Ducks are almost always in the 20's nationally.
Jr Sharks are often ranked in the 40's
Kings are often in that area or better (recent implosions aside)
"Elite" AAA teams. Usually starts somewhere between 15-20 ranked teams. Cream of the crop.
"Regular" AAA teams. Starts where Elite leaves off. Ends somewhere around #60-70
"AAA Wannabe's". Starts where "Regular" leaves off, goes to the bottom. Either teams having really bad years, or not really AAA caliber.
The question is how many teams do you really want in that third group. And at some point are you just pulling players away from the first 2 groups and damaging the situation.
The damage has already been done, and it's ongoing. Kids leaving Cal to play elsewhere. This being an unprecedented year, whilst simultaneously terribly limiting, Covid also stemmed the bleeding and artificially propped up teams, because a fair number of prep bound kids deferred/played in Cal because hockey was locked out of many schools either for the entire year, or most of it. Obviously, the Sharks didn't even launch, until just prior to states. I guess that the dates and CAHA bylaws were just thrown out this year, which again I understand, however, realistically, CAHA apparently just allowed the Sharks teams to form with whomever wanted to join literally at playoff time.
In one example, at U15 this year looking at the rankings within the Pacific district as we speak:
Team Alaska (41st)
JD (53)
Saints (66)
JK (86)
Sharks (92)
NW Stars [Seattle area] (101)
This is the 1st year I really took a hard look at myhockeyrankings, and the reality is that the algorithm does favor socal teams in a subtle but important way. Quality of competition is one of the most important factors. It is hard to move up or down for many teams that play top level teams and are competitive, but also due to league play, must play a significant number of games against teams with lower quality of competition. Unless you are blowing out everyone, you often lose points even when you win, and slip in the rankings.
With the artificial constraint of local limitation, the franchised AAA teams from Cali must travel the majority of the year, to play other teams, and they can avoid playing games against teams that are likely to drain some of their ranking score. Of course you do have to be able to compete with top notch teams, but you can also avoid playing "middling" teams that might beat you on a given day, and keep your ranking a bit higher than other locales. If you are playing mostly high ranked teams you can lose the majority of your games and still maintain a relatively high ranking, so long as you can avoid playing teams with a low ranking. Again you can't get blown out, but things like better than average goaltending can help keep scores close even if you really are getting pretty soundly outplayed by a team. The rankings don't factor that in at all.
It's also a lot easier for the Cal teams to win states and districts and gain a national berth when you don't have to beat out any number of top 50 teams, and in some places 1 or 2 top 20 or better teams from your district. Yes in some years past at some age groups there was some parity and competition, but this year not so much. In most of the age groups there is one team that is a clear front runner from a ranking standpoint.
As for Butt hurt AA parents -- umm, no, sorry. How many do you know? Again, at the '05 level, last year in Bantam, the Bears1 team beat every AAA team in California as I recall, and were actually the 2nd ranked AA team, as they were unable to beat the Saints. An extreme example for sure, but another harbinger of the results of recent CAHA policies, because those teams had multiple AAA players who chose to play AA on those teams for that season. And no, the teams were not just made up of AAA refugees, even though they had some former AAA players.
Also the AA people, don't complain about their rankings relative to AAA teams, nor in my experience do they really think about it or care much.
With that said, this year at 16U if you just look at the combined 15/16u rankings for california, JD is highly ranked but then you have:
Sharks 16uAAA (80th) based on 6 whole games of which 3 were against the JK
JK 16uAAA (140th)
Bears 16uAA (167th)
Ice Dogs 16uAA (184th)
How much money would you be willing to bet that the JK beat the Bears if they were to have played a game this year? Ice Dogs are also pretty good. I'd be nervous if it was my money -- and this is again 16u.
And one final comment in defense of the Reign 16u --- again I don't know every kid, but I do know a significant chunk of their roster, perhaps even the majority of it, was 15u players.
Perhaps if the Reign had more flexibility, they might have rostered a 16u AND 15u team, and the 15u team might have emerged from the state championships, as the Saints 15u did -- going undefeated btw. Yes the Saints 15u team, who will likely present a significant challenge for the JD in the District playoffs, and were up to this year a AA team, even though in several prior years, they played and defeated quite a number of AAA teams in tournaments.
CAHA's opening up the field to more AAA options could be looked at as giving into letter chasing parents, which some have persistently argued, or it could just be recognizing what was plainly evident to a lot of people.
Cali has 2 '06 14u teams this year in the top 20:
JK #9
Ice Dogs #15
It kinda speaks for itself, that CAHA rules made it difficult for JD, the Saints, ID and Bears to field AAA teams when they were plainly good enough to do so, often for seasons at a time.
I take no pleasure in this, as I know it had to be miserable for norcal families who love hockey and in the past year, were unable to form due to local restrictions, but the '06 Jr Sharks AAA team, with their 0-19 record, are for good reason, ranked behind the Rose City Pats AA -- a club that was literally formed this season.
Topic: Lots and lots of AAA teams next year (Read 17000 times)