was wondering what happened to the AAA teams? Meaning, just a few years ago the Heat, Wave, Wildcats and others all seemed to have AAA teams at PW up through Midget. I'm guess CAHA shut that down, consolidating talent to Kings/Ducks, but why? While that might make better big program teams, wouldn't that drive lots of kids out of state and to prep schools? Additionally, less kids playing Tier = less money, right? I'm sure it's complicated and nuanced... just curious, though.
There is zero complication or nuance to what happened.
1. CAHA board is dominated by reps from Kings, Ducks & Sharks.
2. Three years ago, they passed a new rule limited AAA to 5 teams per birth year, instituted a whole host of requirements that must be met each season to qualify (most of which only the largest and best financed clubs -- i.e. Kings, Ducks & Sharks -- could meet), required any club wishing to field an AAA to go through an "approval" process each year, except that the three "NHL sponsored clubs (Kings, Ducks and Sharks) all get automatic approval. Ain't that rare?
3. Predictably, all of the clubs not named the Kings, Ducks and Sharks have given up on AAA rather than going through the onerous and obviously biased process.
4. The three clubs pushed this through in an effort to create an AAA monopoly up north (Sharks) and duopoly in SoCal. They succeeded.
5. The non unexpected result is that a lot of families who don't like limited choice at home are moving out of state. I predicted months ago that around three dozen of the top minor Midget kids in So Cal (2003s) will be playing out of the region next season (THA, Shattuck or back East). From what I am hearing lately, I may be low on my prediction. By getting greedy, the Kings and Ducks have wrecked the chances of building a quality Midget AAA hockey circuit in the southwest USA for this generation.