If your kid is good enough to play on a good full season u16 or u18 team playing with and against some of the best players in the state, and country for that matter, why on earth would you opt for HS?

Been through it. The posts about development are right on and h.s. hockey isn't about development.

So my oldest boy is a pretty good player, he got to high school age and the local U-16 f.s. team coach sat him down and asked him what his goals were. Then he asked him if he really wanted to play college hockey - and I think the question kind of caught the kid off guard because he never thought of himself playing college hockey. Kid said, "no not really, I've never really thought about it." The coach said, "O.K., I'd say go and play for your high school."

The high school systems and coaching were pretty laughable for most of the more advanced kids, coaches playing favorites and not really knowing which player could actually play and especially in which situations but in all fairness they had not seen these kids in 40+ games per year over many years so how could they be expected to figure it out.

Many of the U-16 kids are now playing college hockey, some D-1 and only a handful of the high school kids are playing D-3....so I guess it all depends on what the kid wants to do.