Birth Year Teams in Girls AAA

The Bone · Post by **The Bone** » Mon May 23, 2011 6:55 pm

We are seeing more and more Girls AAA birth year squads being formed.

I.E. 1999 Velocity, they generally play in the 12U Division. While the 12U division also includes 1998 birth year teams and mixed 12U teams with 1999 & 1998 players.

I like the concept of single year teams myself - what thoughts do others have?

lrugland · Post by **lrugland** » Mon May 23, 2011 8:46 pm

I like having single birth year teams too. BUT in some areas it would be tough to find enough good players for the teams. All that said, we should be finding good tourneys for the better teams anyway. The single birth year teams would come from larger areas with more players to pick from.

I will say that our summer team has a few 2001 birth years on a mostly 2000 team and I dont think there are many teams in MN that would beat us at the 10U level this summer (if any

)

pucktech · Post by **pucktech** » Mon May 23, 2011 11:51 pm

Birth year teams would be great but there isn't any off-season teams that I know of that stick to purely birth year other then virtual i.e. '99's, '98's etc... so even though they're designated as a certain age they all have mixed birth years on the teams to be able to fill their rosters with talented, motivated kids. The top '99 teams like '99 Velocity, '99 Miken and '99 Ice Cougars even though designated as '99's have a mix of '00's, '99's and '98's on them to compete at the upper U12 level !!

The Bone · Post by **The Bone** » Tue May 24, 2011 7:06 am

Good Point Pucktech, I suspect that some of the single year squads are not "pure" birth year teams and may have a few players on their rosters outside the particular birth year i.e. 1999. However, it is still a positive trend IMHO. I suspect that these teams could easily become "pure" birth year teams if the Tourneys were structured on single year eligibility as the boys AAA Events.

SIDE NOTE:
To my knowledge, the Ice Cougars 12U Minor Squad features all 1999 birth year players. I sure like the sound of "99 Ice Cougars" better!

redarmydad · Post by **redarmydad** » Wed May 25, 2011 9:35 am

I agree with those that support this idea. It is great competition and the 98 Ice Edge, 98 OS, 98 Ice Cats and 98 Machine are all consisting of girls that are 98 only. It has been my experience that it works either way, although I do like the team chemistry a bit better with having all girls of the same birth year. However, I don't think I would limit tournaments to this foramt. Primarily because I find it is good to give the teams a challenge. This year it would be a team 99's competeing against a team of 98's at the 12 or a team of 97's competing againsdt a team of 96's at the 14 level. If you limit your tournaments to straight birth year, you lose that aspect. IMHO of course.

BONE: Agree, 99 Ice Cougars does sound a lot better than the 12U Ice Cougars Minor.[/b]