Playing Down

[H0ck3yDad]

I’ve noticed a lot of teams going undefeated and outscoring their opponents by margins as high as 7 to 1. It just seems more rational to me that playing in the highest division you can compete in would be the most beneficial thing for player development, dominating when there’s a higher division available just seems pointless, like a D1 school going undefeated playing a D2 schedule, yeah you win but you don’t get much better. Just caught the end of the Allegheny ‘07 game which prompted me to check their record. It’s crazy to me that they didn’t opt for AA Major, unless they weren’t expected to be as good as they are I guess.

[BeaverFalls]

It’s pretty much up to PAHL where teams are placed. I’ve seen it work where teams begged to be place lower, were refused and got smoked all year and vice-versa. Unless a team goes bonkers in pre-season or gets constantly crushed (talking 15 goal difference), then they end up where they are originally placed. 
 

To be fair, despite there being some lopsided scores, it’s a heck of a lot more competitive than it was 15-30 years ago. 

[BeaverFalls]

Also, let’s not understate the power of coaching and ice time especially if you’re questioning this point of the year. Good coaching and lots of practice can definitely cause a team to + up multiple goals per game. 
 

idk in this particular situation but I’ve seen it happen more than once that you get to see who is developing and who is stagnant. 

[H0ck3yDad]

Yeah, that makes sense.  My son is in Squirt and they have a team that has dominated their division but it’s hard to find fault with them, they’re in Crawford county and have a couple kids who could be in higher divisions but there’s nowhere else to really play up there, the other 12-13 kids are definitely at the appropriate level.

[BeaverFalls]

Just now, H0ck3yDad said:

Yeah, that makes sense.  My son is in Squirt and they have a team that has dominated their division but it’s hard to find fault with them, they’re in Crawford county and have a couple kids who could be in higher divisions but there’s nowhere else to really play up there, the other 12-13 kids are definitely at the appropriate level.

That also is huge. Small programs that usually are only able to field 1-2 teams in a division usually thrive in the below AA and High A major levels just because of that. 
 

Larger programs usually are stronger up top but more uniform in skill as you go down the teams and usually struggle a little more against programs with solo teams. 
 

 

[aaaahockey]

Good discussion. Additionally, sometimes there really is a big difference between divisions. I've seen years where my children (especially in squirt) would get hammered in aa placement games and then win every a major game by multiple goals.  Actually happened to two of my kids once. Not much you can do. 

[H0ck3yDad]

25 minutes ago, aaaahockey said:

Good discussion. Additionally, sometimes there really is a big difference between divisions. I've seen years where my children (especially in squirt) would get hammered in aa placement games and then win every a major game by multiple goals.  Actually happened to two of my kids once. Not much you can do. 

Yeah, I could see the way kids develop around that age factoring in as well.  My sons team is all 9 year olds and they were losing placement games by 5 and 6 goals but are beating or competing with those same teams nowZ

[Saucey]

There was little time for division placement this year due to COVID. Coaches and programs got their requests for the most part I think this year. Usually, this is one thing I think PAHL usually does really well. But those birth year teams can be hard, like someone else mentioned, because we aren't set up for by in Pa..

[Lifelongbender]

I agree with @Saucey on this subject. PAHL does a pretty good job of placing teams, which is a complex process and must be a maddeningly enormous undertaking. As several other posters have stated here, it's not perfect, and coaching of the teams and practice time become huge factors as the season progresses. There are organizations notorious for sandbagging during placements, and to be sure some placements are obviously wrong every season. It's hard to see how it could be perfect, especially this season where placement games were reduced (and totally eliminated at some levels, where the PAHL database is more complete for the players due to their experience).

It's more challenging at Squirts especially, since those players don't have much historical data in the PAHL database, and at that age players can improve dramatically based on talent, ice time, and coaching. Sometimes just a month's worth of practicing can take what looked to be a B team all the way to A major at that level, because the kids can learn so quickly.

[fafa fohi]

18 hours ago, H0ck3yDad said:

I’ve noticed a lot of teams going undefeated and outscoring their opponents by margins as high as 7 to 1. It just seems more rational to me that playing in the highest division you can compete in would be the most beneficial thing for player development, dominating when there’s a higher division available just seems pointless, like a D1 school going undefeated playing a D2 schedule, yeah you win but you don’t get much better. Just caught the end of the Allegheny ‘07 game which prompted me to check their record. It’s crazy to me that they didn’t opt for AA Major, unless they weren’t expected to be as good as they are I guess.

It is my understanding for Bantam U-14, AA Major is all 06 teams ( with a handful of 07's on some teams ) and AA Minor is 07's.  Allegheny's 06 team is pretty good and one of the top teams in AA Major.  

[dazedandconfused]

SHAHA has both an 06 and 07 team in AA Major. They both belong in a lower division. Or, maybe they should have had 2 mixed year teams instead. Allegheny had to know how the season would play out.

[twoboys]

17 hours ago, Saucey said:

There was little time for division placement this year due to COVID. Coaches and programs got their requests for the most part I think this year. Usually, this is one thing I think PAHL usually does really well. But those birth year teams can be hard, like someone else mentioned, because we aren't set up for by in Pa..

My son's team didn't get their request to move down. 

The 07 Badgers are pretty good.  I don't think the Badgers were surprised at all by their record.   Guessing that they preferred Bantam minor knowing it was likely going to be like this.

 

[RMU Alum]

The 07 Shaha team beat 07 badgers last year and opted to move up. Allegheny needed that banner I guess.  It was absolutely known they would run away with the division this year. 

[hockeydadlife]

2 hours ago, RMU Alum said:

The 07 Shaha team beat 07 badgers last year and opted to move up. Allegheny needed that banner I guess.  It was absolutely known they would run away with the division this year. 

by the looks of the standings, i bet shaha regrets doing that. 

[aaaahockey]

1 hour ago, hockeydadlife said:

by the looks of the standings, i bet shaha regrets doing that. 

I think the SHAHA team wanted to push themselves instead of playing down (no kid on that team but I have heard from parents there and I believe they voted before the season).  Sure it was rough but kudos for trying to push yourselves if you need to move up after a good season. 

[Saucey]

I hate the BY model for our area. The year to move up is not the first year of checking imo. That 07 SHAHA team has some talent but play very timid on the ice. And now you've ruined confidence and you may lose kids next season. I think it hurts development if you overreach on your 'challenge'. It's no different than taking AA players, forming a 'AAA' team and getting your butts handed to you all season. So I don't think you should knock Allegheny for that. Pretty much damned if you do damned if you don't in the BY model around here...they moved up to AA Major, they may have had the same season as SHAHA 07, and hurt development.

Bantam are tough years for development. Kids put on their adult height and weight before others. Size starts mattering.

So...I also think development hurts when you have no challenge and when all your games. You can address that a bit in your tournament play and independent games. I didn't look at everything the Badgers did this season, they may have tried to do that as best you can in a COVID year.

Until we have a market where teams can really put together AA quality  players at every BY, I don't think we should do it. I believe my boys did better with checking and learned more as a whole by playing with and against some players who knew how to do it on a mixed BY team playing in A Major. They learn from each other as much as trial and error. When your mixed BY three team can beat the BY team, your first year Bantam kid is playing on a better team with A Major and against better teams than on that AA minor team. And don't forget the 07 BY is just as low numbers as the 2005 BY, so many programs don't have enough 07 AA quality players on their teams. BY is just a mess when you don't have the numbers. In our small hockey market, we frequently don't.

We look at large hockey markets and think we should do what they do instead of looking at the reality of our area and building from there.