But this corner of YHH sees the AA split as problem maker for youth hockey in our state.  First lets eliminate part of the confusion.  AA hockey at the bantam level is less of a problem than AA hockey at the peewee level because the bantam aged players and coaches almost demand “tougher competition”.  The players are old enough to want to test and prove themselves.

However, at the peewee level, the kids are still focused on playing the game and that is where AA hockey may not grow and with it not growing, it could do the opposite-shrink an association’s numbers.  The first sign of that will be what happens next November when the hockey associations actually field their peewee teams.

This corner of YHH sees the potential for smaller AA hockey associations this year shifting from AA to A level play.  The smaller AA associations will realize that they don’t have the depth of talent to compete with the larger associations and will not want to repeat the 15-0 defeats they experienced last year.

Last year, in District 6’s AA Peewee league, Edina AA beat Chaska AA and Burnsville AA four times by a collective score of 50-1.  Remember one of the big selling points for the AA split was there would be fewer one sided games.  That has not happened.

It is a numbers game.  Smaller associations are lucky if in one year they have more than one good line at the squirt and peewee levels.  Larger associations usually have three good lines on a single top end peewee or squirt team.  That disparity will only get worst in the coming years.

One could question whether the Chaska and Burnsville associations will field AA teams even this year.

Why should they?  Chaska and Burnsville can drop down to the peewee A level and play 20 or so competitive A league games instead of playing a 12 game AA schedule and getting beat up by big scores in at least half those games.  They will have no problem scheduling competitive games with AA teams or A teams of their own choosing outside of tourney play and can easily put a less stressful schedule together for all involved with the team.

There is precedence set for the smaller D6 associations to drop down based on what their high schools did when Edina, Minnetonka, and Wayzata were forced to return to the Lake Conference by the Minnesota State High School League a couple of years ago.  Eleven of the Lake Conference high schools (like Burnsville, Chaska, Jefferson, etc) left to form the South Suburban Conference.

This coming season, the large AA top teams next season will be loaded with talent because their rosters will consist of second year players who played AA/A hockey last year.  The Lakevilles, Woodburys, Roseville, Minneapolis, Orono, Burnsville, and others who fielded only AA or A and B teams will be lucky to have 4 or 5 returning first year A level players.

Last season, that was not the case.  There was no AA hockey the year before and most teams were lucky to have 4 or 5 returning players.  But last season, the large associations primed the pump by putting first year players on their A level team.  After all, the large associations numbers allowed them to field A teams that could play a AA/A schedule.  This coming season, they will have a large number of returning players will be the nucleus of this year’s AA team and will again “salt” their A team with first year players.

The large associations will continue year after year fielding experienced AA teams loaded with second year players where the Lakevilles, Woodburys, and others who do not have the depth of talent and/or the numbers to compete with AA teams and field A level teams will be lucky to field a team with 4 or 5 returning players.

That widens the gap between AA and A teams in the years after and makes the AA teams more exclusive and reduces the number of AA teams by losing the smaller associations.

In a few years, the AA teams will have to look for opponents.  That impact is already starting to show.  Last year’s Edina team had to go out of state to find opponents and played around 55 games.  Two years ago they played 65 games in state.

Last year’s smaller association’s experience at “loosing big” at the AA level is being driven home, still some smaller associations will most will stay and play AA teams during regular season again until they get beat so often by big scores they drop to A level for post season and drop any games with AA teams outside their league.

It will be the lack of games inside Minnesota and increased travel that will be the ultimate killer for AA teams, reducing numbers at the AA level.  If D6 repeats splitting AA and A into separate leagues this coming season and two D6 associations opt for A level, the D6 AA teams will really have to search to get enough games (their schedules would consist of potentially 4-4 game tourneys and  an 8 game regular season that gets a AA team only 24 regularly scheduled games; after that they have to fight for ice to get additional games scheduled).

The AA teams have been banding together, like the Maroon and Gold league, but it adds to an already heavy weekend travel just to play in the four tourneys and suddenly every parent will be facing additional weekends going to Duluth, Rochester, Moorhead, Grand Rapids, etc.  And there will be those grueling mid-week games with a 150 mile round trip.  The AA coaches will try to compensate, but the best they will be able to do is to double up and play 3-4 games on each trip.  When that happens, district hockey at the AA level is superfluous.  It serves no function.

The northern teams will suffer the most.  Most of their games are weekend games because of the travel.  A super league will guarantee more travel and longer distances.

District hockey will continue to serve a function for A levels and lower but not AA levels.  You now have a case for a super league across the state.  But this corner of YHH believes as AA evolves, outside of Duluth East, no team north of Brainerd will be playing AA hockey in three years.  D11, D12, and D16 will be at the A level for post season play.

District 15’s Brainerd and Moorhead are the strongest candidates in the “north” to remain AA.  In the “south”, today there is only Rochester.  That leaves the Twin City area and St. Cloud area.  St. Cloud and District 5 was very pragmatic in running their AA levels last season and their teams were successful.  They tend to fit their districts to their association’s collective abilities.

The Twin Cities districts last season had a mix of AA, A, and AA/A leagues and a lot of confusion.

Besides D6, the other Twin Cities districts are District 2, District 3, District 8, and District 10.  D2, D3, and D8 all went with a AA/A regular season and went with the flow.  They let the associations decide.  D6 and D10 decided for the associations by having two separate leagues (AA and A) last season.

District 8 and District 10 had the most AA teams and for AA to remain viable, these two districts have to keep their numbers up.  The fate of AA hockey really lies with decisions made by smaller associations like the Lakevilles, the Wooburys (it is Woodburys because they support East Ridge also), Andover, and the Champlin Park.

These associations will need to show improved numbers in the next two years and that is not happening.  They may not be able to afford staying with AA.  Today, they are struggling to maintain their numbers.

Two or three years from now, this corner of YHH believes there will be less than 25 teams playing AA hockey.  Most of those teams will be playing each other which will require commitments and in the end those commitments will lock out associations that may want to opt up to AA.

What happens then to get the competition up will be the idea of alignment of Minnesota AA teams with Tier I AAA teams and Tier II AA teams.  And when that happens, the demand will come from USA hockey based organizations to Minnesota Hockey-drop the two year alignment with high schools and go to USA Hockey’s one year approach.

That is a loser and frankly USA Hockey is a losing organization at youth hockey because of the rule.  Year after year USA Hockey tries to do too much at the youth level and can’t fit a good set of governing rules across 50 states.
Lacrosse in this state tried USA Hockey’s one year rule and lost two years of growth before they went with Minnesota Hockey’s two year approach.  Now the lacrosse participation is up in this state significantly this year.  A one year approach does not give most first year players the opportunity to play because he is not borne in the first quarter of the year.  But Minnesota’s second year, gives him the opportunity to advance and improve.

Minnesota Hockey’s HP-15/16/17 program players selected this year tend to reflect the benefit of a two year approach.  This year the majority of the 15 year olds selected (1998’s) were borne in the first quarter of 1998, the majority of the 16 year old players (1997’s) that were selected were borne in the second quarter of 1997, and the majority of the 17 year old players (1996’s) selected were borne in the third quarter of 1996.  What these numbers are saying is that as the players get older (15 to 17) the age advantage within a year starts to disappear since talent was the only criteria for selecting the players.  It is common sense.  Consequently, fewer older players within a year (those borne in January to March) are being selected.

Minnesota Hockey, trying to resolve with USA Hockey the one year issue so that Minnesota AA teams can play with USA Tier I and top Tier II teams is impossible in part because the USA AAA teams are organizational and self-serving; they do not want to get beat by “unfair older Minnesota bantam light teams masquerading a peewees”.

When that happens, Minnesota Hockey’s AA teams will have nowhere to go unless Minnesota Hockey adopts the one year rule or unless the AA approach develops peewee age players in the 1000’s capable of playing Division 1 or NHL hockey (that is everybody’s wish).

What Minnesota Hockey needs to do is to move in another direction.  They need to force the larger associations to field balanced AA teams at the squirt and peewee levels for starters.  Then the 15-0 wins go away at those levels because most A level teams can compete with large AA association teams under those circumstances with one or one and half good lines.  The large AA associations fielding teams with packed with talent is the ultimate problem.  And with the on-going summer programs, the problem will only get worst.

Then Minnesota Hockey needs to “regionalize” with their two year approach to expand their growth.  USA Hockey can’t be a constrain to that growth, they can’t grow with their current rules, and they can’t change the key rules to allow growth.

But for the next few years in Minnesota, it is AA hockey.  Hang on.  The AA boulder is already rolling down the mountain side.