What would you do?

[Guest]

This is our second year in travel hockey, so this might be a dumb question. I have a 2nd year PeeWee who made the A-team, but they appear to be short a lot of players in order to complete the team.

They ran a supplemental tryout on Thursday and are running another supplemental tryout on Saturday, but I'm getting concerned that they might not have enough kids to fill up a team.

Last year, they had 4 PeeWee teams and this year they are struggling to put together 2 teams (AA & A). There AA team is short kids as well.

The club lost a lot of players this year to other nearby clubs. We are worried that we made a bad decision in staying, as it now appears that they don't have enough players to fill out a team.

My question is, should we stay since we are on a team and hope they find more kids to play before the season starts? We are not worried about the team being competitive, our son is not that great and last season we were 0-20 for the season.

We live in NJ and are located within 30-minutes of a rink to our South and another rink 30-minutes to the North. There is also a rink about 30-minutes right over the bridge in PA, so moving to another rink wouldn't be much of an inconvenience drive wise.

[Youth Hockey Info]

It's Pee Wee, IMO stay. You may not win or standings may not be what you hope. But he's going to get a lot of playing time. Use that as an advantage for 2 reasons.

1st. The other clubs will be looking to round out the back of their rosters, not the top spots. He won't get the same playing time he might want/expect.

2nd. Use this opportunity to his advantage, get better and if things look as bad next season with your club, at least he'll be ready to fight for a better opportunity at 14U. Lots of top level PW's tend to drop down to average when they realize they now have to play physically. It levels the playing field at tryouts.

That's my personal opinion, others might see things differently. It's just an opinion.

[Guest]

0-20 staying is a waste. Kids getting blown out every game. That can not be fun. Find an organization or team that is going to be able to compete.

[Guest]

I agree with first post to stay fir those very good reasons.  Big question is the coach hopefully will be decent.  Not sure why you are second guessing and think the people who left were right.   If you have not learned by now too many parents in hockey are rarely ever happy even when they have it good.  Good luck.

[Youth Hockey Info]

0-20 staying is a waste. Kids getting blown out every game. That can not be fun. Find an organization or team that is going to be able to compete.

FWIW, that could very easily reflect the coaching, not specifically the players or their talent. My son played on his past two seasons teams for a coach with 25 yrs experience. Some say he's one of the better coaches that parents bring their kids to play for. He has an incredible track record at 16AA and 18AA level. He moved down to pee wee last season and we jumped at the opportunity for our kid to play for him.

They had some really good 2nd yr majors and 1st yr minors. They had a terrible year. We looked at it as a throw away season. My son got him again with 1st yr 14u this season. Even worse year, they were flat out horrible and they had a team of almost all 2nd year 14u majors. Some excellent players that he couldn't figure out how to make them able to work together cohesively. His solution, yell and scream at them all game long. Make them do wind sprints for the first half of practice and do 2 on 1's for the rest of practice.

Both season's teams, last season #1 in PIM in the entire league. This season #4 in PIM in the entire league. He couldn't figure out how to make the team work effectively on the positive side of the scoreboard. But he was the best coach in the league when it came to running up the penalty minutes.

We left. My kid doesn't want to play club anymore at 2nd yr 14U. He's just playing school now.

[coach03]

Sounds like an age gap disconnect. It isn't uncommon for coaches who are familiar with a specific age group to not be as productive or productive at all at others.

[Guest]

Just to clarify, our concern is that they may not have a team at all, if they don't find enough kids (we have heard several parents express this concern). Can that happen? Is there a minimum number of kids that a team needs in order to play?

Sorry for all the questions, but this is all new to us.

[tree408]

are there too many kids if they combine both PW teams and don't put in a AA team? 

[Youth Hockey Info]

Just to clarify, our concern is that they may not have a team at all, if they don't find enough kids (we have heard several parents express this concern). Can that happen? Is there a minimum number of kids that a team needs in order to play?

Sorry for all the questions, but this is all new to us.

For non AA PW and below, 10 skaters and a goalie is a common cut off, 2 forward lines and 2 defense pairings. And in some cases they prefer that over a 15 player bench. How many players do you have?

Additionally, in the DVHL all you need is 6 players on the bench in order to compete. I have no idea what the NJYHL By Laws are. Section III -- Postponement of Game>Article I -- A team which does not have a minimum of six (6) players on its bench by ten (10) minutes after the scheduled game time shall forfeit the game.

[Guest]

They have enough kids to make one team, but they would probably have to let a few kids go as they would have around 22 kids total. A few parents are trying to get them to move their kids up to the AA team, which would leave fewer for the A team.

Not 100% sure, but I think they have 12 kids for the AA team and 10 kids for the A team. There are goalies included in that total, I think 2 on AA and one on A. I'll have to ask my son when he gets home from school regarding the goalies.