These posts about buyers and sellers and parents pompously jumping ship from team to team every year is everything that is wrong with CAHA and hockey in California. Shame on those clubs and people. Funniest part is simple: not all of the best players in CA play AAA or AA because they are happy playing hockey where they are. Don't kid yourselves, "the best players in CA" don't all play Tier 1 hockey.
How do you know this Blades? Does your son or daughter go to AAA spring clinics and then tryouts? Does he go the Select tryouts? It takes a really good eye to compare players across A, AA, and AAA when the overall speed of play is different at each level. That is why Selects put all the kids on the ice at the same time. My guess is that it is impossible without having direct competition across levels. A forward might have dazzling moves playing A but lose the puck easily to a AAA defender who is just quicker and faster. A defender may be big and strong playing A and overwhelm smaller and slow forwards but be made to look silly against a AAA forward with quickness.
It might happen with a kid who is a first or second year A player because their game may evolve super fast.
My observation has been that most AAA players started out ahead of their peers and stay ahead because better coaching, better practices, more private stick times, and better competition. The same is true of AA players with more variation because financial costs and willingness to travel sometimes separate AA from AAA.
