They need to play Fed teams if they intend to keep the cost reasonable. There is absolutely no reason to play on an independent travel tournament team if you live in New England. The one thing that we have over every other metropolitan area in the US is a lot of very good teams in a relatively small geography. Your kid isn't going to get that much better playing on some super team that travels the country looking for competition. If you want that, move to LA and try and make the Jr Kings. The weather is much nicer there and the moms much hotter. But I bet AAA hockey is a $30K per year habit for those families.

You are joking, right? I mean, you can't think we have "a lot of very good teams."

Hear that sound? That's the hockey people in Chicago, Buffalo and Detroit laughing. At you, not with you.

No, us in New England are laughing too !

The one thing we have is lots of teams with designations that make people, including the players and parents, think they are good. Reality, is they do not know better.

When town teams or Select level teams can beat teams playing in "Elite divisions" of "Elite leagues" we have problems with New England Hockey !

I didn't say we had the best teams in the country. I said we have several teams that can nearly compete with the best teams in the country all within a small space. That's good enough for the vast majority of the kids around here to reach their potential. The only metro area with a better youth hockey scene is Toronto, possibly Detroit. Again, I'm not saying this solely based on quality, but quantity with decent quality.

Go ask a family on the Chicago Mission how many meaningful games they play within an hour drive of their home rink. How about St. Louis Blues, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Alliance, Dallas Stars, LA Kings, etc? Even the AYHL is a lot more travel than EHF. Every single one of those families would love to have the number of quality games that we have within short driving distance.

The sad thing is it could be even better if we had interleague play.

You are such a fraud. You said something galactically stupid, and now you're trying to sound really smart.

That isn't what you said at all. That may be what you meant, but what you wrote was what was quoted.

And now your definition of "very good" is that they "can nearly compete?" How....mediocre. Line up for your participation trophy!

Do you even know what league the Mission are in? There are two other teams from Illinois alone. Then they can (and do) play the Fury. That's four programs that I would call "very good" from the Chicagoland area. Then you have the teams from Wisconsin. Did you know the MJA are made up almost entirely of kids from IL?

Plus, teams travel to them to play, including from MA.

What parents like you don't get - and what the other poster pointed out in terms of parents being delusional about the local product - is that it is much better for development to practice with good players and play fewer games against good teams, than to play a lot of games on a team with one good line, against watered down talent.

Keep on believing the local youth model works. When your kid is in HS, you'll understand.

What you don't understand is that I'm saying the local model works fine for 95 percent of the players that will play for their HS team and then be done with competitive hockey. Maybe your kid needs to play on an elite team with 14 other elite level skaters to reach his goal of Division 1 hockey. That's great...it's worth it for you to spend the money on travel with an independent youth team (remember, that's the topic we are discussing here). For most of the rest of us, it is unnecessary. And for most of the kids that would populate this super 06 team, they will be wasting their time and money because their kids' ceiling is what it is. I don't love the local model, it could be improved for sure (as I said, interleague play would help), but it's good enough for the vast majority of the players that it serves.

Yes, I know which league the Chicago Mission play in. They play in a very competitive league, probably the top youth league in the US, with Detroit Honeybaked (4 hour drive), Little Caesars (4 hour drive), Compuware (4 hour drive), Team Illinois (45 minutes), and CYA (30 minutes). Those teams from Wisconsin? 1.5 hours to Milwaukee, 2 hours to Madison. So how is my point galactically stupid?

Hahaha the BS on this site never fails to amaze me! Let's go Dboard, run with this for the next few months until it becomes fact until it never happens

Too funny how many people bit on this BS story. Love it!

You wait, this will be topic of discussion at every rink for this week's practices. A subtle, "Did you get asked or hear about some regional super team?"

Just curious but who reaches out to the families? Is it through email? Phone? I've checked my spam folders and haven't seen anything. I'll check again.

We mock what we don't understand

I, actually, mailed you a special invitation! You have 24 hours to respond otherwise your spot will be filled.

Thanks. I checked spam again but nothing. Maybe my mail filter needs to be adjusted.

Grown men are not allowed to call 10 year old kids studs. It's just plain creepy!

I hope all the 05/06/07 parents take note of the comments in this thread and chill...the...f*ck...out... Parents of D1 and NHL players and prospects don't obsess this much about their kids.

So what you are telling me is a bunch of the better kids from different leagues are moving to the EHF 2 years before the "Q" and there is a 10 year old in NH that can skate... let me guess he is going to the EHF also! Next thing your going to tell me is the earth is round and the teams are picked before tryouts...okay back to work everyone nothing new here...thanks for the entertainment!

Youth hockey reminds me of an old friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZGKI8vpcg

I'm sure the Q a great tournament - and I know there have been many great players who have played in it. But is spending 10 days in Quebec which is a huge expense, and the likelihood of a local team doing anything is slim - is it that big a deal? I mean really - who gives a crap about the Q?

Not to mention that EHF teams obsess over this tournament for the four years leading up to it, taking their focus away from developing HS hockey players and funneling time and resources into developing the best 12 year old hockey team in the country. Those two objectives usually do not align, and the players suffer. It probably doesn't adversely impact the top tier talented kids, but dozens of mid-level players and families get caught up in this thing to their detriment. It's not my right to judge other people's decisions, but I hope people think about this before they make a team change that involves significantly more travel or expense for the sake of chasing a Q bid.

Stud EHF player going to AVP? Really from where?

From over there.

Why would players be leaving BA? Aren't they in first place?

Some of the parents thought their little Johnny would be a stud over there but that didn't work out so it's let me go and next man up.

Myabe that's WHY families would leave. Youth hockey is about development, not winning and losing. If a given coach on any team is overly concerned about winning in 10 year old hockey, at the expense of reasonably equal playing time and attention in practice, the parents SHOULD leave.

Ah makes sense. Yes coaches should be rolling the lines and developing all players equally in both games and practices. If that's not the case you need to move on.

Can we change the title and subject of this post to 06 Level Moms? :-)

Wouldn't make sense to say that BA is in first because kids are being developed correctly! Haven't attended all the games, but, for most part, all kids are getting equitable playing time ! A lot more equitable than teams that aren't in first!

That wasn't the question. The question was, why would someone leave a first place team? No idea if this particular BA rolls their lines or not. Was just offering a reason why someone would make that decision.

The reason is to play in a higher/better league. To play with / against teams that have more depth. I've watched quite a few E9 and EHF games at the 06 level. The speed of the game is faster at the EHF level. The teams are a little more deep. This is not meant to knock the E9, but the teams at the 06 level in the EHF have a little more depth. Maybe it's different at other age groups but at the 06 level there seems to be a difference.