DVHL 16AA Teams 2019-2020

[Guest]

AA is for talented  “major” age or 03 and the Blazers have an AA 03 team. A National is for talented  “minor” age or 04’s. A American is for lesser talented kids of either age. a talented all 04 team may “whip” some teams in A National and EJ single-birth-year Diamond but many games against the other top talented teams are extremely competitive and often 1 goal games. Also, maybe it’s the teams that are getting “whipped” that are actually in the wrong division and should be in A American.   

[Guest]

Is Blazers 04 playing in the EJ U15 Diamond single-birth year division also playing “down” or should they be playing in the U16 against 03s?

[Guest]

The EJ leauge is a secondary league used to play extra games, that's about it. Most of the teams of the teams who say they're elite AA or AAA aren't better than A teams. There's a reason why the USPHL was created and it's because there are so many teams in the EJ that water the competition down. Anybody who says EJ is a premier league hasn't played in it yet. You will see the competition is horrendous.

[Guest]

Team Philadelphia 2004 is also playing in A National,  are they also sandbagging  or is it OK for them?

[Guest]

I agree that the EJEPL is anything but elite when you consider all the teams but to say that the competition is horrendous is quite a stretch.  Last season, the 16AA divisions had four teams make it to  3A Nationals (Xtreme, Huskies, Icedogs & CT Stars).  Competition was also pretty strong with Team Philly, the Rev. and a few other teams.

From the topic of playing up or down, I understand the concerns about playing up with bigger and stronger kids but there is no substitute in player development (at higher levels) than playing in games where these "stronger" teams take away time and space. 

Competition will be very good this season with the 16AA teams that are playing so one less team is no big deal.  Best of luck. 

[Guest]

 Then why stop at playing against one birth year older than you? If you really want to toughen up why not have 20004s play up against 2002s?

[Guest]

There are no 20004's. That birth year is 18 thousand years away. And I agree remove age levels altogether let's have 2010 AA's play 2002's. See how stupid both of these comments look?

[Guest]

So why did Blazers enter the 16AA division at the Labor Day Aston tournament?  Where those all 04's?  Just curious. 

[Guest]

Very clever jumping on the typo. The bottom line is if an all or mostly all 2004  chooses to play “up“ in the major division that is predominantly 2003’s, then that is a strategic decision they made and they think that is what’s best for them and nobody has anything but best wishes for them. However if a pure 04 team chooses to play in the minor age division where it will be a much larger percentage of kids their own age, and they believe that that is what is best for their development, why should others begrudge that and imply some form of sandbagging? You might say well the A national division will have 2003’s in it and it will, but At a much much smaller percent percentage then you would find in the major age AA division. Isn't it those all or largely all 2003 teams, who do not field a major age AA team and play “down” a birth year in minor age A National division, the true sandbaggers?  I would hope  we could at least agree on that?

[Guest]

It was half and half.....Nothing like the DVHL major-age AA division where 90% of the teams will be 80-90% major aged 03's and up to 23 months older