Len,

Any up-date from the meeting on the first? Any significant changes from what was released in draft form on the website?

I took a look at the changes to the Regs and the placement chart. A second team from a large association with more than 4 second year players must play AA--correct? Looks like it was lowered from 6 last year. What was the reasoning? I am sure that there are concerns about "loading up" a number of second year players on an A team, but it would sure seem to make things tough on second year kids who aren't ready for AA--it would seem to encourage rostering them on the third selected team where the allowable number increases to 8 and letting the second selected team of first year kids take their lumps at AA as a "learning experience." Just my observation.

Good to see certain things get addressed. The following is a quick summary of issues addressed in the regs that generally relate to situations previously discussed on this forum:

--the process for double rostering and the requirements for tournament time are addressed.

--laser pointers are now specifically defined as "abusive"-who would have thought that this needed to be specifically spelled out, but now it is.

--we also not get a carbon monoxide rule-another one of those who would have thought we needed this one until you actually have the situation present itself.

--Protest fees increase from $25 to $100 (for some of these folks, that probably isn't enough!!)

There was no change made to the Team Placement chart for Large associations; we simply extended the chart from the 4th team to 5th and 6th teams. The thought on Large associations is that the "2nd team" will typically be the top "1st year players" playing in the "A" division -- and the bulk of those kids will then move to "AA" the following year as 2nd year players on the "1st team". In my mind the chart shouldn't come into play until the 3rd team.

In addition, there was no change made to the 1st team from a Medium association -- they were permitted 6 2nd year players last year and that remains. From there we opened things up a little -- you can go to the archives to do a line by line comparison if you'd like.

I didn't see anything about adding players to a team before the playoffs. I know there was at least one team that attempted to do this with partial BTHL board approval at the end of this past season.

Thoughts?

That has always been prohibited. The tournament committee thought it was "doing the right thing" trying to work with a team that struggled all year. It turned out to be a huge mistake and everyone involved realized it after the fact. I'm certain that as long as those people continue to stay involved it won't happen again.

I still cannot see how BTHL think a medimum association that field only one Travel team and gets on average 20 kids showing up for tryouts is expect to compete with a large associations first team in AA. When you get 20 kids at tryouts most time more then half will be 2nd year players but many are first year travel. Make no since to me and I feel BTHL will start to lose medimum association that will go independant.

quote:

---

Originally posted by HockeyFan:
I still cannot see how BTHL think a medimum association that field only one Travel team and gets on average 20 kids showing up for tryouts is expect to compete with a large associations first team in AA.

---

HockeyFan, I am guessing that this association would have more the 6 second year players on the team? (otherwise, it could play A) Medium association either have more that 250 kids in their program or are a travel-only program in a larger metro area. Are the medium associations you are think of ones with more of a house program and isolated travel that throws off the numbers?

My guess is that the theory is that the house program is developing kids who would have both the skill and desire to play travel. While I don't know if this is a valid assumption, if either the house program is not "promoting" kids out to the travel side or the families just don't have an interest in playing travel hockey, then the rankings (large, medium, small) start to fall apart.

My son's team played AA last year and we took some lumps along the way, but the other end of the spectrum would be to let team select the level they will play at without any guidance from the league and then we will have to argue about which team is sandbagging just to win a division. It is a no win proposition, but BTHL does a reasonable job to putting it together. Nothing says that if BTHL says you are a AA team you have to play tournaments and non-league games as a AA team.

Make no mistake, this chart is a compromise. We still have people pushing us to go the Little Caesars route where a single 2nd year player would force a team into the AA division. Keep in mind that this would be regardless of where the team is from or the order in which the team was selected. Compared to that policy we are extremely accomodating.

We've established the chart and we now have 1 year of experience. With that experience we had justification to open things up a little. If what you say is correct then you'll see things open up a little more next year. The system is in place; now we just need to work at refining it.

You cant go wrong with Birth year Hockey. After birth year than you go to size of association for placement. Too Many coaches pick what level they are playing even before tryouts.