Still a lot of talk about the Wave 2- PWAA going on.
Now that the season has officially ended I’m going to throw light on what I saw this season because most of what I am
hearing from people who are outside of the team are overblown lies being propagated by bitter, self serving parents who voluntarily QUIT the team with damaged egos.
COACHING
Coaching was good, not great, but good. There was a strong emphasis on individual play and skills vs. taking a whole team approach to the games which meant the team pretty much lived or died by the sword most of the season.
The head coach treated the kids with respect and he really did seem to care about all of them. There was some favoritism going on (some justified and some not), but by in large I believe he had good intentions from beginning to end.
Assistant coaches were fine and no major complaints. The Manager was new to the job, but she worked hard to make the best of the situation.
KIDS
This was an excellent group of kids many of which were all put on this team having spent little time playing together when the season started (it consisted of mostly 2005 kids, but there were several 2006 and 2004 kids as well). They fought and played hard all season to make and earn a playoff spot only to have it stripped away from them 4 days before CAHA playoffs (several days after they were told they were in and satisfied PDR according to CAHA).
They made the playoffs being down kids the entire season due kids quitting, so I give them a lot of credit for fighting and making it despite the loss of players.
PDR ISSUE
I’ll start this by saying the only reason this was an issue to begin with was because CAHA changed the rules this season to a 50%. I have been told by several people this may have been done to punish certain coaches that were at the WAVE to try and ‘block’ them from being able to field AA teams which would also lesson the competition in several divisions of AA where more powerful clubs are hell bent on keeping a stranglehold.
Not close to the coaches or CAHA so I don’t know all the details, but my understanding is that it was an oversight by coaching in that a rostered player did not play enough games to be eligible to satisfy the PDR matter (10 games minimum), which was the final ruling by CAHA for making this team ineligible for playoffs. If one of those kids did not quit it would have been a non issue.
I heard that CAHA did grant several PDR exceptions this season, but they most certainly would not grant this team an exception because it would not likely have worked in their favor.
Curiously that rule has now been magically changed back to 25% for next season, no doubt to the benefit of more powerful clubs that need it. Can't lost that Tier1 Elite league status or the wheels come off of everything.
PARENTS
Parent 1
Ripped kid of the team early on because his kid was not getting enough ice time and in my opinion did so in a cowardly way because it was too early in the season for lines to even be set.
Parent 2
Ripped kid off the team (Quit) and I heard (not directly) her reasoning was her kid was not being treated fairly.
Did not see any of that, but that parent has been on the war path every since.
Parent 3
Ripped her kid of the team in December because she claimed her kid was not being treated fairly.
Moving to a back up role seemed to be the more likely reason.
It seems this parent had so much venom because her star moved to more of a semi-back up role (due to being outplayed) that her ego could not take it so she took the information she had about the added player knowing he did not actually play 10 games and complained to CAHA shortly before playoffs stating that the team was cheating.
It seemed carefully planned out with one intention: To make sure that the Wave 2 kids paid the price and were removed from the playoffs.
She did not hurt the parents, she hurt the kids and she took something away from them that she could never have earned on her own.That speaks volumes for what this individual stands for and having had kids played travel for 5 years I have never seen a more vindictive move to intentionally break the heart of kids that busted tail all year (fairly) to earn a spot.
In full disclosure I’m not on the inner circle of this club or coaching staff and I have no ulterior motive for posting this other than outing what I know and giving these kids their props.
CONCLUSION
- Politics dominate CAHA
- Toxic parents can bring a whole team down, choose wisely
- At least we earned the 8th playoff spot, it was not gifted.
I hear (have no idea if true) that that CAHA may bar the Wave from fielding a PWAA team this upcoming season. That makes perfect sense as I’m sure the board members don’t want their special clubs to get their asses handed to them next season by a very good team who would have likely been dominant.
Sure is convenient.