Hockey Discussions > Bantam Hockey
The CAHA AA Flight system sucks again (2019 Bantam AA Edition)
lcadad:
Warning to the reading or internet forum attention challenged: this is longer than the average post, and if you don't like reading long calhockey posts this won't be for you. You know who you are.
There is no system in youth sports I know of, where someone has designed a system as ridiculous and insulting to its participants as the CAHA AA Flight2 system. Everything about the system is demeaning and insulting to its participants, and what makes it especially egregious is that the teams that end up in Flight2 have no real input or visibility into the so called process of evaluation, nor is that process open or transparent.
No place outside of spring and beer league hockey is there a system where people invest the time, effort and money into a situation where anywhere from six to 10 teams play for the opportunity to have the most points in their division only so that they can "challenge" in a one game playoff in order to gain a berth as 8th place in the upper division playoffs vs teams that you never had a chance to play the entire season. It's hard to even describe to my friends who have hockey playing kids in other areas of the country.
Who is it that thought this was a good idea? Whomever it was, they clearly look down upon the flight 2 participants, but it is what it is. The main indictment of the system is that CAHA has proven in the 2 years of the system's existence to objectively suck at their evaluations and this just goes to further show how tone deaf the CAHA board is when it comes to the current AA system.
This season in Flight2 Bantam AA, there are at least 4 teams that are as good as the bottom 3-4 Flight1 teams. When I say "as good" I mean that those games would likely have been closely contested. It's also probable that those same 4 teams could challenge up into the upper echelon on the right day. The Flight1 system allows for late season runs like the one that netted the Bears their U12 state championship after a 5th place finish. The playoffs have meaning and rewards for improvements in Flight1, where the Flight2 teams get the Hunger games.
Given that last season, 2 of the 3 Flight2 challengers won their "play in" games, along with various Flight2 vs Flight1 upsets and ties in SCAHA, many hoped that CAHA and SCAHA would see the error of their ways. SCAHA obliged CAHA this season by eliminating all the cross flight games Flight 2 teams could look forward to last year. Once again these changes were unannounced until after flighting and the season had begun. Clearly they heard the criticism last season and their answer was to double down on limiting opportunities to make their evaluations look bad.
If Flighting is such a great thing then why didn't CAHA Flight U16 with 16 teams?
They also eliminated the Flight2 SCAHA playoffs because "teams didn't want them" when in fact, teams that are now top 4 echelon Flight1 participants (looking at you Wave parents) were eager participants last season. Perhaps if SCAHA understood that much of the negativity came from the way that system was announced mid-season they'd have once again had a SCAHA flight 2 tournament, but in many ways I'm glad they didn't so that everyone can see clearly the purpose of Flighting which is to punish its participants for rostering AA teams.
Well, now that the Bantam season is done we have a vivid example of the stark reality of Flight1 vs Flight2 participation:
In Flight2 it came down to the last game of the last CAHA weekend as to who would "win" 1st place. Even teams that I would not consider in the top 4 enjoyed upticks in their play in the last half of the season. The 4th place team, which beat every team in the division at least once, entered the final CAHA weekend with nothing to play for. Nor do the other 2 teams now that the season is complete, one of which is competitive with the '05 AAA teams in the state. The Flight2 system is a complete joke at the expense of hundreds of california hockey families.
While I wish the Kings1 the best in their playin game, there is no winning in Flight2. If you win the division and the play in game, what that proves definitively is that you were denied the opportunity to play other Flight1 teams you should have been playing throughout the season, and CAHA does not have a time machine to get you back those lost opportunities.
The originators of this system, along with its defenders and supporters say the system works well in doing what it was designed to do, and that is to keep the Flight1 elite teams from having to face unworthy Flight2 competitors. As a so called "objective" that's pretty ridiculous when you consider how bad the system is at achieving its goal. Flight1 7-9 teams all lost 13 of 16 games this season with goal differentials of -33, -43 and -50.
And yet, going into the final day of CAHA competition, a team with 2 wins and a team with 1 win were both playing for slots in the top 8. Contrast that to Flight2 and it's clear that getting your ass handed to you all year in Flight1 is still favorable to the ridiculous system in Flight2.
From what we could piece together in results from the comical 40 minute jamboree there was enough information to tell CAHA that as many as half the teams they were putting into Flight1 were not objectively better and more deserving than 5-6 of the teams they pushed down to Flight2. Congrats to CAHA for doing exactly what they said they would NOT do and Flighting when they did not have clear evidence there was significant separation. WTF is the Jamboree for other than to placate people and feed them a lie in regards to the objectivity and fairness of the Flighting process.
Along the way, CAHA and SCAHA have been very effective in putting a chill on cross flight competition and scrimmages. If you are a Flight1 team that is marginal, it is highly unlikely that you are going to want to scrimmage against a Flight2 team who might be able to beat you. You can't blame the Flight1 team coaches for wanting to avoid the potential embarrassment.
CAHA needs to wake up. Everyone knows that there are kids playing A and AA who could easily be top players in AAA. Many of these players are excluded from AAA not due to their talent or potential, but simply due to financial or geographic limitations.
The Bears Bantam AA teams the last few seasons (and the '05 AA Flight2 Saints2 this year) have shown that they are capable of playing against AAA teams nationally. Meanwhile people are fleeing the state in droves, because they can see how the CAHA system favors a few clubs and abuses many others with its system and selective enforcement of its rules.
Many people saw the huge liability and flaws in the system when the first notices were posted and most of those have come to pass. This petition summarized many of those problems in advance of Flighting so I'm not going to regurgitate them, but kudos to the people who signed onto the petition publically: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/call-to-abandon-unnecessary-and-problematic
People often say, "Yeah it's easy to complain but what would be better?" Unfortunately there is no short term fix that won't involve some pain, but it seems clear to me when you look around the country at other locales where youth hockey is thriving and people have choices, that the systems don't look anything like CAHA.
It would not be that hard to fix things and return California youth hockey to something reasonable. If I was running CAHA/SCAHA this is what I would do immediately:
-Eliminate the AAA franchise system. There should be more AAA teams in the state to bring California towards the USA hockey guidelines. More teams mean more local games at less cost and opportunities for more kids to participate and discover their potential. AAA teams take time and planning, but if there was a simple unconstrained way for clubs to move up to AAA, teams would emerge. One need look no further than this season's Brick team to see that the majority of the players will not be Ducks or Kings, but rather Gold Rush.
-Eliminate the AA Flight system. CAHA has shown it can't Flight objectively, and shouldn't be in the business of doing so regardless. CAHA was formed to organize games and leagues, not pick winners and losers before the season even begins.
If anything it should be looking at how to move AA towards AAA by organizing divisions by birth year. This would incentivize clubs to work towards and build sustainable teams where kids in the same birth year play and develop together.
This season several clubs took one year bets on a few major year players added to predominately minor year teams for the purpose of giving the team a slight pre-season advantage, often at the cost of casting off younger birth year participants who may have already played for that club and team for years. I saw this happen at a number of clubs this season, with no big payoffs and plenty of hard feelings.
Conversely, it might also make it less likely that a team would bet on an advanced minor year player when there were comparable major year players the coach didn't take. Often these decisions can dramatically undermine the birth year team they might otherwise be leading, only to struggle against physically more advanced players as the season progresses. I've seen numerous posts from parents of kids who played up an age group and deeply regret the decision to do so, as it lead to undermining of confidence and in some cases losing ground in the lineup as other older kids matured and became better suited to the physical challenges of playing bigger and stronger kids. There are always exceptions to this rule, but they are far fewer in number than the players who take these placements. The CAHA system could be helping everyone make reasonable decisions while still allowing them options.
Landshark:
Heroic and true. I enjoy every year my kid plays, but CAHA seems to do everything in their power to limit opportunities rather than expand them.
CahaMama:
Thanks ICADAD for writing what many of us parents think. This is why we left this year, for greener pastures. Due to geography mainly and politics to some extent, the top level we were able to play was the very flawed AA system last year. We live 100+ miles away from Ducks and Kings, so AAA was out of the question. Even if my son had moved in with a billet family, there was no way he would be able to bust through the system to play AAA. So he left. Now my 02 is playing against 18AAA teams and excelling. He is attracting scouts from the next level up and thriving after less than a year of getting out of Dodge. If your kids have any inkling of playing competitive hockey, they have to leave SoCal. Even AAA is a mostly dead end. CAHA and SCAHA and the HS leagues have killed off any hope of moving past their roadblocks. Good luck to changing this mess.
KickSave:
Mine is looking to leave, as well. Just to be able to continue to develop. I’m so tired of the “they’re never going pro anyway†excuses. Who cares about going pro? Most just want to continue to play and improve and have the confidence that comes from challenging yourself. This is depressing.
trans4761:
I, speaking for all the "attention challenged " morons here would ask for the Cliff Notes version if you please.
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