In deciding to move forward and not granting one age group five AAA teams (if not more), CAHA has once again gone against USA Hockey, what is being done in other states and statistics provided by intelligent hockey parents on this board.
CAHA's rules should be scrapped. Whatever happened in the past should be forgotten. Do you really need prerequisites to field a AAA team when you have six different divisions at some levels that include flight 1 & flight 2?
But besides that I'll make the argument that CAHA won't think twice about the sacrifices being made by parents at any level and even less outside of AAA:
1. They had every tier team statewide travel to San Jose for a pre-season evaluation. Regardless of placement, regardless of good team or lousy team, in hindsight did anything positive come from Labor Day weekend?
2. There is no reasonable explanation why geographical divisions can't be set up for large divisions at lower levels.Does an A team with 20 + teams in their division really need to travel from San Diego to Bakersfield for a regular season game?
3. Do you really need to have a Nor Cal CAHA weekend when all the teams in flight 2 at multiple levels are from Southern California? Or is this part of the discouraging teams from playing up theory which is clearly going to back fire when big and small clubs decide to play up just to be placed in the lower tier.
In conclusion, CAHA cares enough about your player only to continue to fund the club their board members represent. This isn't about player development, it is about legalities, club protectionism and business. It is no wonder why every serious hockey family with a son or daughter with potential has to consider leaving the state. And players continue to leave in droves.