Skating Dad: your experience and opinion are completely different than mine regarding Spring. Its just not accurate to say most serious kids don't play local Spring tournaments. For example, go look at the rosters for Carmen Starr at the 06 level and you will have a hard time finding many serious AA players who did not play. I would respectfully suggest that at the pee wee level, if your player and group are not doing spring tournaments, those are pretty significant indications to call into question whether the team will be competitive. If they are doing tournaments, which ones, at what level, and what are the results? If your team/coach/club does not have its act together for Memorial Day, chances are it won't for tryouts the next week or two later. As far as players not showing up en masse, when I have seen that happen, there were warning signs that the coach or remaining families somehow did not see or chose to ignore. It may not always be obvious that player or two may choose to go to a different tryout, but its no secret if your team is or is not attracting skilled players trying to make the team. If its not doing the latter, that is also a pretty good indication that the team's prospects are relatively limited.