And it’s not a matter of two games. AAA teams have to play each other 3 times a season. Start with the 3 non competitive games against the Sharks, add in three more for the Gulls and potentially 3 more for the Bears. That’s 9 games and probably an investment of three school days and over 1500 per family for the existing teams. That’s too much of an investment to (maybe) foster the development of a few kids on the team.
It seems to me that what you expect is that AAA guarantees insulation against ever winning a game that isn't a life and death battle. It's absurd because it doesn't exist and has never existed within the CAHA system or hockey in general. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the games won't end up being more competitive than expected.
I do find your math hysterical. Let's just say that you are a Kings or Ducks parent. You have a drive of perhaps an hour and a half to play the gulls at worse, and something less for the Bears. The Sharks have a bit more of a travel dilemma, but that is no different than the one that currently exists, and historically, the Sharks have lagged behind the Ducks and Kings.
Then there are some simple facts regarding this season. The Kings have emerged this season as the superior team. They have yet to lose a game, and a +42 GD in 9 games. Well surely that is because they are nipping the #2 Ducks, right? Sorry, but you did ask for this:
Kings 4 - Ducks 1
Kings 6 - Ducks 0
Kings 7 - Ducks 2
The Sharks are in last place behind the ID, so I won't bother to post their scores. I suppose that CAHA ought to drop the Ducks and the Sharks from AAA next year, as neither team seems to be able to compete with the Kings team this year?
So the reason for adding these teams is that there are a few kids in each of those groups that are ready to play AAA? That’s really the best argument against adding those teams. The kids who aren’t ready aren’t going to develop because they (i) will not have success against the elite players or (ii) will be spending a lot of time watching the kids who are ready to compete at this level. I’ve watched this happen and it’s horrible watching a kids love for the game die on the bench.
I have never heard nor seen a kid's dream of playing hockey die because they were beaten soundly by players on a better team. If anything it's often motivation to work harder. Adults in charge of playing time and opportunity can be quite good at killing a kid's dreams, but then the history of hockey if full of stories about players who were told they weren't good enough to play, at various times, in various ways, and yet they persevered.
You keep bringing up "the elite players" like they are a different breed of human. Scattered throughout the AA teams are kids who would have no problem at AAA. At '06 the best 2 offensive AAA players don't even play at their birth year currently, and there are any number of '06 players in AA who are playing up and facing '05 players and teams who are more than capable of beating the '06 AAA teams, in some cases routinely.
I'm sure the calculus for the Bears and ID are the same, and that is that in order to attract a quorum of these kids, AAA is the best way to do it, at least for the coming season. The problem is that, it should be simpler and easier for them to do so. Hockey programs are not unlike the field of dreams: you have to build it for them to come.
The "franchised" AAA clubs have had all the advantages of the system for years, so it might take some time for the clubs to catch up, but given the opportunity, history shows they probably will, unless CAHA continues to actively prevent it.