Note: It is graduation time for high schools throughout the state, by this coming Friday most seniors will be throwing their caps in the air at their high school’s commencement ceremony.  As this corner of YHH has found out, one of the most often questions posed by a parent at the rinks, “is should a player (usually a talented 14/15 year old) go out of state to play for a AAA midget team?”  This post makes the case that staying in the high school system is the best for most players because Minnesota Hockey rules provide an easy path to hockey and a high school diploma; USA rules, especially for midget players, separate hockey and high school lessen the probability that kid will be successful in an out of state high school. 

Two years ago, a good peewee tier II AA team played a December tourney in the Twin Cities one weekend.  As a side to the tourney, they scheduled a Saturday morning “friendship game” against a good Minnesota peewee A team.  They were beaten badly and the out-of-state tier II parents were in shock.  After the game, some told YHH that they expected an easy win because an A team in their area was usually a peewee minor team much like a Minnesota B team and they were a peewee AA, a peewee major team.

The parents were confused by USA youth hockey rules.

Outside of Minnesota there is a lack of standards and standard definitions at the youth level.  Inside Minnesota that is not a problem.  Most participants understand the basic floor plan that has been put in place by Minnesota Hockey.  It starts with a common definition of terms such as peewee A.  It may seem a simple thing, the implementation of the peewee A rule, but Minnesota Hockey’s floor plan has done that for youth hockey in our state.  USA rules confuse the definition.

People may chuckle at the Minnesota Handbook and struggle to understand the state tourney approach, but it works.  USA Hockey, with national youth tourneys as carrot, still has no floor plan when it comes to youth hockey and what it has, has become a patchwork of things that create confusion.  Hence peewee A has different meanings across states.  The patchwork is such that those kids and parents involved in USA hockey do not understand what is happening and are often confused.  In the end, they the end they view hockey as “super expensive” involving a great deal of travel.

YHH has spoken to parents who have transplanted from other states and have their sons or daughters in an association program.  They all are grateful to be here when it comes to hockey.  Their expenses are down, the competition up, and they have time because of the short travel to the rinks.  They have money.  Some could not even believe how low the cost was to play Minnesota Hockey.

Outside Minnesota, terms like bantam minor, midget major, 2000 Tier I, prep schools, A level, 2002 Tier 2 AA, and high school have created a hodgepodge of different meanings depending on what part of the country a team calls home.
This corner of YHH maintains that most of this confusion at the youth level is caused by USA Hockey’s one year rule.  And as it has been said here before, the one year rule is a loser and frankly USA Hockey is a losing organization at youth hockey because of the rule.

The most important term for Minnesota youth hockey is “high school hockey” and that has totally different meaning outside the state.  Most people don’t realize there are about 1600 high school hockey teams across the USA including Minnesota and that USA Hockey has a national high school tourney.  Minnesota does not care about the tourney and the remaining states don’t care.

Inside Minnesota, high school hockey has a different definition than in the other states.  In Minnesota high school hockey is the premier or apex for players throughout the state.  Hockey careers in Minnesota are generally thought of as what to do “after high school”.

Outside of Minnesota, high school hockey is denigrated by people.  It is considered a version of “house hockey” and it shows up in any national ranking.  Almost every year, the top 50 nationally ranked high schools teams are from Minnesota.  At the end of the 2013-2014 season, Hill-Murray and St. Thomas Academy were ranked #1 and #2 nationally, the next 48 or so were all gopher based teams.

Inside Minnesota, nobody cares about national high school rankings or national high school tourneys, they care about playing in the State Tourney Championship games.

Outside Minnesota, the hockey players, coaches and parents care about playing midgets.  That is where the Honeybaked and Little Caesar’s teams play.  Outside of Minnesota, “midget” hockey is king because that is where the best hockey is played in places like Texas, California, and New England.  The jewels in USA’s dozen or so “youth” national tourneys are U18 (Midget Major) and U16 (Midget Minor) tourneys, not high school.

But most importantly, Minnesota Hockey has kept their floor plan in place and avoided USA Hockey rules because they separate high school from hockey.  Inside Minnesota, Minnesota Hockey rules result in school and hockey being combined.

Inside Minnesota, midget hockey does not exist except for one place, Shattuck-St. Mary’s.  And the Sabres have adopted a modified Minnesota Hockey approach to their program.

Shattuck-St. Mary’s plays out of Faribault and has blended of Minnesota Hockey’ concept of high school and hockey with USA midget hockey.  Shattuck-St. Mary’s two top teams are classified by SSM as Midget Major (their prep or U18 team) and Midget Minor (their U16 team).  They do not classify their teams as high school.  But to play for Shattuck you have to go to school at Shattuck.  Inside their school facility, they have combined high school and midget hockey that allows players to compete on a “multiyear” basis.  As a result, the Sabres’ teams (U18 or midget major) have done well winning two of the last three U18 national titles posting a three year record of 142-19-7 playing Midget Major teams.

Shattuck-St. Mary’s did not opt to play high school hockey on a national basis.  It does not play high school hockey teams outside of Minnesota because generally the non-Minnesota high schools offer no competition (who wants to travel 1,000 miles to beat someone 15-0).  But they make exception for Minnesota High Schools; they having been scheduling games with Minnesota High School teams like St. Thomas Academy and Benilde-St. Margaret’s for years.  This year the Sabres lost to both teams (YHH posted a game report of Benilde’s win over SSM asking does that make the Minnesota high school hockey champions the U18 Midget Major Champions this year).  SSM had beaten Benilde and St. Thomas in previous years.

SSM is successful taking USA midget hockey to a different level by combining hockey and school in a single college campus like setting and emphasizing hockey.  They have their own bantam AAA team that becomes the feeder to the U18 and U16 teams.  SSM also fields Midget AA and Midget AAA teams.  They find a place for all players aged 15-18 and hand them a high school degree in the process.

But most organizational hockey outside Minnesota does not combine high school and hockey.  It is a problem USA Hockey can’t change.  USA Hockey’s Tier I AAA hockey is firmly entrenched at the midget level and that has become a millstone around USA Hockey’s neck that prevents USA Hockey from broadly developing youth hockey; and the rope that holds the millstone is the one year per level rule.

A few years ago, USA youth teams used to be called major or minor signifying birth year.  Bantams were bantam major or bantam minor; and peewees major or peewee minor.  In some places, that terminology is still used.  USA Hockey still defines the teams by that one year rule.  Today any national ranking lists USA teams by birth year first.  Minnesota classifies the associations teams by level of play (peewee) and a letter; AA, A or B.  Birth year is not mentioned.  This year under USA hockey rules, peewee major teams will be listed as 2000 Tier I (or Tier II) AAA (or AA); peewee minor teams will be listed as 2001 Tier I (or Tier II) AAA (or AA).  The only difference in the name is the year (2000 or 2001) but only 2001 players or younger can play on the 2001 team.  Players borne in 2000 have to move up if they don’t make the 2000 team or change organizations.  That shrinks numbers and eliminates a key safety net for developing players.

Minnesota Hockey will be listing their top peewee teams as AA or A (note no birth year).  Minnesota associations at tryout time this fall will register all their peewee age kids and they will try out as group.  The associations will then decide based on the talent on the ice and other parameters on what level of teams to form.  Regardless of birth year, all peewee players will find a spot on the association’s teams.  They will continue to go to the same school.

USA associations outside of Minnesota can have the same tryouts, but since they have to conform to the birth year rules when they form teams, they tend to split the tryouts along birth year.  This discourages participation because a younger player borne within a year is always competing against older players within the same birth year year after year.

At a Minnesota association tryout, the younger Minnesota peewee knows that next year, he will be back for the same tryout next season with younger players and the second year player knows that he may not play on the top team, but he can play on the association’s second best team and continue to develop against tough competition.

But the big problem USA Hockey has is that the calendar year does not line up with the school year.  Outside of Minnesota nobody seems to care, and with good reason, because if you are good you play midget hockey at the organizational level while going to high school.  Midget hockey exists on its own schedule and high school has to fit in especially when a midget team has to travel a 1000 miles to a game.  In Minnesota, people care because the Minnesota kids see high school hockey as the top competitive hockey not midgets and they want to have a smooth and continuous hockey transition from bantam to high school.  Hence Minnesota Hockey uses a July 1 date as the cutoff.

Midget hockey in other states is “sort of” the equivalent of Minnesota high school hockey.  Both cover the same 4 year period in a player’s development, 15-18 year olds, but Minnesota’s approach integrates school and hockey; USA approach separates school and hockey and USA has handed the best hockey part of youth hockey over to private organizations.  That is where the competition is at nationally and that competition is essentially Tier I AAA hockey or organizational hockey.

The problem is that USA can’t change that; organizational hockey is too entrenched and will never be able to change.  The sad part about where USA Hockey is at is that a number of the AAA organizations that USA Hockey indirectly fosters are very independent and have little desire to involve USA hockey or to expand the growth of hockey.  They use USA Hockey.

From this corner of YHH (and from a hockey parent who has watched a player graduate) to all the hockey parents who players will be in those ceremonies this week, congratulations.  To the players who may still be wondering about their hockey futures after they pick up their “mortarboards”, no matter what the hockey future holds for you, by playing the game you are better off then those that could have played and stayed in the stands.  They will wonder and you will know.

New: The picture below was added as part of a replay to a comment made by nedbrayden