It sounds like the selections depend upon who is on the Committee. It sounds like it's totally discretionary so you can end up with:

1. selections solely based on merit;
2. selections based on merit plus where you play; and
3. selections based on only where you play.

I hope that some districts have committees who based their selections on merit. Unfortunately politics is well embedded in hockey and USA hockey has no system for assuring that local committees don't use the selection procedure to accomplish their own objectives!

I'm not sure how it works in other states, but where I live they don't even have tryouts. The girls have to have their coach make a recommendation on their behalf to our state rep, and then some secret board looks at the recommendations and then hand select the girls that are allowed to go to the actual tryout in Wisconsin. Same girls get the limited number of spots every year so we don't even waste our time anymore.

Politics are in every district, some more than others.

The only plus to the whole thing, is that college coaches also realize this and have placed less emphasis on who does and does not make the national camps when scouting for players for their college teams. From the coaches roundtable at the NAHA showcase, this was clearly stated by the coaches in attendance. They clearly stated that the NDC do not always have the top players and the top players are not always at the NDC