HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

First time doing this, so bear with me!
I ve been watching my boy's play hockey all their lives and now they are entering the HS level of play. My youngest has a year of Bantams left and something has reared its ugly head and it's quite concerning to me.Now granted, I'm not an expert on Hockey as I grew up in the inner city and played basketball all my life.
We are associated with a small community and hockey is a well established sport here. For the life of me, I can't understand why some players, parents (mostly parents), and HS COACHES are in such a hurry to move some kids up to HS before they are ready. In my day Team and Team continuity meant more that individual accomp"s!! Why would you break up a good group of players to probably sit the bench on the Varsity? Seems to me that you would want to keep them together. There are no "Superstars" in this group but they are great as a team. I just can"t understand the logic.

urban iceman wrote:First time doing this, so bear with me!
I ve been watching my boy's play hockey all their lives and now they are entering the HS level of play. My youngest has a year of Bantams left and something has reared its ugly head and it's quite concerning to me.Now granted, I'm not an expert on Hockey as I grew up in the inner city and played basketball all my life.
We are associated with a small community and hockey is a well established sport here. For the life of me, I can't understand why some players, parents (mostly parents), and HS COACHES are in such a hurry to move some kids up to HS before they are ready. In my day Team and Team continuity meant more that individual accomp"s!! Why would you break up a good group of players to probably sit the bench on the Varsity? Seems to me that you would want to keep them together. There are no "Superstars" in this group but they are great as a team. I just can"t understand the logic.

The Minnesota Hockey Model is all about feeding High School teams.
Once the kids are eligible, the high school coach makes all the decisions..
How it works in your particular association depends upon how your HS coach sees his job...

This is the reason many people involved in youth hockey would like to see other choices added to the current system.

Quasar wrote:

urban iceman wrote:First time doing this, so bear with me!
I ve been watching my boy's play hockey all their lives and now they are entering the HS level of play. My youngest has a year of Bantams left and something has reared its ugly head and it's quite concerning to me.Now granted, I'm not an expert on Hockey as I grew up in the inner city and played basketball all my life.
We are associated with a small community and hockey is a well established sport here. For the life of me, I can't understand why some players, parents (mostly parents), and HS COACHES are in such a hurry to move some kids up to HS before they are ready. In my day Team and Team continuity meant more that individual accomp"s!! Why would you break up a good group of players to probably sit the bench on the Varsity? Seems to me that you would want to keep them together. There are no "Superstars" in this group but they are great as a team. I just can"t understand the logic.

The Minnesota Hockey Model is all about feeding High School teams.
Once the kids are eligible, the high school coach makes all the decisions..
How it works in your particular association depends upon how your HS coach sees his job...

This is the reason many people involved in youth hockey would like to see other choices added to the current system.

What alternatives are there if we decide not to play association hockey his final year of youth level hockey? It sounds like our coach has left the program also, so with the upper talent allegedly headed for the varsity level we would like to improve elsewhere this winter!

HS coaches have an incentive to lock players in young, even if they may not be ready. If they don't, there are a lot of private schools that might find a place.