The flight system IS silly and CAHA IS killing CA Hockey. Youth Hockey survives in spite of CAHA, not because of CAHA.
The reason why we did so well back in the day for a stretch was because there were not a lot of clubs doing AAA back then / nor AA for that matter - most clubs were A/B only. The Elite player pool was tighter, had fewer options hence they stayed together for several years. Only a few coaches coached at that level as well. It was not a business per se. For example.. if you did not play on the WAVE 89 Team, You just did not play on AAA. Also.. It was pretty cut throat, if a AA player from the Wave player wanting on AAA team did not make tryouts, they were cut - sometimes from the club. Little concern for please "stay in the club". You were done. Pretty brutal, but effective in simply getting best players on team.
The concept now is keeping the player in your club from 8-18 - possibly at the expense of talent.
This issue.. and of course the absurd overreaching punitive nature of CAHA.. is killing AAA/AA hockey.
It's funny you would say this. Because at the '05 level, the best team in the country the last few years has been the Philly Little Flyers that play out of Aston, PA. Interesting to see that they already have lost a game this season in tournament play, to a team from New Jersey. There are easily 10 AAA teams within the 1-1.5 hour drive radius, and any number of those teams will be ranked in the top 20 nationally, with quite a few in the Top10.
How does that jibe with your dissolution of talent theory? Countries like Finland and Sweden do not stress early specialization in hockey. They stress multiple sports and the development of athleticism, and routinely create professional players at a high number when looking at overall population. I keep seeing this narrative articulated over and over that the important thing is that California should have a few AAA teams where all the talent is concentrated and that these teams will then win all the championships and this will be good for hockey.
I can't for the life of me understand this thinking. Youth hockey is a sport, and the sport is for the enjoyment of its participants. Other people on these boards have brought up the low percentage of AAA players the state has vs. the overall player base. CAHA has fully embraced the philosophy you espouse, and it hasn't been producing national championships (which is something that will always be reserved for a select few (and involves a lot of right place, right time, plain old luck).
There's that popular Brick video floating around, where a couple of Toronto teams were playing each other, and the ice is full of future NHL'ers (Stamkos, Jordan Eberle, Martin Jones, Michael Del Zotto, etc). Nobody up there is fretting over the fact that they don't create one "super 10 year old team" and make sure that they keep that team together for 6 years so they can rack up as many youth hockey championships as possible. Out of all those super teams from the good old days, how many continued up into the highest levels of hockey?
Most of the AAA teams (we are talking bantam and midget) for the early 2000's had kids that were simply great athletes - at everything. I feel this is why they were such good teams. There was no year round hockey, and when there were 2 AAA bantam teams, they practiced all the time (a ratio of 4+ practices per game) vs 2-3 practices to every game.
And great players were ok playing AA. AA was more the minor teams, and AAA was more the major teams in a division.
I agree with your point, any kid 12 and under should focus on being as well rounded athlete (Hockey in winter, baseball / lacrosse is spring / soccer in summer.. what ever floats their boat. and of course, a good dose of roller hockey to really have some fun.
If you want to level set the game and get great competition at all levels, it starts at the top. Only a couple teams at each AAA level, let the rest play AA, then let the marginal AA's play A, and so it goes.
our system right now puts kids into a track where they have to participate 12 months out of the year in order to be a AAA kid. (Probably not good for kid)
this does usually three things
1) makes the kid not like hockey
2) makes a marginally skilled player a better then average player over time (but never usually a great player).
3) siphons your bank account to the tune of $30+k per year.
There are exceptions no doubt, but the kid has to love it, and has to be a tremendous athlete anyways(in general at all sports). We all know those kids, every generation has them - he or she was maybe you neighbor down the street growing up. They are simply great at virtually any/all sports. Make the hard look easy, and will take summers off, and with only a few weeks of training, already are back in form and ahead of most everyone else. You combine that skill with a passion for their chosen sport, and they are the ones that advance.
