great system, but that's how it was when I went through it. I never knew of a case where MidAm screened the nominations they received, but I guess it might have changed.
  23. I think it only happened once in my coaching career (12+ years as head, assistant coach in youth hockey) where a player who played for us the prior year was injured for tryouts. He broke his arm playing lacrosse just before tryouts. Luckily, he was the 2nd (maybe it was 3rd) leading scorer on the team the year before. We got approval from the board of our organization to offer him a spot without skating at tryouts. The organization still made his family pay the tryout fee (to get him in the registration system, they said) and he showed up and was on the bench during the skates. No one complained (that I know of) that he got a spot because he was known to be one of the better players. I doubt we would have taken an injured player from another team without trying out unless that player was known to be exceptional. If the injured player had been in the bottom half of the team, that would have made things much more difficult - probably would have been a judgement call based on who showed up at tryouts. So, yes, call the coach and let him know and go from there.
  24. I’ve been through the tryout rodeo awhile now as a coach. No need for any rubric that factors in last year. It’s pretty rare to get any pushback about any kid in the top half of a team making it again regardless of their performance. That said, if a lock player is coasting out there after the first skate, you light a fire by dropping a hint that they need to pick it up, and soon. Usually that does the trick. Otherwise, just let the evaluators do their job based on what they are seeing. Your coach did his job with the exit interviews, so kids should know where they stand. As for people asking about tryouts, leave it open to anyone who wants to come. No need to try to advertise how many spots are open. Most people know that there’s a good chunk locked in, or at least they soon will learn. But, multiple times, we had kids who weren’t on the radar show as a top player and push their way on. This meant a tough phone call with a family that was on the bubble albeit further up from the expected cut line before try outs. For new families: in general, if kids are close, tthe coach will usually go with incumbent. Unless there’s an attitude problem or issue with families. New kids need to be noticeably better than the kid they are replacing. To sum up - no need to reinvent the wheel. 1) Give kids honest feedback at end of season. 2) Get multiple evaluators out at tryouts. 3) Head coach takes that info and combines with his own eyes and knowledge of previous year. 4) make room for kids who out perform the bottom players from last year.
  25. As my time being involved with youth hockey is coming to an end, I'll offer my 2 cents. There is always a significant vocal group parents clamoring for full-ice mite hockey, and so these AAU teams will have the demand. It feels more like 'real hockey' to these parents so it must be better for the kids' development. I completely support the ADM model of half-ice/small nets and agree with the principles, and I think it pays dividends for USA hockey in general. There's no need for full-ice at mite where you have the top players on each time just going coast to coast over and over. I also think the transition to full-ice is pretty simple and there doesn't have to be any type of prolonged transition period. It takes a few kids a couple of games to understand offsides and icing but everything else gets figured out pretty quickly. My guess is USA Hockey learned it was never going to fly with parents at the squirt level and that is fine - focusing on just the mite levels is a decent compromise.
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