Trans you are talking about the '05 year, while I'm talking about the '06 Ducks which won Scaha Squirt A. Of course, as par for the course at that age, they did lose games, including the state championship game, even though they had beat up the norcal team that won it earlier in the year.
I intentionally avoid specifics because that soon can lead to talking about individual kids, which I don't want to do here. That team has continued to do very well nationally.
I'm real familiar with the SS's and the JK team and their ongoing battles, including the movement that happened this year. With that said, I agree that real hockey starts when you can check people.
I also have seen first hand the flat out incompetent level of refereeing that occurs here. My understanding of the situation is that the refs here have been taught to prioritize "safety" and don't seem to really understand that "no check" is not "no contact", nor do they seem to understand that there's an entire book full of "legal body contact" that allows for what is essentially checking along the boards.
My kid played in Carmen Starr this year and something pretty funny happened. We watched a really exciting game, where the two teams got after each other, and there were almost no calls made. It was fast and physical and within the rules, and made for some pretty exciting Peewee hockey. A few times kids going for pucks bumped into each during puck battles, and the refs let them play despite some parents who were clearly uncomfortable having apparently never seen actual hockey being played.
At one point a kid complained to the ref, who essentially said to the kid: "play hockey."
After the game, we found out that the refs thought it was a Bantam game.
We also managed to get to a semi last year in an out of state tournament, and the opponent who was a Chicago area team came out and played what apparently is standard hockey in their area. They were crushing our kids along the boards, and engaging the puck carriers in ways that would have resulted in probably 5 penalties a period in LA, but there were no penalties called. It took our kids a period to realize that this was how you play in other places, and they woke up and started to battle about halfway into the 2nd period.
LA kids are conditioned by status quo of reffing here to avoid contact, but that is not how the game is reffed in a lot of the other hockey markets. I wish it was better, but I've realized you have to put up with a lot of penalties that really aren't penalties at this age group.
