Who is making AA promises they might not be able to keep?

[zam]

8 minutes ago, sadday4hockey said:

What's the plan for the 12U team whose roster is posted with 7 skaters and 2 goalies?

 

Short shifts

[nemesis8679]

Hopefully wait until one of the other teams with 7 skaters folds and convince them to join. Or vice versa. At least one team will fill. Some kids will be hung out to try, but hey, this is the price of high level 12u AA hockey.

Or just wait for a few kids that didn't make a team they wanted and dangle the AA carrot at them.

Edited May 1 by nemesis8679

[PittsburghHockeyFan]

12 hours ago, sadday4hockey said:

What's the plan for the 12U team whose roster is posted with 7 skaters and 2 goalies?

 

That is a 12U Hybrid team that made no promises of being AA. And they have more than 7 skaters. Looking to round out that roster so to give these kids a place to play. The 12U 2013 and 12U 2012 have solid high level rosters.

[Duck Bill]

13 hours ago, stickboy said:

USA Hockey should use some of our outrageous membership fee and develop a standard for AA skill/ability and  assign qualified evaluators to do preseason district/regional AA evaluation camp for players to be able to be considered AA. Then associations can only create AA teams out of actual certified AA players. Take the local politics and snake oil salesmen out of it. That ought to thin things down a bit!

Standardization would be nice, but in PAHL they could just not allow labeling teams prior to placements being completed.  Just tryout for the organization.  You can get an idea about an organization by the number of teams they have traditionally fielded and where they generally place.

[CranjisMcBasketball]

On 4/30/2024 at 11:17 AM, hockeydadx3 said:

I wish every poster on here could have the birth year and team their kids play for. There seems to be so many hidden agendas on here. 

You first

[HockeyFan6687]

I got an idea.  Quit putting your grassroots programs on the back burner….

Focus hard on little pens/entry LTP, try hockey for free, and learn to skate

build a comprehensive marketing plan for your organization and push these programs

Watch your numbers grow! THEN….

put the right people in place (not the good ole boys club of recycled dads past their expiration date) to DEVELOP   Educate your coaches, have plans to develop that integrate and mesh across teams and age levels   
 

and you may just end up with more ingrown talent to have that AA team in your program   It starts with building your talent base under your own roof   

It just seems we are collectively losing site of the big picture   The A kids and the B kids deserve the same coaching and attention too   

 

 

[Corsi]

10 hours ago, HockeyFan6687 said:

I got an idea.  Quit putting your grassroots programs on the back burner….

Focus hard on little pens/entry LTP, try hockey for free, and learn to skate

build a comprehensive marketing plan for your organization and push these programs

Watch your numbers grow! THEN….

put the right people in place (not the good ole boys club of recycled dads past their expiration date) to DEVELOP   Educate your coaches, have plans to develop that integrate and mesh across teams and age levels   
 

and you may just end up with more ingrown talent to have that AA team in your program   It starts with building your talent base under your own roof   

It just seems we are collectively losing site of the big picture   The A kids and the B kids deserve the same coaching and attention too   

 

 

I agree with much of what you said, but you left out the need to properly educate the parents of these kids when the kids are just entering a program at a young age.  Parents seem more than happy to have their players play in whatever organization is closest to home or where ever the kids friends are playing at an early age, but as they age and the conversations about progression begin to happen, many of these parents take whatever they are told by whoever at face value.  Parents need to understand things about how hockey is a "late acquisition sport", what terms like "Tier 1" and "Tier 2" mean, what the "path" for hockey is and isn't, and also what the real chances are of their player "making it" regardless of what "making it" means to each family and player.

[HockeyFan6687]

5 hours ago, Corsi said:

I agree with much of what you said, but you left out the need to properly educate the parents of these kids when the kids are just entering a program at a young age.  Parents seem more than happy to have their players play in whatever organization is closest to home or where ever the kids friends are playing at an early age, but as they age and the conversations about progression begin to happen, many of these parents take whatever they are told by whoever at face value.  Parents need to understand things about how hockey is a "late acquisition sport", what terms like "Tier 1" and "Tier 2" mean, what the "path" for hockey is and isn't, and also what the real chances are of their player "making it" regardless of what "making it" means to each family and player.

You are correct!  Was so focused on the kids and the coaching I forgot that but it’s definitely part of the process.  The education must begin in Little Pens.  Weekly communication throughout that program and a pizza party/certificate awarding where you can discuss next steps etc is where is has to start and orgs must follow through on and upward from there. 

[Macky85]

42 minutes ago, HockeyFan6687 said:

You are correct!  Was so focused on the kids and the coaching I forgot that but it’s definitely part of the process.  The education must begin in Little Pens.  Weekly communication throughout that program and a pizza party/certificate awarding where you can discuss next steps etc is where is has to start and orgs must follow through on and upward from there. 

Can't agree more with you. It really starts at Little Pens. I consistently see at the organization we are with at least 50% of the kids at each Little Pens season can't skate. Little Pens ends and the organization is pushing the parents to sign their child up for the ADM. It's all about the money and numbers. There are so many kids in the organization that should not be out there until they can proficiently skate, but isn't it great, we have 4 blue teams! 

They need to start with educating parents how important skating is,  then discuss youth hockey in general ( where to start, age groups, tiers, etc.) I consistently hear parents complaining that's there's no communication. It's appears coaches either don't want to be bothered or are scared to give parents feedback. A brief conversation with each players parent would go a long way.

I can't tell you how many parents with kids moving up to 10u this year were in the dark on what level team to sign up for tryouts.

[aaaahockey]

42 minutes ago, Macky85 said:

Can't agree more with you. It really starts at Little Pens. I consistently see at the organization we are with at least 50% of the kids at each Little Pens season can't skate. Little Pens ends and the organization is pushing the parents to sign their child up for the ADM. It's all about the money and numbers. There are so many kids in the organization that should not be out there until they can proficiently skate, but isn't it great, we have 4 blue teams! 

They need to start with educating parents how important skating is,  then discuss youth hockey in general ( where to start, age groups, tiers, etc.) I consistently hear parents complaining that's there's no communication. It's appears coaches either don't want to be bothered or are scared to give parents feedback. A brief conversation with each players parent would go a long way.

I can't tell you how many parents with kids moving up to 10u this year were in the dark on what level team to sign up for tryouts.

Part of this is the lack of developmental/house hockey at the younger ages.  Stick them on a blue mites team or B squirt team instead of helping them develop with more ice time and even internal games in developmental hockey.  

[YardSale]

2 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

Part of this is the lack of developmental/house hockey at the younger ages.  Stick them on a blue mites team or B squirt team instead of helping them develop with more ice time and even internal games in developmental hockey.  

Why don't the larger organizations take the blue teams and just do in-house or play against 2-3 other very local orgs?  PAHL is WAY to spread out for an 8U blue team to drive 2 hours each was for a 45 minute jam.  Ridiculous.

[HockeyFan6687]

I agree with all of this.  The goal of little pens is getting them hooked and using that to boost your retention rate out of that program. The minute you get that list of kids registered for your rink, you immediately reach out and educate.  First and foremost hammer learn to skate.  Get them on the ice with that before the first pens session. Once that starts, your first session is skating heavy.  And have your skating director running a station every week.  You will dramatically reduce the number of kids laying on the ice unable to do much.  Kids laying on the ice or having to be carried around by a coach and unable to participate in drills equates to frustration by the parents and kids that quickly don’t wanna do it anymore. 
 

it blows my mind how underutilized in-house hockey is. We are making a whole sector of the population unable to access the game.  Not every family is able to manage the traveling around, not every family is able to afford PAHL hockey and there are families not interested in that much time and financial commitment from the start.  Some may never but others may get hooked by that low cost less commitment opportunity and eventually want more hence your PAHL program grows. 

[nemesis8679]

10 hours ago, HockeyFan6687 said:

 

it blows my mind how underutilized in-house hockey is. We are making a whole sector of the population unable to access the game.  Not every family is able to manage the traveling around, not every family is able to afford PAHL hockey and there are families not interested in that much time and financial commitment from the start.  Some may never but others may get hooked by that low cost less commitment opportunity and eventually want more hence your PAHL program grows. 

Agreed 100%. There are plenty of kids that would benefit from in-house leagues. One practice per week, one game per week. 4 'seasons' per year, 8 or so games per. You can sign up for anything from 1 season to 4, like dek hockey. Depending what you want or what else is going on. Keeps the cost down. Keeps commitment down, but allows for an additional skating lesson each week if so chosen. 

There are so many kids and parents that just want to try out the game, or just have something fun to do, get some exercise or activity... and maybe do more serious hockey from there- or not, and continue to just play in-house in addition to baseball or whatever, don't have to extra money, whatever. A good portion of the kids will proceed to more from there. Some won't, they be happy with in-house just like adults are happy with rec league. But you'd get more people playing and less of the kids that are  watering down PAHL just because if they want to casually play they have no other alternative.

[James Gatz]

There are 8U and 10U house leagues in the close suburbs. There probably are few options the further you get from Pittsburgh, but it’s not like there are no options.  
 

I don’t understand the comment about watering down the PAHL. They have lots of divisions and if you expelled the bottom half of every roster, the top half would be homeless 

[Corsi]

I get the idea of keeping players in "house" leagues and not doing the travel stuff, but we need to remember that many of these players and parents have already done what the programs offer.  Some programs only offer "Little Pens" or "Learn to Play" and then their progression is to move into their ADM/8U program which then necessitates travel for jamborees.  I feel like many parents would rather travel a few times on weekends to play at a different rink than have to drive once a week to find an "in house" program if their "home" rink doesn't offer one.  I am not sure if the programs that operate out of rinks with a single sheet of ice have the ability to offer much beyond the "Little Pens" to ADM progression due to ice availability.