Maybe my assumption each NCDC program only taxes it’s own pay to play junior, midget, youth is wrong. If they are taxing all the USPHL pay to play junior and midget teams that’s a different story but I don’t see why anybody would agree to that. Random USPHL team in wherever that doesn’t have an NCDC team willingly subsidizes the Jr Bruins or SSK? Maybe that’s how it works but would think there are more organizations who don’t have NCDC than who do so why would they agree to do that?
Fair point on ticket sales also being impacted but given most USHL and core NAHL teams are in smaller midwest cities I suspect they open back up faster and because especially USHL is highest level hockey in those cities people keep going to watch. I also have an uninformed view those organizations are run better and better capitalized so having a bumpy season this season doesn’t kill them vs the organizations over here who seem to operate with a much smaller margin for error.
But I don’t know. You may be right and pay to play model does better through this. Will find out soon enough.
Every rostered player on those 60+ USPHL Premier teams pays a "league fee." What the league does with that is their business.
BTW, the "tax" concept is no different from how USA Hockey pays for the USNTDP.
Putting aside the issue of whether it’s appropriate for the USPHL to upcharge all their pay to play guys to subsidize the NCDC which only benefits a few organizations, how far could that fee even really go? What is the player fee? $100 each? I don’t know, my kids are younger, I am a tourist from the youth hockey part of the site and wanted to switch it up from the EHF vs E9 arguments every 10 minutes.
$100 x 20 players x 60 teams is $120k for the entire USPHL tax. That doesn’t cover much. I think there are 13 NCDC teams right? So under $10k a team from that source. So the rest presumably has to come from the specific NCDC’s organization taxing its mites, squirts, et al. right?
I honestly don’t know but think it’s interesting to try to figure out because it seem like the NCDC is already probably hard to support even before all this.
Now if a big part of the NCDC teams budgets are from taxing their own programs then this period of social distancing is going to leave a mark because it crushes the profitability of the younger kids because that’s built on cramming as many kids into an hour of ice as possible and that will be harder to do.
You are closer to it so maybe this is off base but on the outside looking in it looks pretty dicey.
Many ncdc teams treat their players horribly...expect this to only get worse moving forward. Who would billet a player now, and what happens if that player is traded? Would a host family be willing to bring another stranger into their home without testing? Rockets didn’t provide locker rooms for players, bandits folded and didn’t provide players with sticks. Hard to call yourself Tier II hockey when your financial basis is built upon upcharging youth players who will never be part of the ncdc program.
"...when your financial basis is built upon upcharging youth players who will never be part of the ncdc program."
Well said.
Its sad how many imports with agents that arrive and play one year are drafted and tendered over local players that spent years "developing" in the very program that now says they're not good enough.