Another season ended, a new one on the horizon...so would like to get input, opinion and ideas on how the placement process in the BTHL has worked?

Last season there were 70 teams in the Buckeye at the Squirt thru Bantam level. How many of these teams were in a good competitive spot or position?

If you subscribe to the theory that a team that earned more than 80% of the total possible points is not being challenged, and that a team earning less than 20% of the total possible points is in over your head, you could run the numbers on the volume of teams >80% and less than 20% - here is how it worked in 2010 for Squirt thru Bantam BTHL:

* 30 teams were in the position described above, either greater than 80% or less than 20% of total possible points.

* 40 teams earned between 20-80% of the possible points.


So over 40% of all our Buckeye teams "appear" based on these numbers to not have had all that great a fit for their competitive level.

Thats stating a possible problem...whats more important is are there any reasonable solutions to improve these types of stats & results?

If you have some good ideas please post!!

This topic seems to pop up each summer for the past few years. The preseason tournament doesn't work as far as I am concerned. What I think is would be great is an actual preseason starting Mid-October and the regular season with the regular season starting in November, with maybe 6-8 full games (2 a piece against 3 or 4 different teams) at least one in the declared level, one above declared level, and one below the declared, and then RPI placement afterwards; 8 games would be ideal as each team could have 4 home and 4 away games. This would especially help those teams most impacted by other fall sports due to the preseason tournament being in Mid-September. This is similar to how they do it in the Cleveland Suburban Hockey League, although their preseason may start a bit earlier. The limiting factor with this plan is requiring even more travel for BTHL teams as the BTHL associations are very spread out compared to the CSHL. Ice time availability and cost could also be an issue for some associations. Cost could be offset somewhat by charging less for league fees as all that preseason tournament ice wouldn't be needed. That's my 2 cents.

I like the preseason tournament and think it helps. I think that teams need to evaluate more for themselves as far as what division they should be in after the tourney. Coaches shouldn't put their teams in a division that they know they are going to dominate and win 90%+ games. Nor should they request to play up, just to be in a higher level where the team is only going to win a couple games. If a team finishes the season losing or winning more than 90% of their games, that coach would hopefully learn from the mistake and do a better job evaluating and providing feedback to the league the following year. Other than the initial request for division, I am curious to hear how many teams actually provided BTHL input after they seen how their team played in the preseason tournament. I'm sure a few did, and maybe they did or didn't get their request, but I think the more feedback that's given the better it will be.
Personally, I'd like to see a little more geographical sense come in to play also. It would have made sense for Owensboro,KY and Evansville, IN to play in the same division last year. It may not be like this for every age group or every year, but last year I think the teams were close enough. These two teams are 30 minutes apart and instead we drive 3-5 hours for every away game we played.
I think that BTHL has done a pretty good job with placement. It definitely isn't perfect and can improve in some ways, but I think that if teams provide more feedback after the placement tourney for their team and the teams they play, it may help a little?

Last year was my first year as a parent in the BTHL. Our team was a squirt team with all first year players except 3 second years that were cut from the AA team. We signed up as unknown on what division we thought we were. We played 4 games in the seeding round and lost 3. 2 of those we lost badly. The only win was against a team that was placed in Bronze. We all were concerned when we found out that we were a "gold" team. We ended up losing almost all league games, but the team improved all year and ended up runner-up in the tournament to a team they had beaten once earlier in the year. Therefore, I have to say that the process worked last year as far as our team goes.

"we signed up as unknown on what division we thought we were".... the seeding tournament works best when place your team as accurately as possible before the tournamnet starts. Generally a team will only move a few spots from where they start.
That said, I'm glad it worked out for your team. The seeding tournament is not perfect, but generally does a pretty good job.

As was pointed out in the first post, the seeding tournament does not seem to work well overall. The proof is in the standings and the disparity in the records of the top one or two teams and the rest in the division. Is there a better way, maybe, maybe not. Just to say, however, that the outcomes of the preseason tournament lead to mostly competitive divisions for the league as a whole without taking the standings over the past few years into consideration is wishful thinking.

We were "unknown" because this was the first year of travel hockey for our whole team. It was impossible to know where we belonged. We were all new parents to the BTHL. It did work out fine though.