until about 5 or 6 years ago very few kids moved back east for aaa or prep school. typically it was maybe a half dozen each birth year, some being true superstars (names like grimaldi, balisy, etem come to mind) and a couple kids who leveraged their hockey talent and grades to get into some elite preps for the educational opportunity. the vast majority of kids with next-level hockey aspirations played here through 16aaa or 18aaa and then went to major juniors (or a few to ntdp). that path has hugely changed over the past five years; 150+ socal kids playing elsewhere was unimaginable. will this result in more socal-born kids getting to ncaa? maybe a few; too soon to tell. regardless, youth hockey leadership in cali needs to take a long hard look at themselves to see why so many families have stopped buying what they're selling. socal midget teams were competing for and winning aaa and aa national championships with regularity during the 00-decade; socal midget squads now are almost always also-rans at the national level (cj's 01s being lone recent exception). sad.
Topic: Elimination of checking? (Read 31828 times)