What to do at Squirts?

[punchinbag]

Travel, or no travel, or combination? Our association has enough for 4 Squirt teams this year. What are similar size associations doing i.e. 1 A, 2 B, and 1C or 1A, 2B1, 1B2 or 1A or 3B1 etc.?

[Can't Never Tried]

Travel, or no travel, or combination? Our association has enough for 4 Squirt teams this year. What are similar size associations doing i.e. 1 A, 2 B, and 1C or 1A, 2B1, 1B2 or 1A or 3B1 etc.?

A, B1, B2, and a house program or C team, not everyone wants to play travel, and some at this age are just trying it out.
You asked.

[blondegirlsdad]

B1 & B2 Squirts?

I'm unaware of B1 & B2 Squirts, at least locally. I thought all Squirt Bs were at the same level...

In that case I'd do an A, a B and 2 Cs - if you only have 50 players or so, chances aren't good you have more than 13 A players

[High Flyer]

Travel, or no travel, or combination? Our association has enough for 4 Squirt teams this year. What are similar size associations doing i.e. 1 A, 2 B, and 1C or 1A, 2B1, 1B2 or 1A or 3B1 etc.?

What district is your association in?

When you say you have enough for 4 squirt teams, how many skaters per team are you considering?

How many goalies are there? How many of the squirts are girls?

[shooter803]

The best advice I have is commnicate early and get as much assoc. input as possible regarding travel & commitment from parents. My son played rink hockey in Duluth - 1 year Sq. B & 2 yrs Sq A - we only had 25-35 squirt players total but finished above .500 each year. We played tournaments in Grand Rapids, Mankato, Forest Lake, New Prague & Thunder Bay, Ontario plus our own that brought in quality teams from the Twin Cities area. Our parents knew we would travel out of our area at least twice a season and we had a remarkable experience, great bonding for kids & parents alike. However, I realize this may not work for everyone and teams, parents, & coaches need to have realistic expectations for the season - Its not good for developement to win every game or lose everyone - but there can be great times & experiences traveling to other areas when hockey should still be about having fun & just playing the game.

[Reggie]

House league, I believe we have enough kids for 4 teams. Let the kids be kids, they'll get plenty of traveling in pee wees and bantams.

[tomASS]

House league, I believe we have enough kids for 4 teams. Let the kids be kids, they'll get plenty of traveling in pee wees and bantams.

how will parents be able to debate on here who's the best team or possible future stars??

that said,.............

I have no problem with district play and a little bit of traveling at the Squirt level. I think the parents are more than ready for it.

[council member retired]

4 teams

1 A
1 B
2 C ( Assuming your association does not have enough B player for two teams)

[watchdog]

make one a team and the rest b. travel with all the teams maybe cutting back some for the b level. make a house league that plays once a week like maybe wed. night mixing all the kids in seperateing the a level kids equally. kids get board if they cant go on the road and have some fun..

[DMom]

make one a team and the rest b. travel with all the teams maybe cutting back some for the b level. make a house league that plays once a week like maybe wed. night mixing all the kids in seperateing the a level kids equally. kids get board if they cant go on the road and have some fun..

Don't they have religion classes in Roseau?? Wednesday nights are off limits (or at least they were when the school district owned the arena, now..maybe we can do it). we are thinking of doing that with our mites this year-giving them a mite night with 5-6's doing cross ice games on one sheet and 7-8's on the other.

[DMom]

We have about 90 squirts, this year, so six teams. Last year we had five teams. For the first time ever we went with two b teams. They were pretty regularly demolished in league play but were competitive in tournaments. Many of the league losses were by more than 7 goals. Worse, the C teams were not as competitive as they had been in past years. This year it looks like there will be two b again ( no option for B1 and B2 in our district at the squirt level) and three C's. Does it keep kids playing the game longer and make for a bigger pool at the older levels?

[Can't Never Tried]

We have about 90 squirts, this year, so six teams. Last year we had five teams. For the first time ever we went with two b teams. They were pretty regularly demolished in league play but were competitive in tournaments. Many of the league losses were by more than 7 goals. Worse, the C teams were not as competitive as they had been in past years. This year it looks like there will be two b again ( no option for B1 and B2 in our district at the squirt level) and three C's. Does it keep kids playing the game longer and make for a bigger pool at the older levels?

That seems odd that you'd get hammered that bad at the B level when there are #'s like that how did the A's do?

[jancze5]

I like watchdogs suggestion. Why not at the squirt level have your A-B-C's, but then one day a week take all your squirts and split them up and just play hockey in house. Have an A line-B line-C line.

[GR3343]

I like watchdogs suggestion. Why not at the squirt level have your A-B-C's, but then one day a week take all your squirts and split them up and just play hockey in house. Have an A line-B line-C line.

GR does (or used to ) do something similar. They used to have one A team, 3 B teams, then 4 in house teams. They distributed the A players along with the 3 B teams creating 4 teams that played games amongst themselves usually during the week. The B teams would also "travel" to close towns such as Coleraine and Hibbing to get outside games, then those teams would come in and play at GR. Not sure if that's still the current way they do it, but it did seem to work at the time.