12U vs. 14U

[gainazone]

My personal opinion is that 12U is more important as far as seeing what programs have talent coming up.<br><br>You lose many 14U players who are very good to the local high school team.<br><br>Obviously WBL and Edina having teams in the Championship Games of both 12U and 14U state tournaments have talent in both places. But overall I would think that 12U is a better predictor of what type of high school team a school will have in a couple of years. <p></p><i></i>

[ghshockeyfan]

I'd agree and disagree. Much can be misleading about 12 vs. 14. there are so many variables...<br><br>Does the JV take from the U14?<br><br>Will the kids continue to develop from U12?<br><br>Will kids move/OE/go Private - more likely from U12 to HS than U14 to HS?<br><br>And - you always have to look and see if the 12 is a rainbow/co-op team which I'd guess is still far less likely at 12 than 14? <p></p><i></i>

[SEhockeyDAD]

A huge factor is where the best young players are actually playing when they're 12 or 14. There are often few 2nd year U14's who aren't on the HS team, and many better U12's play U14 or even HS. Other than maybe depth, you can't really tell much about the future of a youth team in HS. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p100.ezboard.com/bmnhs.showUserP ... ckeyDAD</A> at: 3/21/06 8:54 am<br></i>

[SEMetro]

Agree with SEDad. It is no coincidence that the associations with the largest youth numbers typically play for the state tourney championship year in and year out in boys and girls. An association that can only field one team at the U12 level will typically not be competitive at the youth level with a program that can field two (or even three teams in a couple of instances) due to ##'s and equal playing time rules for all players. For example, a "one U12 team" association may have their top 5 kids that are equal to the top 5 kids in a "two U12 team" association, but there can be a huge discrepancy at the bottom of the "one team" roster because they have a couple of girls on the roster that may have never even played organized hockey before - but made the A team because there was no B team. <br><br>This issue disappears in girls high school hockey when you combine the top 3-4 kids per grade over 5 years. It is shocking for an 8th grader to make a boys varsity team (Schroeder). It is commonplace for this to happen in girls hockey. <br> <br>You really don't even know what associations have their top kids in U12 because many associations have their best U12 girls (7th and some 8th graders) playing on U14A, on PWA and PWB teams and some on varsities and JVs. Tonka had a couple of the best 7th graders in the state IMO playing U14A. Another association has 1/3 their girls playing PWA and PWB. <br><br>Finally, losing just a couple strong girls or a superstar to HA, BSM, HM, Cretin, Shattuck, Thoroughbreds, Blake, OE can be the difference between state tourney or middle of the pack.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[ghshockeyfan]

Agreed. <p></p><i></i>