What AA Bantam Teams for 2018-19?

[JackBender]

You lost me at kid going ape shit?   Kings1 battled WW and almost won.

I know... but you're so excited and have 0/-22 Face Wash!

[Avcadet]

Flight 2 ( in no particular order )

Gulls 1
Gulls 2 * - drop to bantam A

Kings 1
Saints 2
Valencia
Ducks 1
Ducks 2
Wave 2 * - drop to bantam A
Empire * - will win flight 2
OC 2
Reign * - drop to bantam A


——————————
 Flight 1 ( in no particular order )


Oc 1
Saints 1
Bears 1
GSE 2
GSE 1 * - political pick
Wave 1
Sharks 1 * - political pick
Bears 2 * - huge potential
Kings 2 * - huge potential

Hmm. OC 2 lost to the Jr. Reign so shouldn’t OC 2 drop to A too? Wave 2 only lost 2 to 1 to OC 2 and 2 to 0 to saints 2. So to be fair drop saints 2 to A too. I love how everyone has their opinion but in reality it’s up to CAHA. Hopefully they realize the potential in all of these teams and let them remain in flight 2.

Comparative scores are often not a good guide to competitiveness.   Saints 2 about 2 weeks ago in a full scrimmage beat Wave 2 by 8 to 1 and out shot them 54-5.  It was more lopsided than the data suggests.  Saints 2 perhaps took Wave 2 for granted at the Jamboree or Wave 2 is improving and will soon win Tier 1.   OC2 should also be considered a candidate for BN A.   Ironically, both Wave 2 and OC2 have excellent coaches but not the talent along with several other teams including Reign and Gulls 2.   

Tell us how you really feel!

[lcadad]

For the lower Flight2 teams the question is this:  why stay in AA?

Flight2 has been designed to be a punishment, not an opportunity.    The system is clearly set up to discourage and demean its participants.   All Flight2 offers a team is the opportunity to have a marginally better set of teams to play against,.  If you are starting towards the bottom of Flight2, even if you build and finish strong, it is highly unlikely you will come in first place.   There are no longer going to be Flight2 playoffs.  So you get a lot of meaningless games between SCAHA and playing out your CAHA string, and you'll travel to Norcal so that you can play most likely, one Norcal team.  Why?

I know if I was in that predicament, I'd opt to play Bantam A where the team will enter the season as a top contender, can have team goals within their own league, and make it to playoffs and a state championship tournament.   The CAHA flight system actively discourages all flight2 teams that build and improve versus their competition via development and quality coaching.  They don't want teams stretching, and the end result is that it's now strategically better to sandbag.

[lcadad]

I will go back to my argument that most flight 2 teams with be minor year teams. It’s better to stay flight 2 and develop and prepare for your competition for your major year. It’s not fun to sandbag and nobody wins in that situation.

This season, that is not likely to be the case, at least in Bantam AA.  There will be a number of 04 teams in Flight2.  I also think it's providing a justification for the system, when that justification was not designed nor intended.  If Flights were AA Major and AA Minor, that would be fine with me.  As such they should have playoffs just as AAA Major/Minor do. 


If you are a birth year team AND you have a legitimate shot at winning Flight2, then I guess there is that to work towards.   Overall, its sucky even if you win Flight2 and win the play in game.  All that says is that you got screwed out of playing in Flight1 where you should have all season long, and your reward is to play the #1 Flight1 team in your first playoff game.  You never get back what you should have enjoyed, which is the higher level of competition. 


But to be clear, I'm talking about teams that will likely come in towards the bottom of Flight2.  The teams that seem to be happy with the tradeoff are in general the younger teams who are pushing the envelope of competition, and expect to stay together perhaps with the same coach for a few seasons.

[King4life]

Wada Wave 2
Kings(1) 1 Final score
Kings1 is a solid choice for flight 1. 

[RabidHockeyFan]

WW did not play Kings 1 during the Jamboree.  WW played Kings 2, and won 2 to 0.

[Hockey sophist]

WW did not play Kings 1 during the Jamboree.  WW played Kings 2, and won 2 to 0.

WW1 should be a sure thing for tier 1 but the Kings 2 are a smaller, young teams with lots of promise.  Maybe it was a test if they could compete with the tier 1 teams.   

[SkatingDad]

All the teams should be put into flight 1 and let them fight it out.  As we have all stated many times this whole flighting system SUCKS!!


One of the biggest problems with this fighting system is that it benefits teams that have had a core group together for 2-3 years.  Newly formed teams simply do not have enough time to get any kind of cohesion or plays in place. I heard several stories like "we did really well considering we only had 4-5 practices".  Teams were literally relying on individual player talent as there was no team work in place because, how could there be? There will be really good development coaches that are pigeonholed into flight 2 and even though they develop a team that becomes a good team, they have no chance of going anywhere. If they want to keep this flight system the flight 2 teams need more of a chance to play for something other than pride.


CAHA get your head out of your a$$!

[trans4761]

WW did not play Kings 1 during the Jamboree.  WW played Kings 2, and won 2 to 0.

SHIT !
Just humor k4l.
He's in a fragile state


F-R-A-G-I-L-E.......Must be Italian....

[justanotherhockeydad]

All the teams should be put into flight 1 and let them fight it out.  As we have all stated many times this whole flighting system SUCKS!!


One of the biggest problems with this fighting system is that it benefits teams that have had a core group together for 2-3 years.  Newly formed teams simply do not have enough time to get any kind of cohesion or plays in place.

Not trying to play devil's advocate, but as much as we dislike the flight system, I thought for the most part CAHA got it right last year...
Last year, WW and Saints were the two top teams in Flight 2, with Saints being the official champion and WW with the second best record in Flight 2 (yes they did lose to Mariners in the 'Flight 2 Playoff')... However, as decent as these two teams were, they were unable to beat any Flight 1 teams. So in a way, CAHA did get it right by grouping the perhaps more 03 heavy teams in Flight 1 and the younger teams in Flight 2...

Regarding the flight system benefiting teams with a core group together for 2-3 yrs, well in theory it should be true, but which team(s) in Flight 1 has a core group with a 2-3 yrs history?

Bears1 - Pretty much a brand new group with 5 or 6 AAA kids + AA kids from elsewhere + a few kids from A moving up
OC1 - more than half are either new to this group or did not play with OC last yr + a new coach
Saints1 - Not too familiar with this group but I didn't recognize more than half of them
GSE2 - can't say I know too much about their roster, but perhaps they've been together awhile? Idk...
WW - core has been together for many yrs but have at least 6 new players this season
All I'm saying is that there are so much off-season movement that it's rare to see a group hanging on to their true core for more than a few yrs...
Guess we could go back to how things were, or follow 16AA, and go with a no-flight system, but I'm sure we will bitch about teams losing/winning by 10+ goals and how it's a waste of time for the so-called better teams to sandbag and for the lesser teams, not being able to play competitive games...

[SkatingDad]

All the teams should be put into flight 1 and let them fight it out.  As we have all stated many times this whole flighting system SUCKS!!


One of the biggest problems with this fighting system is that it benefits teams that have had a core group together for 2-3 years.  Newly formed teams simply do not have enough time to get any kind of cohesion or plays in place.

Guess we could go back to how things were, or follow 16AA, and go with a no-flight system, but I'm sure we will bitch about teams losing/winning by 10+ goals and how it's a waste of time for the so-called better teams to sandbag and for the lesser teams, not being able to play competitive games...

That is what got us in this situation in the first place.  A small group of people raised enough hell that they thought they needed to do something.  As always anytime a politician (AKA CAHA BOD) tries to fix a problem they make it worse. The flighting system and limiting AAA needs to stop.  Let the free market figure everything out.  What they are doing is wrong as evident in the number players leaving the state to play elsewhere. 

[justanotherhockeydad]

Yes, the limited AAA clubs seem to be a glaring mistake which perpetuated the mass exodus of kids leaving CA. However, CAHA's attempt to create a flight system to create better competition can't be said as a complete failure as evidenced by last yr's results in Bantam AA...

The problem is that there will always be someone bitching about something. If only teams would have the good sense of self evaluation and declaring their teams in the appropriate level, we wouldn't be bitching about this clusterf*ck today...

[King4life]

Seriously though, Kings1 is Flight 1.  Kings2 is a lock. 

[SkatingDad]

Seriously though, Kings1 is Flight 1.  Kings2 is a lock.

Kings 2 were well coached and moved the puck extremely well.  They obviously practiced over the summer.

[area51]

The Flight system works as it should. Basically creates a new division between AA and A, Flight 2 is basically AA-B. The only ones that bitch are the teams that think they should be Flight 1. With 10 teams in Flight 1, you get to play everyone twice during CAHA weekends. Our boys don't want to play the Flight 2 teams, the same way that the Flight 2 teams don't want to play 14U A teams.
The thing they need to fix is the Jamboree. Have it on an off weekend, not on Labor Day when teams would rather be playing a tournament to get ready for the season. Maybe start it off locally so teams don't have to travel, and then have your bubble teams play another weekend, if they actually want the chance to play up to Filght 1.
As for AAA, not one of the top 5 Flight teams would move their teams to AAA, but I'm sure there are some Flight 2 teams that think they are good enough, and of course the Reign would have their AAA team.