Right or wrong for the most part the Midwest teams use a full season model. 2nd week of August through March and then Spring for 6 weeks followed by tryouts. Most girls play a solid 9 months. Rare to see a girl play high level 2 sports. Usually hockey and a rec league sport. Even the MN girls play on Spring and Summer teams besides their high school. Take a typical Detroit or Chicago team and they will practice 3 x a week, off ice 2 x a week and play 70 games with 6 tournaments followed by Spring with practice 2 x a week and 2 tournaments. Is it a better model then prep/club or not? I don't know the answer to that question or if it plays into the majority of those national teams picking girls from the Midwest. Take a look at that last Olympic team.19 of the 23 girls were from the Midwest. Beats me.

And every college coach swears they want a multi-sport athlete. How can that be done? What's the end game? It might be Olympic/International play but, for most kids, it will be college. I think the real answer is to look at every D1 roster and see the split between East Coast and Midwest. Anyone know?

The stats will always be skewed because MN is in the Midwest. The following are the top 5 producing states for D1 women's hockey players. Using the 20/21 D1 rosters here is the breakdown: (no I didn't take the time doing the research I simply pulled it from the NCAA site)

MN - 176
MA - 98
NY - 58
IL - 42
MI - 40

That would be 258 Midwest female players on current D1 rosters vs 156 East coasters (Including NY)

Of note. 33 of the 41 D1 girls teams have at least one Minnesota girl on their roster.

They all say they want multisport athletes and the really great hockey players truly are, but given the choice a D1 (or D3 for that matter) coach will take the better hockey player every single time because their main focus isn't to develop players, they are there to win. Maybe a 9 month season is the path to higher levels of women's hockey, just like it is for women's soccer or lacrosse (you can argue there are still many athletes getting to the upper levels of lacrosse, but that is changing rapidly), but is it worth the repetitive injuries that come with being a single sport athlete?

The multi-sport athlete thing is a complete myth. If your kids mostly plays hockey but is a normal active youth they are doing other activities all of the time. Passion for the game is paramount.

We moved from St Paul to MA a few years back. Many differences in women's hockey. Girls high school hockey is better than anywhere in the country. It is the top of the pyramid. Girls do play other sports but almost all of them play sports through their high school. A typical year for a girl out there would be to play for a AAA Summer and Fall team (Lakers, Giants, Machine) and then do high school. Play a Spring high school sport and repeat. I didn't know a girl that played another top level club sport. If you think that model is extreme it's nothing compared to those girls in Chicago or Detroit. They are crazy. As someone already mentioned they play August through Nationals and then mandatory Spring followed by tryouts. Coach will run Summer hockey camps under a different team name and say that its "highly recommended " that you attend the camps if you are part of the team. In reality it's mandatory.
When you sign your contract after tryouts there's a paragraph that says you will not play another travel sport. During the season those girls will only have 1 day off the entire week and besides a week off at Christmas it's like that for 9 months.
When we moved here and my daughter was playing Tier 1, our first tournament we were missing 4 girls that were playing other sports It was mind-boggling. Never in a million years could a AAA girl out there miss for another sport. No matter how good you are the coach would drop you from the team in a heart beat.

^^^Guess we don't have to wonder why 19 of the 23 Olympians came from the Midwest.

Interesting. If you look at the recent U18 USA roster you have 2 players, both from CT on the team and no one else from MA/NE. It felt like there were notable MA/NE players who are talented enough to be on that team that were missing. The D1 numbers shared up thread would suggest that more than 2 players should have made the team. It is always interesting in how these teams are put together and how they ultimately preform in competition.