Sorry for the novel in advance…
Teams are definitely traveling more but I do see your point that one particular team at D1 isn’t and hasn’t traveled anywhere in past few years. Maybe has something to do with a certain coach and his connection to the league or his obligations to his AAA team and/or job at the Jr. Ducks. Olu, JSerra, and Damien are all traveling to San Jose this year and JSerra and Damien are going to Vegas. A few games in San Diego and a team traveling to Tahoe.
In regard to the league and declarations, D1 schools are “pure†meaning all kids go to one school physically at a location and are considered to be more and sometimes less competitive than D2 schools. D2 draw from a larger District area and you would think would have an advantage because it’s pulling from multiple high schools, but the fact is many of the better players have been scooped up by the more prestigious schools and some but not all get financial help regarding school or hockey or both. D1 and D2 are similar to high end AA with a little bit of AAA talent mixed in.
D3 is a combo of pure and non pure teams but just doesn’t have the talent to compete in the top leagues (lower end AA – higher end A). JV is basically A/B hockey and is sometimes split up into a higher “flight†and lower if there is a large disparity in teams or a team that is crushing everyone at JV might get moved to D3 and vice versa. The league usually evaluates the first 4 games of the season and then adjusts (yes, similar to the jamboree but real games spread over 4-5 weeks).
There has been talk of kids playing on D1 schools that do online schooling which supposedly isn’t allowed by USA hockey, nor is boarding schools but I guess the league is overlooking that part of the equation which would be a problem if Tahoe made Nationals.
St. John Bosco who I believe was trying to play D1 and certainly has the talent but has issues because its foreign players are billeted, play Tier 1 or 2 and sometimes have lost Amateur status and they also just do online schooling in many cases. Tahoe has similar issues and they really fall into the Prep Division, but they supposedly have a different team playing prep, so not sure where that leaves their high school team?
From 2018 Nationals Guidebook
High School Varsity and Prep School
Varsity Division (male and female teams): Pure teams that are community based public high schools, private schools drawing their students exclusively from a local metropolitan area (excluding any school that boards players) OR a combined team from a state that has NO pure teams.
Representation from each state will be determined by the state affiliate participating in the tournament. Billeted players competing on Youth Tier I, Youth Tier II or any junior teams are not eligible to compete in the High School Varsity national tournament. Participation is restricted to amateurs who are full-time students (grades 9-12), and 19 years old or under as of December 31 of the playing season. Eligibility is not to exceed eight (consecutive semesters starting with a player’s freshman year. Clarification: Those high school students graduating mid-year are no longer full-time students and therefore, are not eligible to play on a varsity high school hockey team, effective on their last day of attending classes full-time.
Prep School Division (male and female teams): Boarding schools, non-community based high schools and others. All teams, players and coaches must register with USA Hockey prior to application for participation. For districts only, these rules and regulations may be modified for local and state association competition and districts that are composed of a single state, as conditions may require. Player eligibility regulations may not be less restrictive than those governing national championships.
Topic: ADHSHL 2018 / 2019 (Read 45644 times)