This is always the way that people pushing this argument go. If it's something that fits your status quo agenda, it's an important factoid that proves the CAHA system is exceptional. If it's something that doesn't, then it's a meaningless anomaly. People choosing to have their kids leave the state for better development opportunities? AAA is watered down and 3 teams in the entire state of California is great (even when 1 of the 3 is rarely competitive). AA teams able to play with and even beat AAA teams? That's an exception that should be ignored.
Here's the difference in a nutshell between California and the rest of the country (that isn't Minnesota).
Club/Association Programs:
B -> A, AA ----> Develop kids to move to AAA
California:
B -> A -> AA | Restrict entire pool of AAA to 3 teams (34 - 66 players by gender statewide, at an expense per player of 20-40k per year, with 15-20 missed school days)
Not all players make it up the ladder to AAA, but there is no reason that CAHA should be interfering or preventing clubs from building their programs around this model, yet there is and they do.
These rules were put in place due to the misguided belief by individuals within CAHA that California needed to protect the reputation of state AAA teams in order to attract competition to the state. At this point there is ample proof that if that was their goal, the plan has failed miserably. Each year 1-2 of the SoCal teams is very competitive (top 15 MHRankings). Has this attracted all the best AAA teams to California tournaments?
It speaks for itself that California teams have to travel to face other top ranked AAA teams, which is the only place they have a chance to be scouted for opportunities to pursue the sport beyond youth and high school. No line has formed to come challenge the AAA teams, which is why it is so expensive to play AAA here.
It speaks for itself that there has been no repercussions positively or negatively in having a AAA franchise club that is consistently ranked well below the top 30 teams in the country.
It speaks for itself that there is an exodus of Tier I & II players from the state.
I'm not even sure what you are arguing for anymore.
You imply that there are more AAA players out there. OK. Where? The 04 kings lost 10 AAA players last year for various reasons, and they filled in with (I assume) the best AA players available. They have certainly improved over the year, but even with the returning AAA players,
with all of LA to pull from, they went from being ranked in the 20's to #71, which according to you is unacceptable. (Personally I disagree with that. They are clearly better than a lot of AAA teams. If you are out of the lowest 20 or 30 in the rankings, you are probably ok as an AAA team).
For an occasional team (an exception) I get it. Sounds like the 14AA's are great. And CAHA is doing that, and is doing it more. And I'd argue has been doing that (again, look at GSE last year.)
But on a wider basis, if the argument is that there should just be more teams at every level, I don't see it. Based on geography? Ok, I can get behind that, but where would SD based AAA players come from? The other Gulls teams look like just good AA teams. At least in Norcal there are 5 other A and AA organizations. How many SD AA teams are there to pull from for an AAA team, or would you just be taking Ducks players? Wouldn't they now have the exact same commute issues (in reverse) that you have?
Are there many other examples out there, of AA teams that are in the top 10 in the country? The 03/04 Bears were a few years ago. Again though, isn't that just an exception?
And as far as I can tell (from reading this board mostly!), there is so much infighting and angst between teams in SoCal, coming up with one more AAA team that made everyone happy might be a challenge.
BUT, bring it on. If it's possible, I'd love to see more closer competition. Right now though, I think I look to Vegas developing their program, and maybe the new Seattle NHL team starting something up.
One of other thing...
As for $30k to $40k per year, with 15-20 missed school days for AAA... No. Widely quoted and inaccurate. If you are spending that much or taking that much time off, fire your team manager. If my kid makes it all the way to Nationals (top 16AAA teams in the country) he MIGHT hit 12 days. Right now I think he's sitting at 4 or 5 missed days. No worse than getting a bad flu. My estimate is that unless you make nationals (which is a week), for a smart team that does team travel (like all AAA teams should), AAA costs
maybe $7k or so more than AA, once you add in the fact that all good AA teams also do road trips too.