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Birth year vs. Mixed year?


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1 hour ago, nemesis8679 said:

With tryouts approaching, what are the pros and cons of birth year teams vs. mixed year teams? Thoughts? Thanks. 

Now that is some red meat.

My guess is this thread goes to around five pages.  Commence feeding......

Edited by fafa fohi
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Since it's a major year, the advantage might be playing your normal PAHL schedule but find some out of area teams of the same birthyear who would play. Depending on skill you might find some 09s who can play with your kids next year and that won't prevent you from playing other 08 teams.  I'm not sure as a major team it matters mixed vs birthyear if you are taking the best available. It matters more when you want to play birthyear but need to get kids older to compete in Pahl. 

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At the risk of The King coming for me, since my opinion is always wrong...I would say it depends on your kid's skill level and where you want to play. The fact is, PAHL is not set up for BY, nor should it be. Western PA does not have the numbers to support it at this time, as has been said over and over here. The top team for most big organizations is usually BY. If your kid is trying out at a big organization and is a AA player, most likely that will be default BY team, maybe a few exceptional younger kids sprinkled in here and there.

If you are looking at one of the independent teams, are you able to judge if the kids are at a similar level? There are some around having some success. 

Both my kids are in low number BY so this has never really been an option for them, and I really have a hard time understanding the fascination with doing it. Maybe take a look at the coach's kid on that team....what is that kid's skill level? Does he seem to lag behind the rest a bit? Sometimes, not always, that is the primary purpose of doing that, because if it were a mixed BY, that child and a few others would likely not be on that team, and goodness what a tragedy if those children played in a lower division. 

Mixed BY has been a good experience for us, with teams formed based on skill. They liked playing with different kids each year. Being exposed to different coaches. For the good athlete (and some children, not all), having the more experienced players pushes them and they grow more than they would have on a BY team. I have seen bottom players in the younger BY get left in the dust over the course of a season, so I would say for them, it was not good developmentally. That child may have been better off playing at a lower level. Those bubble children are always hard.

The issue with BY teams around here is that you can see a much bigger range of skill from top to bottom, making it hard to compete. And if they get placed in a division with mostly older BY, they get slaughtered.

So, in short, it depends on your kid. Don't let coaches tell you how it is so fantastic that the kids stay together....kids don't develop at the same pace. You should expect that some may come and go over time based on skill, growth spurts, etc. If the tryout is looking for skill, you shouldn't see the same kids every year. Keeping them together purely because of age, it's just not good developmentally. And... parents tend to look for greener pastures. Don't do it just to keep kids together, that can't be guaranteed by anyone.

It's an art, not a science. Some years your kid is going to have a good year, others not so much. Look for a program that is interested in development at all of its levels, not just top teams. More likely to find that your kid will be placed right and will be developed, whatever his skill.

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I hate the BY model.  I am the middle school coach for a local team and I have several 06 players who are on a winning BY travel team, a playoff team, a large organization team.  They are the best players on their travel team.   I watched a few of their AA games and was shocked at the disparity between top player and bottom player, and those in between.  It looked no different to me than the disparity that you see on all Tier 3 middle school teams.  The top 3-4 players on the team carried the others and that's not good for development of anyone.  If these top 06 players had been placed on a team with the better 05 players in the organization it would have been much more beneficial to their development.  Likewise, the "lesser" skilled 06 players would have benefited from playing with other "lesser" skilled 05 players.   In other words, several of these kids should have been on A Major teams with mixed age rather than BY AA.   I realize this is a common theme in all of the posts here, I'm simply agreeing with it wholeheartedly.  I think Saucey's response was spot on.  FWIW, I do not have a son on my middle school team.  For my son, (he's a midget player), I've always wanted him to be on a team where he is in the middle of the pack talentwise... a few players better, and a few who are weaker.  

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On 3/6/2020 at 9:00 AM, Saucey said:

At the risk of The King coming for me, since my opinion is always wrong...I would say it depends on your kid's skill level and where you want to play. The fact is, PAHL is not set up for BY, nor should it be. Western PA does not have the numbers to support it at this time, as has been said over and over here. The top team for most big organizations is usually BY. If your kid is trying out at a big organization and is a AA player, most likely that will be default BY team, maybe a few exceptional younger kids sprinkled in here and there.

If you are looking at one of the independent teams, are you able to judge if the kids are at a similar level? There are some around having some success. 

Both my kids are in low number BY so this has never really been an option for them, and I really have a hard time understanding the fascination with doing it. Maybe take a look at the coach's kid on that team....what is that kid's skill level? Does he seem to lag behind the rest a bit? Sometimes, not always, that is the primary purpose of doing that, because if it were a mixed BY, that child and a few others would likely not be on that team, and goodness what a tragedy if those children played in a lower division. 

Mixed BY has been a good experience for us, with teams formed based on skill. They liked playing with different kids each year. Being exposed to different coaches. For the good athlete (and some children, not all), having the more experienced players pushes them and they grow more than they would have on a BY team. I have seen bottom players in the younger BY get left in the dust over the course of a season, so I would say for them, it was not good developmentally. That child may have been better off playing at a lower level. Those bubble children are always hard.

The issue with BY teams around here is that you can see a much bigger range of skill from top to bottom, making it hard to compete. And if they get placed in a division with mostly older BY, they get slaughtered.

So, in short, it depends on your kid. Don't let coaches tell you how it is so fantastic that the kids stay together....kids don't develop at the same pace. You should expect that some may come and go over time based on skill, growth spurts, etc. If the tryout is looking for skill, you shouldn't see the same kids every year. Keeping them together purely because of age, it's just not good developmentally. And... parents tend to look for greener pastures. Don't do it just to keep kids together, that can't be guaranteed by anyone.

It's an art, not a science. Some years your kid is going to have a good year, others not so much. Look for a program that is interested in development at all of its levels, not just top teams. More likely to find that your kid will be placed right and will be developed, whatever his skill.

Why does PAHL support the birth year then in bantam having AA Major and AA minor? Is it just because they check 

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2 hours ago, Hockey00 said:

Why does PAHL support the birth year then in bantam having AA Major and AA minor? Is it just because they check 

Yes, first year of checking. The thought was it is safer to introduce the concept in the younger year rather than having all the expert second year Bantams blowing the beginners up. We didn't play in it, so not sure how that worked out....but because some years and some programs can't put together an entire BY together, some of the teams still ended up mixed level. Kind of defeating the purpose a bit. Gonna get my first exposure to it this year I guess. Can't wait.

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7 minutes ago, Hockeyboomer87 said:

But there’s a lot of teams that have a mixed year team in the AA minor division. So that makes no sense 

Agree wholeheartedly. There are a lot of teams with mixed BYs in AA minor because, again, this market can't adequately support BY with its numbers. Also makes no sense why only one division gets a minor age group while all other kids playing at the lower BY will play mixed BY. Only AA kids need to be protected, I guess.

My opinion, there were other reasons for doing it. What they were, I don't know.

And that 'AA' minor hockey BY is not as good as the A Major hockey mixed teams. You have a kid moving up to bantam who played AA the year before, I would want them to be on the A major team and not the AA minor. Makes it odd when you are trying to go to tournaments I bet. Guess where the tournament directors are going to want to put you....AA, where you are likely to play against AA major BY teams.

It's just goofy to me. We've had two seasons of it now. Anyone have a kid who played in it that thought it was good/bad and want to chime in?

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