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Author Topic: AAU  (Read 82800 times)

area51

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Re: AAU
« Reply #30 on: October 17, 2016, 09:02:30 AM »
full ice mite hockey is only for the parents! cross ice isn't as exciting to watch, but the kids will develop more skills

#4BobbyOrr

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Re: AAU
« Reply #31 on: October 18, 2016, 01:57:16 PM »
Don't know why scaha implemented the no player up rule for mites.  Not a CAHA or USA Hockey rule.   May take up the appeals process on this one.  One size does not always fit all.

Rats13

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Re: AAU
« Reply #32 on: October 18, 2016, 06:19:41 PM »
Probably to slow the "play-up" culture that seems to start with mites and continue into Pee Wee.  My hunch is if SCAHA leaves the rule in place there will little to no successful appeals of the rule.  Much like the few that have tried to play up from minor years.  The answer will be a flat "no."   The last thing I would think SCAHA wants to be is evaluating individual players on a regular basis.  What a mess that would be.  Just my 2 cents 

#4BobbyOrr

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Re: AAU
« Reply #33 on: October 18, 2016, 06:39:09 PM »
Players should be able to play up if that is where their skill level is.  Or they should add AA at Squirt level.

skates

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Re: AAU
« Reply #34 on: October 18, 2016, 07:15:06 PM »
Players should play with their age group. Just think of the more true lifelong friends they will make hanging out with their age group. So what if their skills may be better than some of the kids. Hey they will just get more touches to the puck and be that much better. (Kids at that age are there for the fun. (Let them enjoy the fun while it lasts before life becomes one big presssure cooker!)

And please do not add a squirt AA! Coaches just need to really make the B players play B and A players play A without the influence of money.

Puck Yeah

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Re: AAU
« Reply #35 on: October 18, 2016, 07:20:05 PM »
Don't know why scaha implemented the no player up rule for mites.  Not a CAHA or USA Hockey rule.   May take up the appeals process on this one.  One size does not always fit all.

I would venture a wild guess that the top 50% of player's parents think their kid should be playing up.  There seems to be a tendency for parents with their oldest or their only kid playing hockey that their kid is a stand out and should be playing up. 

Austin Matthews never played up and he seems to have developed just fine.

#4BobbyOrr

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Re: AAU
« Reply #36 on: October 19, 2016, 09:42:02 AM »
Wayne Gretzky played with 10 year olds when he was 6 and he turned out fine too.  A good rule to go by is if your kid won't be in the top 20% in the older age group then playing up is ill advised. I am not so concerned with playing up as I am with spending thousands of dollars to watch my kid have to do another year of cross ice games which he really doesn't want to do. He wants to move on and I think he is ready.  He is born in March 09 and next year will be his 4th or 5th year of hockey. A kid born in December 08, just 4 month older, could be in his 2nd year of hockey playing Squirt B and gets to (or really has to)  play full ice.  Who would benefit more from cross ice? If small area games are so beneficial for development then why aren't B level teams at all levels playing cross ice?  People make the argument that after mites kids play small area games in practice.  That"s true and it is also true that small area games are good for development at any level.  But the other levels aren't banned from playing full ice on Sunday.  The whole system of advancing based on age rather than skill level makes little sense (except for pee wee to bantam when checking starts). Scaha clubs are either going to lose mites to an insurgent aau league or local house leagues which already play full ice 5 on 5 games at the mite level (tsc, lakewood, palos verdes, probably many others)..   I have already talked to some people who say they won't have their younger kids play travel now until squirts.

Another issue for some clubs is that they are limited as to how many kids they can have in their mite program due to ice availability.  If you create a log jam at the top of the mite level then you are potentially being forced to shut out kids at the bottom end of the level who want play but  can't get a roster spot.  You could have an 8 yr old player that could do fine at Squirt bb but his not being allowed to move up could keep a 6 or 7 year old out of travel hockey all together.  Doesn't make sense.

area51

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Re: AAU
« Reply #37 on: October 19, 2016, 12:03:44 PM »
Wayne Gretzky played with 10 year olds when he was 6 and he turned out fine too.  A good rule to go by is if your kid won't be in the top 20% in the older age group then playing up is ill advised. I am not so concerned with playing up as I am with spending thousands of dollars to watch my kid have to do another year of cross ice games which he really doesn't want to do. He wants to move on and I think he is ready.  He is born in March 09 and next year will be his 4th or 5th year of hockey. A kid born in December 08, just 4 month older, could be in his 2nd year of hockey playing Squirt B and gets to (or really has to)  play full ice.  Who would benefit more from cross ice? If small area games are so beneficial for development then why aren't B level teams at all levels playing cross ice?  People make the argument that after mites kids play small area games in practice.  That"s true and it is also true that small area games are good for development at any level.  But the other levels aren't banned from playing full ice on Sunday.  The whole system of advancing based on age rather than skill level makes little sense (except for pee wee to bantam when checking starts). Scaha clubs are either going to lose mites to an insurgent aau league or local house leagues which already play full ice 5 on 5 games at the mite level (tsc, lakewood, palos verdes, probably many others)..   I have already talked to some people who say they won't have their younger kids play travel now until squirts.

Another issue for some clubs is that they are limited as to how many kids they can have in their mite program due to ice availability.  If you create a log jam at the top of the mite level then you are potentially being forced to shut out kids at the bottom end of the level who want play but  can't get a roster spot.  You could have an 8 yr old player that could do fine at Squirt bb but his not being allowed to move up could keep a 6 or 7 year old out of travel hockey all together.  Doesn't make sense.
full ice mite hockey is just breakaway after breakaway. the problem with letting kids play up is that everyone thinks their kid is better than they are. there are the few kids that should move up, but who's going to be the judge?...can't be the parents or the coaches!

#4BobbyOrr

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Re: AAU
« Reply #38 on: October 19, 2016, 01:42:32 PM »
full ice mite hockey is just breakaway after breakaway. the problem with letting kids play up is that everyone thinks their kid is better than they are. there are the few kids that should move up, but who's going to be the judge?...can't be the parents or the coaches!


Full ice mite hockey is breakaway after breakaway because of the disparity of talent between the top and bottom.  You have kids that have been playing one or 2 years against kids that have been playing 4 or 5.  It's always the same one or two kids that are on the breakaway.  Those are the kids you move up.  It's not brain surgery.

area51

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Re: AAU
« Reply #39 on: October 20, 2016, 09:24:18 AM »
full ice mite hockey is just breakaway after breakaway. the problem with letting kids play up is that everyone thinks their kid is better than they are. there are the few kids that should move up, but who's going to be the judge?...can't be the parents or the coaches!


Full ice mite hockey is breakaway after breakaway because of the disparity of talent between the top and bottom.  You have kids that have been playing one or 2 years against kids that have been playing 4 or 5.  It's always the same one or two kids that are on the breakaway.  Those are the kids you move up.  It's not brain surgery.
If it's so easy, why are so many kids playing up that shouldn't be? at some point it has to stop

#4BobbyOrr

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Re: AAU
« Reply #40 on: October 20, 2016, 09:53:34 AM »
full ice mite hockey is just breakaway after breakaway. the problem with letting kids play up is that everyone thinks their kid is better than they are. there are the few kids that should move up, but who's going to be the judge?...can't be the parents or the coaches!


Full ice mite hockey is breakaway after breakaway because of the disparity of talent between the top and bottom.  You have kids that have been playing one or 2 years against kids that have been playing 4 or 5.  It's always the same one or two kids that are on the breakaway.  Those are the kids you move up.  It's not brain surgery.
If it's so easy, why are so many kids playing up that shouldn't be? at some point it has to stop

The problem isn't  that too many mites are playing up in squirts. It's too many squirts playing peewee.  Peewee gets diluted by kids playing up that probaby shouldn't and Squirt gets diluted by not having those kids in their division anymore.  This rule doesn't solve that problem.

MO-ICETIME

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Re: AAU
« Reply #41 on: October 20, 2016, 10:08:06 AM »
full ice mite hockey is just breakaway after breakaway. the problem with letting kids play up is that everyone thinks their kid is better than they are. there are the few kids that should move up, but who's going to be the judge?...can't be the parents or the coaches!


Full ice mite hockey is breakaway after breakaway because of the disparity of talent between the top and bottom.  You have kids that have been playing one or 2 years against kids that have been playing 4 or 5.  It's always the same one or two kids that are on the breakaway.  Those are the kids you move up.  It's not brain surgery.
If it's so easy, why are so many kids playing up that shouldn't be? at some point it has to stop

The problem isn't  that too many mites are playing up in squirts. It's too many squirts playing peewee.  Peewee gets diluted by kids playing up that probaby shouldn't and Squirt gets diluted by not having those kids in their division anymore.  This rule doesn't solve that problem.


I'm sure those parents are saying the same thing about Mites playing up and how it's diluting Squirts.

Rats13

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Re: AAU
« Reply #42 on: October 20, 2016, 10:16:07 AM »
I think it IS a domino effect kids play up into squirts play 2 years and of course they should play up into Pee Wee.  It's kind of silly to say the play up problem is only in PeeWee and not in Squirts.  It's all related.   I actually think it starts even further down in Track 1/Track 2.  Kids are starting "ADM" Track 1/2 younger than before.  When Mites were full ice kids were mostly 7 and 8 year olds.  Very few kids from what I could see played up as a 6 year old into mites at least at our club.  This year I got an email from a club recruiting mite down to 2011's.  So now kids are playing "travel hockey" in track 1/2 at a younger age and parents naturally feel after 2 years of cross ice it's time to "play up."  Now I'm not saying kids playing younger is bad but it is contributing to the play ups IMO.

#4BobbyOrr

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Re: AAU
« Reply #43 on: October 20, 2016, 11:15:35 AM »
the problem when you get down to it is the fact that compared to traditional hockey markets we don't have a level of participation to have our levels on par with the levels of those markets.  We have one or two birth year teams at each age level that can compete in Detroit or Toronto playing against kids their own age but here they need to play up to get a similar level of competition.  The 03 and 05 Kings come to mind as well as the 05 and 06 Ducks.  Those teams have played up as a team and have developed into nationally recognized teams because of it.  If they had stayed in their age group, we would be hearing complaints that they should be playing up.  The 03 Kings destroyed Squirt A and PeeWee A when they played up.  In PeeWee A they were 16-0 with 159 goals for and 16 against.  That's an average victory margin of of 10-1.  Can anyone honestly say that this team should have stayed in Squirt A?  The only rational argument here is that they should have played up another level in Peewee AA. 

area51

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Re: AAU
« Reply #44 on: October 20, 2016, 01:40:59 PM »
the problem when you get down to it is the fact that compared to traditional hockey markets we don't have a level of participation to have our levels on par with the levels of those markets.  We have one or two birth year teams at each age level that can compete in Detroit or Toronto playing against kids their own age but here they need to play up to get a similar level of competition.  The 03 and 05 Kings come to mind as well as the 05 and 06 Ducks.  Those teams have played up as a team and have developed into nationally recognized teams because of it.  If they had stayed in their age group, we would be hearing complaints that they should be playing up.  The 03 Kings destroyed Squirt A and PeeWee A when they played up.  In PeeWee A they were 16-0 with 159 goals for and 16 against.  That's an average victory margin of of 10-1.  Can anyone honestly say that this team should have stayed in Squirt A?  The only rational argument here is that they should have played up another level in Peewee AA.
there are some kids that can play up, but probably less than 10% of the amount of kids that are currently playing. SCAHA would have to hold a weekend tryout to evaluate who should or could play up. Imagine what that would be like when all the Little Gretzky's don't get the right to play up. And if you leave it up to the parents and coaches you'll continue to have the mess we have now. Easiest solution is to not let anyone play up! It'll all work itself out.