2025-26 PAHL Team Placement

[XPs]

Placements all but final, pending any appeal outcomes.

https://www.pahockey.com/placements

[James Gatz]

Looks like they eliminated the 12U A6 division and consolidated the A teams across five divisions.  

[PUCKCOVID19]

wow have the preds really fallen off over the last few years with regards to number of teams... what happened ?

[aaaahockey]

9 hours ago, PUCKCOVID19 said:

wow have the preds really fallen off over the last few years with regards to number of teams... what happened ?

From what I remember they made a decision a couple years ago to only do AAA and AA.  Not sure why.  

[Happy Hockey Fan]

Do they ever move teams up 2 divisions after placement games? Team was placed in a division they are dominating. 2 games so far. 10-0, running clock after 1 period and only played 2 periods in first placement game. 9-0 and outshot the other team 39-2 in second game. They tied a team that is placed 2 divisions ahead of them in a scrimmage. They lost to a team 5-2 that were placed 3 divisions above them. 

[newhockeydad]

2 hours ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

Do they ever move teams up 2 divisions after placement games? Team was placed in a division they are dominating. 2 games so far. 10-0, running clock after 1 period and only played 2 periods in first placement game. 9-0 and outshot the other team 39-2 in second game. They tied a team that is placed 2 divisions ahead of them in a scrimmage. They lost to a team 5-2 that were placed 3 divisions above them. 

 

Assuming you are talking 10U? 

[Happy Hockey Fan]

1 hour ago, newhockeydad said:

 

Assuming you are talking 10U? 

Yes

[newhockeydad]

So my son’s team which I am the manager for, is the team that they tied. I was surprised that they were put in A4. There are also some other strange placements as well throughout the other divisions in 10U. I did ask in the PAHL manager town hall about movement after placement games and they said that they get 10U correct over any other age group. They wouldn’t tell me if teams could move multiple divisions but it wouldn’t surprise me if a couple of teams moved two divisions. 

[Happy Hockey Fan]

41 minutes ago, newhockeydad said:

So my son’s team which I am the manager for, is the team that they tied. I was surprised that they were put in A4. There are also some other strange placements as well throughout the other divisions in 10U. I did ask in the PAHL manager town hall about movement after placement games and they said that they get 10U correct over any other age group. They wouldn’t tell me if teams could move multiple divisions but it wouldn’t surprise me if a couple of teams moved two divisions. 

We should be in whatever division you end up in. Hopefully it works out. 

[Macky85]

 

10u placement definitely has it challenges. 

There probably are instances that they have moved a team up or down two divisions, but it's likely a rare occurrence. They are pretty adamant about moving teams only one.

Last year there were 10u teams that requested to move down two divisions and they were told no. Those teams would have really benefited by moving down two.

There were also instances where teams that were very good should have been moved up two divisions. They got moved up one and still cleaned house. 

 

 

[Happy Hockey Fan]

6 minutes ago, Macky85 said:

 

10u placement definitely has it challenges. 

There probably are instances that they have moved a team up or down two divisions, but it's likely a rare occurrence. They are pretty adamant about moving teams only one.

Last year there were 10u teams that requested to move down two divisions and they were told no. Those teams would have really benefited by moving down two.

There were also instances where teams that were very good should have been moved up two divisions. They got moved up one and still cleaned house. 

 

 

That is exactly what I am worried about, only moving up one division and still having little competition. I don’t care about winning, I want them to be challenged. 

[newhockeydad]

11 hours ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

We should be in whatever division you end up in. Hopefully it works out. 

I agree 100%. I thought the game was really competitive. Hopefully we see you guys in our division for the regular season. 

[newhockeydad]

11 hours ago, Macky85 said:

 

10u placement definitely has it challenges. 

There probably are instances that they have moved a team up or down two divisions, but it's likely a rare occurrence. They are pretty adamant about moving teams only one.

Last year there were 10u teams that requested to move down two divisions and they were told no. Those teams would have really benefited by moving down two.

There were also instances where teams that were very good should have been moved up two divisions. They got moved up one and still cleaned house. 

 

 

Do you know if the PAHL placement committee looks at games outside of PAHL and MHR? Our team played 6 non-PAHL games prior to placement games against PAHL Teams. By the end of placements, we should have a pretty good idea of what our team is. Especially considering we played all PAHL teams. 

[HatTrick]

They don't look at anything outside of the placement weekends.  If you play PAHL teams inside the placement window you can submit those scores, but not outside of them.  Also MHR plays no part in anything they do.

[Macky85]

Hopefully it works out for your teams. At the end of the day it's 10u hockey. If most of the other teams in your division are similar level of play/competitiveness and you have that one outlier, so be it. 

As long as the kids are having fun and developing that's all that matters. You're going to experience this as long as your kid(s) play sports. 

[Happy Hockey Fan]

7 minutes ago, Macky85 said:

Hopefully it works out for your teams. At the end of the day it's 10u hockey. If most of the other teams in your division are similar level of play/competitiveness and you have that one outlier, so be it. 

As long as the kids are having fun and developing that's all that matters. You're going to experience this as long as your kid(s) play sports. 

That is my worry, that their development will be slowed by being in a division they dominate. That does nothing for development. Not to mention that playing games with running clocks( let alone only playing 2 periods with one a running clock) is a waste of my money. A waste of everyone’s money. And a waste of time. They need to do a better job. There was so much information available to them before placements were made that they should have done a better job of pre-season placement. Somehow the 3 team was placed in A1, and the 2 team is in A4. How does that happen? I understand that it is a birth year team, and the other team has a bunch of older kids. But if you looked at where all the kids played last year, it is obvious that these kids are better than A4. 9 of the kids played the highest level of Mite, and the rest played in tier 1 as well. 

[Corsi]

I feel like I understand what you are saying, but keep in mind that development that that young of an age takes place in practice and the games are just a way for the players to demonstrate that development.  Regardless of the placement, I would be intent on making sure that practices are geared toward development and that they are high paced and intense.  The players will get more out of that in the long run than they will out of playing a game regardless of where they are placed.

[Happy Hockey Fan]

41 minutes ago, Corsi said:

I feel like I understand what you are saying, but keep in mind that development that that young of an age takes place in practice and the games are just a way for the players to demonstrate that development.  Regardless of the placement, I would be intent on making sure that practices are geared toward development and that they are high paced and intense.  The players will get more out of that in the long run than they will out of playing a game regardless of where they are placed.

I agree about practices 100%. And I think our coaches are doing a good job running high tempo practices. But playing games that offer no resistance hurts development. And agin, the cost of hockey is already sky high, and playing shortened games takes ice time directly away from the kids, and money out of parents pockets. 

[stickboy]

Sounds like an easy fix if PAHL can give it a half hour of attention, common sense, and actually care. Otherwise, this will be another team that eventually goes independent and their cost will increase yet again. 

A request to move a team up should be less scrutinized by PAHL.  Make it the decision of the org and coaches. Then they have to deal with the aftermath if their egos were bigger than the team’s ability. I’ve seen this plenty of times, usually when dad coach/director want to brag to family and friends that his kid plays AA (result 1-19-1 record) 🙄 

Moving a team down is where it gets tricky, to avoid sandbagging. The same dad coaches/directors that I mention above have usually tried this too.  😂
 

[Macky85]

I think you need to have a talk with the coaches and discuss your concerns. Are other parents on the teams expressing concerns too?

Typically the coach(s) decide what level to submit to PAHL. I may be wrong but I don't believe PAHL does much team review prior to preseason placement. Again whatever the coach(s) submits is usually where a team is placed for preseason. There's definitely less info available for 10u than the other age groups for PAHL review prior to preseason.

I don't know what org you are at or the coaches and I am not accusing them of sand bagging but it has happened in the past. Basically submit two divisions down and only get moved up one and guarantee your team is in the running to win the coveted PAHL regular season and ODSETs.

[Happy Hockey Fan]

50 minutes ago, Macky85 said:

I think you need to have a talk with the coaches and discuss your concerns. Are other parents on the teams expressing concerns too?

Typically the coach(s) decide what level to submit to PAHL. I may be wrong but I don't believe PAHL does much team review prior to preseason placement. Again whatever the coach(s) submits is usually where a team is placed for preseason. There's definitely less info available for 10u than the other age groups for PAHL review prior to preseason.

I don't know what org you are at or the coaches and I am not accusing them of sand bagging but it has happened in the past. Basically submit two divisions down and only get moved up one and guarantee your team is in the running to win the coveted PAHL regular season and ODSETs.

First time coaches (PAHL) and I doubt they sandbagged anything. It was discussed with them and they had no idea why or how we were placed there. We have willingly played teams placed in A1. Lost 5-2 and 7-1. Played an independent BY AA team and lost 10-0. They are not looking to win everything, they are looking for challenges. I can’t see any of the coaches asking to be in a division this low. 
 

And many parents are worried about this. 

[Macky85]

I am pretty sure I know which org you're with and another possibility is the registrar mixed up the placement information submitting it to PAHL. The team your kid is on appears to be better than your #3 team based on current MHR info. I agree, your team is definitely not A4. 

FWIW, typically someone in the org tells the orgs registrar to submit placement information to PAHL. At least that's how it's been with the orgs I have been affiliated with. 

[Happy Hockey Fan]

Thanks for all the feedback from all. I feel pretty sure that they will move us up at least one. Just hope that is enough to challenge the kids. 

Edited October 9 by Happy Hockey Fan
Grammar

[James Gatz]

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.  

[newhockeydad]

I just happened to check the Extra Placement spreadsheet with PAHL and a non-PAHL game that we played is listed on there. It was against another PAHL team, so maybe they are looking at certain games that were not in the placement window.