IcaDad,
Lots to cover here. First, there is nothing funny about my math regarding the expense of adopting a CAHA weekend system for AAA (which CAHA has expressly reserved the right to do). We did two seasons of those, and I am painfully familiar with which venues are commutable and under what circumstances, as well that most other similarly located families made the same decisions. Escondido and Valencia, for example, are commutable for a one-off game for us, but not for a three day weekend of games. We have suffered through 615 am start times at CAHA weekends, so forgive me if I think it is absurd to suggest that I drive my kid home by 11:30 and then have to get him up at 330am to drive back. Now, who knows where CAHA would schedule the weekends, but if it were a 6 team division, I am pretty sure Escondido, NorCal and Valencia would host at least 1 each. Maybe I get lucky and they are all at KHS. But I’m assuming 4-6 hotel nights, CAHA weekends fee, coaches fees/expenses, food and for many, air fare and rental cars for the NorCal trip. $1500 actually sounds conservative to me.
With regard to competition, it wasn’t too long ago that you argued that there were AA teams that were going to be non competitive and should drop for the benefit of their own players based on 4 games at the jamboree. We have three seasons worth of data on the Sharks. We have the fact that the Sharks and Kings actually had a tournament game count at a CAHA game to avoid playing each other again. So when I see CAHA adding a team which looks to project to be similar to (and probably worse than) the Sharks it’s a huge issue.
I am also happily aware that there are some elite players as well as merely AAA ready players who happen to be playing AA. And they are doing just what you would expect them to - standing out. IF G2 were ready to compete at AAA, I think I should see more of their players at the top end of the leader boards.
And at least the Gulls have a pure 06 team. The Bears don’t, and would have to “Build-AAA-Bear†almost from scratch in seven weeks. They aren’t permitted to talk to out of club kids yet so they can (legitimately) have no idea who would come over.
I would argue that having expanded AAA to the Dogs last year, it would have been prudent to consolidate gains and have the scattered AAA players find homes with existing teams. The Dogs have had some turmoil and turnover so getting a few of those kids is/has been and would be a shot in the arm.
I think we owe it to our best players to do our best for them. Teams not competitive at AAA should be in AA and teams not competitive in AA should be in A. Maybe the answer here is to fix AA rather than damage AAA.