Tryout system.

[dufferin]

Hey guys.

I have to complain. I know I know. But comon.

We have tryouts here when you register..first off its just a bunch of drills. Very mixed.

Then we have, AA , A , B and House.

They judge us on how we play in the scrimmage. ( goals against bascially ) . Why? I just wish they did a goalie clinic. With skating in crease. And not circles , and lines. Yeah alright we have to be the " best skater on the team" . But gees.

And..for the AA tryout..theres 3 goalies.. 1 gets cut. So he goes to A . And so on and so on . Im just sick of this league.

I have B tryouts tommorow. I think they will cut 1 or 2. So hopefully I do good.

Sorry im just...disapointed . I wish I could make higher levels. I try, but I doubt its good enough.

[luongojr]

Yea i kind of know what you mean my town its AAA an b(AA is who they play but they say b for some reason)and if u get cut from AAA you probably not even make B because the coaches are asses.They dont even want to win games the just want to develop the others wich is bs in my mind. This year i got cut from AAA after making it to the last tryout so now im playing house. But reaally anywhere you go is wack but all I have to say is play youre a$$ of and do whatever you can to make the team
Good Luck
kris

[blackmamba]

Really all you can do is do the best you can do and hope for the best. Alot of politics involved . How about being the last cut made in AAA and end up in A . Happened to me and the AA Goalies never got a chance at AAA. Go figure how that happened ? You just have too really kick butt and live with what happens at this level .

[Law Goalie]

Uh, luongojr, the purpose of minor hockey is to develop players. In fact, that's a subsidiary purpose: the main purpose is to develop good, fit human beings with a love of sport. In that understanding, 'winning' means bugger all in minor hockey. There has never been a shred of evidence that suggests that an organisation that wins championships accomplishes anything other than the self-agrandisement of its involved parents; they certainly don't send more players into higher levels of hockey (Junior, NCAA, CIS, pro) than the teams they beat.

Dufferin: just treat each tryout as a separate concern. If a select team - at any level - already has two returning goalies, no matter how good you are, you have to steal one of their jobs. That means simply outplayingthem isn't enough; you need to outwork, outfight, and consistently outplay one or even both of the two by a wide margin. Just take it one tryout at a time, and focus on outplaying their returners every step of the way. One good way is to always take shots immediately before or after a returner: it lets the coaches compare you directly.

[dufferin]

Thank you both for the encouragment

Id like to announce, that i will be playing....




BANTAM A!!!

hehe. Probably the best thing that ever happened to me . Going from House, to A .

WOOT!

[Law Goalie]

Sweet. Bring the battle.

[blackmamba]

Good Luck have fun and enjoy . Might see you on the ice . I play at that level in Nova Scotia .

[Zay1993]

Congrats and good luck!

I was going to play rep, but I wasn't told when tryouts were and they said they would call and tell me but I never did get a call telling me when the tryouts were. On the registration form there are 2 boxes, houseleague and rep. I checked off rep but I was never told when tryouts were held It's also partly my fault I guess for not checking their website.

Once again congrats and good luck!

[5hahv1r1]

Congratz on getting into rep

Anyway, last year we had normal tryouts, but as of this year, we started goalie evaluations with all the techinical stuff such as bf slides, psm's, and other stuff which owned those player and goalie tryouts.

Anyway, once again great that things worked for you

[Youthinstructor]

It's been suggested in this thread that winning means bugger all in minor hockey....that is the way it SHOULD be but...it's not.

My own kid is going through this right now. AAA peewee. Both goalies get pulled after any tough goal. That doesn't just include real softies, we are also talking about being a bit deep in your net and the shooter roofs it for instance. Same kind of goals I see nightly in most any NHL or junior game. They get benched, no one talks to them, no one comforts them, they get their stick taken away and told to sit down. Only after the game they get reminded that those pucks "should never have gone in". That's it!!

The coach is generally suggesting this year is performance based and you produce or don't play, whether it's skaters or goalies. Oh and by the way....the team has no goalie coach. None of the staff has ever played the position and other than the typical drills you always see, no one can properly instruct them. I've heard the coach comment that both of his goalies are playing without confidence.....dah!

These kids are 12, parents pay $2500 or more for the kids to play, they all have increasing homework/school pressures. Adults have really misconstrued kids sports. You should certainly expect effort and desire but really, mistakes should be looked at as perfect teaching opportunities and not as some kind of assault on one's coaching legacy!!!!

[handyandy]

Congrats!
So how does Saint John do there teams now? Back when I played there were teams from Lancaster, Saint John, and Simonds for rep teams as well as Saint John having a AAA team.

[dufferin]

Originally Posted by handyandy

Congrats!
So how does Saint John do there teams now? Back when I played there were teams from Lancaster, Saint John, and Simonds for rep teams as well as Saint John having a AAA team.

Hey!

Well there is:

Lancaster
Saint John Youth
KV
St Stephen
Sussex

For others there is often a Hampton team and a St Andrews instead of St Stephen. Theres House,B,A,AA and the AAA seadogs!

[Law Goalie]

Originally Posted by Youthinstructor

It's been suggested in this thread that winning means bugger all in minor hockey....that is the way it SHOULD be but...it's not.

My own kid is going through this right now. AAA peewee. Both goalies get pulled after any tough goal. That doesn't just include real softies, we are also talking about being a bit deep in your net and the shooter roofs it for instance. Same kind of goals I see nightly in most any NHL or junior game. They get benched, no one talks to them, no one comforts them, they get their stick taken away and told to sit down. Only after the game they get reminded that those pucks "should never have gone in". That's it!!

The coach is generally suggesting this year is performance based and you produce or don't play, whether it's skaters or goalies. Oh and by the way....the team has no goalie coach. None of the staff has ever played the position and other than the typical drills you always see, no one can properly instruct them. I've heard the coach comment that both of his goalies are playing without confidence.....dah!

These kids are 12, parents pay $2500 or more for the kids to play, they all have increasing homework/school pressures. Adults have really misconstrued kids sports. You should certainly expect effort and desire but really, mistakes should be looked at as perfect teaching opportunities and not as some kind of assault on one's coaching legacy!!!!

This is exactly why I decided to give up my weekend mornings -- to stop this kind of crap from happening.

FFS, kids shouldn't even be specializing in positions - not even goaltending - at that age. Yes, in order to develop as a goalie, they need a lot of on-ice time in the position, but they also need unequipped power-skating and some time skating out as well, probably at least until they're 14-15.

I can't change the world, but I can make my local rink a better place for kids to tend goal.

[Youthinstructor]

It's even worse now....coach has implemented and win and you stay in goalie rotation...winning goalie plays till he loses. Yeah...that will go over well.

That kind of rotation sucks in the NHL in my opinion, never mind in minor hockey where everyone pays to play.

Unbelieveable! Well at any rate, sorry for highjacking the thread.

[raiders]

Originally Posted by Youthinstructor

It's even worse now....coach has implemented and win and you stay in goalie rotation...winning goalie plays till he loses. Yeah...that will go over well.

That kind of rotation sucks in the NHL in my opinion, never mind in minor hockey where everyone pays to play.

Unbelieveable! Well at any rate, sorry for highjacking the thread.

That is crazy at 12, Major PeeWee, whether its AAA or House C..IMO

Back to the tryout systems, looking at the GTA area, a lot of the AAA teams have tryouts in the spring ie. Same team..make a few players positions "replaceable" but the core stays the same and a lot of times parents are coaching and move up with their kids. Are the tryouts really "open"? Where every kid has to tryout?

In our association in the Ottawa area, there was no AAA up until this year. 10 or 11 hockey associations ran AA programs, some had A,B as well, some small ones just had A or B teams.

This year AAA merged three association boundaries for our area then they ran tyouts at $150 a head to tryout($ making process). They had ~50 players at my sons level, 9 goalies 5 that played AA, 4 that played A for 2 spots.

AAA team budgets are in the 5K range, ~ twice what it cost for AA.

When my son was released to his home association, AA tryouts started with 12 goalies for 2 spots at AA and 2 spots at B as the A league disappeared at Bantam/Midget when AAA was introduced). There are no releases given out, even if a team is having trouble fielding a AA team, the whole team justs drops out.

They have reduced the number of rep hockey spots across the region and made the top level financially out of reach for a lot of people.

My feeling has been make hockey accessable, and the best players will always (usually) get noticed. My son worked hard and made AA this year, next year, its right back to competing against 10-14 goalies again. Its a grind for the kids, they have to be dedicated and thick skinned at an early age!!