Wave 2- PWAA

[Northland]

 Still a lot of talk about the Wave 2- PWAA going on.
 
 Now that the season has officially ended I’m going to throw light on what I saw this season because most of what I am
 hearing from people who are outside of the team are overblown lies being propagated by bitter, self serving parents who voluntarily QUIT the team with damaged egos.

COACHING

Coaching was good, not great, but good.  There was a strong emphasis on individual play and skills vs. taking a whole team approach to the games which meant the team pretty much lived or died by the sword most of the season.
 
 The head coach treated the kids with respect and he really did seem to care about all of them.  There was some favoritism going on (some justified and some not), but by in large I believe he had good intentions from beginning to end.
 
 Assistant coaches were fine and no major complaints.  The Manager was new to the job, but she worked hard to make the best of the situation.
 
KIDS
 
This was an excellent group of kids many of which were all put on this team having spent little time playing together when the season started (it consisted of mostly 2005 kids, but there were several 2006 and 2004 kids as well).  They fought and played hard all season to make and earn a playoff spot only to have it stripped away from them 4 days before CAHA playoffs (several days after they were told they were in and satisfied PDR according to CAHA).   
 
They made the playoffs being down kids the entire season due kids quitting, so I give them a lot of credit for fighting and making it despite the loss of players.

PDR ISSUE

I’ll start this by saying the only reason this was an issue to begin with was because CAHA changed the rules this season to a 50%.  I have been told by several people this may have been done to punish certain coaches that were at the WAVE to try and ‘block’ them from being able to field AA teams which would also lesson the competition in several divisions of AA where more powerful clubs are hell bent on keeping a stranglehold.
 
 Not close to the coaches or CAHA so I don’t know all the details, but my understanding is that it was an oversight by coaching in that a rostered player did not play enough games to be eligible to satisfy the PDR matter (10 games minimum), which was the final ruling by CAHA for making this team ineligible for playoffs.  If one of those kids did not quit it would have been a non issue.
 
 I heard that CAHA did grant several PDR exceptions this season, but they most certainly would not grant this team an exception because it would not likely have worked in their favor.
 
Curiously that rule has now been magically changed back to 25% for next season, no doubt to the benefit of more powerful clubs that need it. Can't lost that Tier1 Elite league status or the wheels come off of everything.

PARENTS

Parent 1
 
Ripped kid of the team early on because his kid was not getting enough ice time and in my opinion did so in a cowardly way because it was too early in the season for lines to even be set. 
 
Parent 2
 
Ripped kid off the team (Quit) and I heard (not directly) her reasoning was her kid was not being treated fairly.
 
Did not see any of that, but that parent has been on the war path every since.

Parent 3
Ripped her kid of the team in December because she claimed her kid was not being treated fairly. 
Moving to a back up role seemed to be the more likely reason.

It seems this parent had so much venom because her star moved to more of a semi-back up role (due to being outplayed) that her ego could not take it so she took the information she had about the added player knowing he did not actually play 10 games and complained to CAHA shortly before playoffs stating that the team was cheating.
 
 It seemed carefully planned out with one intention: To make sure that the Wave 2 kids paid the price and were removed from the playoffs.

She did not hurt the parents, she hurt the kids and she took something away from them that she could never have earned on her own.That speaks volumes for what this individual stands for and having had kids played travel for 5 years I have never seen a more vindictive move to intentionally break the heart of kids that busted tail all year (fairly) to earn a spot.

In full disclosure I’m not on the inner circle of this club or coaching staff and I have no ulterior motive for posting this other than outing what I know and giving these kids their props.

CONCLUSION
 
 - Politics dominate CAHA
 - Toxic parents can bring a whole team down, choose wisely
 - At least we earned the 8^th playoff spot, it was not gifted.

I hear (have no idea if true) that that CAHA may bar the Wave from fielding a PWAA team this upcoming season. That makes perfect sense as I’m sure the board members don’t want their special clubs to get their asses handed to them next season by a very good team who would have likely been dominant.
 
 Sure is convenient.
 

[trans4761]

 Still a lot of talk about the Wave 2- PWAA going on.
 
 Now that the season has officially ended I’m going to throw light on what I saw this season because most of what I am
 hearing from people who are outside of the team are overblown lies being propagated by bitter, self serving parents who voluntarily QUIT the team with damaged egos.

COACHING

Coaching was good, not great, but good.  There was a strong emphasis on individual play and skills vs. taking a whole team approach to the games which meant the team pretty much lived or died by the sword most of the season.
 
 The head coach treated the kids with respect and he really did seem to care about all of them.  There was some favoritism going on (some justified and some not), but by in large I believe he had good intentions from beginning to end.
 
 Assistant coaches were fine and no major complaints.  The Manager was new to the job, but she worked hard to make the best of the situation.
 
KIDS
 
This was an excellent group of kids many of which were all put on this team having spent little time playing together when the season started (it consisted of mostly 2005 kids, but there were several 2006 and 2004 kids as well).  They fought and played hard all season to make and earn a playoff spot only to have it stripped away from them 4 days before CAHA playoffs (several days after they were told they were in and satisfied PDR according to CAHA).   
 
They made the playoffs being down kids the entire season due kids quitting, so I give them a lot of credit for fighting and making it despite the loss of players.

PDR ISSUE

I’ll start this by saying the only reason this was an issue to begin with was because CAHA changed the rules this season to a 50%.  I have been told by several people this may have been done to punish certain coaches that were at the WAVE to try and ‘block’ them from being able to field AA teams which would also lesson the competition in several divisions of AA where more powerful clubs are hell bent on keeping a stranglehold.
 
 Not close to the coaches or CAHA so I don’t know all the details, but my understanding is that it was an oversight by coaching in that a rostered player did not play enough games to be eligible to satisfy the PDR matter (10 games minimum), which was the final ruling by CAHA for making this team ineligible for playoffs.  If one of those kids did not quit it would have been a non issue.
 
 I heard that CAHA did grant several PDR exceptions this season, but they most certainly would not grant this team an exception because it would not likely have worked in their favor.
 
Curiously that rule has now been magically changed back to 25% for next season, no doubt to the benefit of more powerful clubs that need it. Can't lost that Tier1 Elite league status or the wheels come off of everything.

PARENTS

Parent 1
 
Ripped kid of the team early on because his kid was not getting enough ice time and in my opinion did so in a cowardly way because it was too early in the season for lines to even be set. 
 
Parent 2
 
Ripped kid off the team (Quit) and I heard (not directly) her reasoning was her kid was not being treated fairly.
 
Did not see any of that, but that parent has been on the war path every since.

Parent 3
Ripped her kid of the team in December because she claimed her kid was not being treated fairly. 
Moving to a back up role seemed to be the more likely reason.

It seems this parent had so much venom because her star moved to more of a semi-back up role (due to being outplayed) that her ego could not take it so she took the information she had about the added player knowing he did not actually play 10 games and complained to CAHA shortly before playoffs stating that the team was cheating.
 
 It seemed carefully planned out with one intention: To make sure that the Wave 2 kids paid the price and were removed from the playoffs.

She did not hurt the parents, she hurt the kids and she took something away from them that she could never have earned on her own.That speaks volumes for what this individual stands for and having had kids played travel for 5 years I have never seen a more vindictive move to intentionally break the heart of kids that busted tail all year (fairly) to earn a spot.

In full disclosure I’m not on the inner circle of this club or coaching staff and I have no ulterior motive for posting this other than outing what I know and giving these kids their props.

CONCLUSION
 
 - Politics dominate CAHA
 - Toxic parents can bring a whole team down, choose wisely
 - At least we earned the 8^th playoff spot, it was not gifted.

I hear (have no idea if true) that that CAHA may bar the Wave from fielding a PWAA team this upcoming season. That makes perfect sense as I’m sure the board members don’t want their special clubs to get their asses handed to them next season by a very good team who would have likely been dominant.
 
 Sure is convenient.
 

I understand that rules are rules and need to be followed by ALL.


In my opinion this year's PDR rule change is TOTAL bullshit.  How can a rule change for ONE season only ?
I am of the opinion that when rules as these are implemented it usually has ulterior motilves, benefiting a selected few.  Let's see.... Coach gets relieved of his services by a "major" club.  Said coach has a loyal following, so PARENTS decide to follow him.  This is America, right ?  We are free to do as we choose, right ?
This major club gets butt hurt that said coach has this following.  How dare he try to make a living !!
They concoct a rule DOUBLING the amount of returning players that need to be on a team to be eligible.  Parent basically tell them FU, we'll play down and kick everyone's ass.  I'm sure that sat well with the powers that be. Now that "punishments" were delt out, lets go back to old rule.  TOTAL BULLSHIT.
The PW AA situation was not much different.  Years suspension for not crossing out names (allegedly) ?
One women's (not a parent) distain for a coach ruined the hopes of a CHILD'S hockey team.


Karma will eventually rear it's head.  Sleep well bitter lady.

[lcadad]

Trans,

We all know that the 3 Tier 1 clubs exert a lot of control over the way things run, however, all the other member clubs get to vote on things, and if anything they are probably more concerned with having a coach leave and take the majority of a team with him.  For the big clubs it is a minor inconvenience because they are enfranchised with Tier 1 teams, and are guaranteed to have families lining up for those spots.

Looking at the PDR rule, I think for it to be actually effective, it needs to somewhere between 25% and 50%.  Now there is no doubt that the IceDogs situation was a concern to people, and I can't say for sure that the coaches leaving the club didn't influence consideration, but regardless of that, the coach could still have taken the majority of the best ID players with him if that had worked out.  I don't know all the kids specifically, but they didn't all go to the wave did they?

As for "FU we are playing down", if you're talking about the Wave3 Bantams, that is exactly the type of situation PDR is supposed to prevent.  You make it sound like it was an option, rather than, one of a few choices left to them once they all decided to do what they did. 

[trans4761]

Can anyone shed light on why the PDR rule was changed to 50% for one year only. Next year returning to its original format  ??

[lcadad]

Can anyone shed light on why the PDR rule was changed to 50% for one year only. Next year returning to its original format  ??

Yeah I'd like to know what the discussion was around this as well.

[lcadad]

Northland,

First off, I empathize with your situation.  You guys put a good season together and I was sorry to see what happened.  I have spoken with KC and I found him to be a genuinely nice guy.  You have a good collection of '05's there, and I would have thought that if the team stayed together, you would be an early season favorite.  The things you articulated about the way a coach sees various players could easily be applied to just about every coach there is.  They all have their favorites and biases.  I also am a fan of BC as a skating/skills coach and I think that was an excellent addition to your program.  I'm curious about your opinion.

At the end of the day, KC and your manager made a dumb decision.  I'm sure this will be a learning experience.  I do feel bad for your kids, but in no way do I believe that the JK's and JD's fear your team, when they have entire Tier1 teams of '05's that have been playing together in a large part since mites, and can afford to pick and choose some strong additions each year they stay together.  When an '05 AA team gets to the point when it can seriously challenge those teams in tournaments or scrimmages then I'd get paranoid about rule changes that seem directed at a team like that, but to this point, that's not happened. 

I wish you all the best this year, figuring out what you will do.

[healthy scratch]

The truth is that if a kings or ducks team ever broke the rules, no matter what they did, SCAHA or CAHA would NEVER ban the whole club from having a AA team. It would NEVER happen. And that's what's wrong with the current system.

[Pistonkev]

Can anyone shed light on why the PDR rule was changed to 50% for one year only. Next year returning to its original format  ??

Yeah I'd like to know what the discussion was around this as well.

Look in the Bantam A tread the answer is there. See Wave 03 team

[MO-ICETIME]

Can anyone shed light on why the PDR rule was changed to 50% for one year only. Next year returning to its original format  ??

Yeah I'd like to know what the discussion was around this as well.

Look in the Bantam A tread the answer is there. See Wave 03 team

Naa...

[Ziegler]

This is not commentary but an actual question to wave parents and/or others who want to chime in. Any concern that one program had the same issue in 2 divisions? Whether it was intentional or lack of knowledge on the clubs part i find it at the very least unorganized on their part. For the money that is spent I'd expect them to have their act together.  Maybe i don't know what I'm talking about    Who knows?

[MO-ICETIME]

This is not commentary but an actual question to wave parents and/or others who want to chime in. Any concern that one program had the same issue in 2 divisions? Whether it was intentional or lack of knowledge on the clubs part i find it at the very least unorganized on their part. For the money that is spent I'd expect them to have their act together.  Maybe i don't know what I'm talking about    Who knows?

And this maybe why the Bantam A Coach left for the Kings as PistonKev eluded to below.

[Hockey05]

It sucks for the kids and it sucks for the parents.  The club clearly needs to re-structure in this area.  However, I don't have a problem with the ruling.


To the point of would a Jr Kings team get the death penalty for one year?  I have a hard time believing that they would, but this isn't the kind of rule I've ever heard the super clubs break. 


The rules are all pretty much created to feed players into those super clubs.  In the process families have very few if any options statewide.  In a lot of ways you are a victim of your player's success.  There is absolutely no reason the Bears request for a bantam AAA team should have been denied this past year.  There is no reason that there should be a cap on 3-5 AAA teams.  Who cares if the product is watered down.  Even if it is watered down, perhaps 15-20 AAA players would have stayed in the state.  Is CAHA really thinking about a players long term development in creating this rule?  When you get to that level the PDR doesn't matter, you don't have a choice where you are going to play or who will be you coach.  Your only choices are to spend money and drive or move. 

[trans4761]

It sucks for the kids and it sucks for the parents.  The club clearly needs to re-structure in this area.  However, I don't have a problem with the ruling.


To the point of would a Jr Kings team get the death penalty for one year?  I have a hard time believing that they would, but this isn't the kind of rule I've ever heard the super clubs break. 


The rules are all pretty much created to feed players into those super clubs.  In the process families have very few if any options statewide.  In a lot of ways you are a victim of your player's success.  There is absolutely no reason the Bears request for a bantam AAA team should have been denied this past year.  There is no reason that there should be a cap on 3-5 AAA teams.  Who cares if the product is watered down.  Even if it is watered down, perhaps 15-20 AAA players would have stayed in the state.  Is CAHA really thinking about a players long term development in creating this rule?  When you get to that level the PDR doesn't matter, you don't have a choice where you are going to play or who will be you coach.  Your only choices are to spend money and drive or move.

In my opinion the fact that CAHA (JK/JD) do not allow smaller clubs to form tier 1 teams is an illegal practice (Puck Lawyer. don't know what kind of law you practice, but maybe you can chime in as you've been around the block in youth hockey) The fact that parents drink the Kool-Aid and put their kids in Tier 1 when they are not AAA players should be a non-issue.  Yes AAA becomes watered down, but for who ?? Last i heard this is a free market.  That means stupid people can throw their money away if they wish.

[MO-ICETIME]

But doesn't this go back to talks I've seen on this board about watering down the divisions? Nobody seemed happy with it and called for SCAHA and CAHA to put a stop to it... If families want to play T1 and make that drive.. go for it. Clubs can't be trusted to make the call for AAA teams.. heck even at A they can't be trusted to make the proper call.


Let's say they allow it and it gets watered down. Is it in the best interest for development for true AAA players to play in a watered down division? The answer just can't be allow whoever wants a AAA team to have one can it? That's my question.

[trans4761]

But doesn't this go back to talks I've seen on this board about watering down the divisions? Nobody seemed happy with it and called for SCAHA and CAHA to put a stop to it... If families want to play T1 and make that drive.. go for it. Clubs can't be trusted to make the call for AAA teams.. heck even at A they can't be trusted to make the proper call.


Let's say they allow it and it gets watered down. Is it in the best interest for development for true AAA players to play in a watered down division? The answer just can't be allow whoever wants a AAA team to have one can it? That's my question.

You would think...but the answer seems to be no.


How did the Bears not get a bid ?   How come the Wave Girls team not get a bid ??


I for one would prefer to put the decision (If my boys are ever good enough) at my discretion, NOT CAHA (JKs/JDs) making that decision for me.  CAHA scapegoat was my good friend BF (BF Rules).....btw he still owes me $$