unless a private, go u14. if elite ehf, it's better than public HS all day. even in other leagues it's better than d2 or d3 by far. HS hockey is a joke now.
D1 High School overall is better than EHF Elite U14. However, your player might be better off playing against the more skilled 14 year olds than less skilled , more mature 17 year olds.
He would most likely get more ice time with 15 year olds than competing with 19 year olds (the C.C. schools like to keep them back a year) for ice time let alone safety issues. Again, it all depends. A Tier I BA team would smoke most high school teams and simple beat the rest. A good USPHL would be competitive.
Full Season U14, U16, and U18 teams are mostly filled with players that think they are going to get a scholarship playing hockey. What a joke. Here is what happens with these players.
Then if their kid/suckers are still around you get an additional 3 years on a crappy EHL team.
18, 19, 20 = ~11000 / year = $33,000
Then it is over and on to club hockey or the beer leagues.
These people were just swindled out $93,500 for the above 6 years of hockey. Last time I checked, $93,500 is at least 3 years of college. Dip S-H-I-T-S. I see stupid people all around doing this.
Here is the path of a player that will play D1.
plays hockey for 3 years at High School = ~ $300/ season. Playing 1/2 season with clubs = ~ $2000/season.
plays 2 years of USHL for free.
on to college for maybe 3/4 of his education paid for.
Play high school hockey and if you are good enough then you will be found. Until then, have fun funding the club team owners.
Your path is maybe for the top 2-3% of players. For the kids that love, love, love the game and want to play in college or use it as a lever to get into a better school or even D-3 a couple years burned post high school can work. Or as many good players have chosen to just play club in college.
One kid in our town played four years of h.s. hockey, graduated, attended a couple camps with USHL teams and was offered a spot. He attended the camps just for fun, thought about it and turned the team down and went onto the school of his choice and is going to play club hockey just for fun. He said, "I didn't want to deal with the pressure of playing seriously in college and also trying to get good grades." But it can be done!
Correct. But, the point is a college education is worth more and is more of a sure thing. You want to have fun playing a game, then do it without dropping $93,000. This is also my point as to saying that college hockey should do what the other college sports do. One year as a red shirt and then start playing as a sophomore. These club teams and pay to play junior teams are killing the sport.
One more point, burning a couple of years of college post high school graduation is also stupid. The longer you wait on starting college the less of a chance that player will want to even attend college for academia. C'mon people, spend your money wisely and put it towards their college education. If you haven't figured it out, playing D3 or college club means you will be paying for his hockey as well. Again, you will be found if you are good enough. If you don't have something in hockey by your junior year then the direction should be onto college and the real world.
Pretty true but there are exceptions and especially for defensemen where they wait to see how big the kid will get. Also, many kids are only on a partial scholly. If I had to do it over again I would have pushed lacrosse...5'10 and can run with some skill, D-1 full boat no juniors.