Anyone have any advice regarding young goalies playing up? My son has played on a travel Mite A team for the last two years. He started playing goal last season and played in goal full-time starting last Christmas. He has been invited to play goal for the Squirt A travel team, even though he will be a mite for one more year.

A little more on the situation, there will be 3 goalies on the mite team if he plays on it, so he will get more playing time in squirt. He's a big kid and would be one of the biggest kids on the squirt team. He has played with the kids and coaches on the squirt team for the last two years. He currently plays squirt in house summer league and attends the squirt travel camp.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with him playing up at squirt. Assuming he has the size and skill level to do so I would not see an issue at this point. He is going to get potentially more playing time and is already playing at this level in the off-season and has developed with these kids over the last two years.

If he continues to stick with hockey and as the kids at his birth year start to group around one team he might be better off with his birth year group but at this level I would be less worried about that. I am assuming that this is the friends he has played with in the past and he gets to continue to play with his friends at a position he wants to play, at a level where he is capable of playing. That, to me, that is what it should be all about at this point anyway.

There is, of course, the age old debate about committing to the position at an early age but by second year mite my son was only interested in playing goal. The reason we made the jump to a "travel" team at that time was that he could play goalie all the time and do what he loved. Every kid is different in this regard.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.

Thanks for the input. We'll see how summer league and camps go. I'll let you know which way we go.