International Cup 2012

Aimforthefivehole · Post by **Aimforthefivehole** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 8:48 am

Many times the subs are just that - for one weekend. The really good players are asked to sub more often and their opportunities to skate become even more frequent with every sub situation. So you end up seeing their names in more books.

With the MN Machine Black teams it's all part of their program and their parents all buy into it. They roster 11 or so and sub with Orange. Nothing wrong with it as long as everyone "within their program" is comfortable with it. The rest of us who play them regularly may not like it but we'll all need to adjust, which might mean changing your programs to attract better players. Add a camp, add dry land, add weight lift, etc... This will attract better players and improve depth. Subs will not be neccessary hopefully...

Irish · Post by **Irish** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 1:18 pm

Aimforthefivehole wrote:Many times the subs are just that - for one weekend. The really good players are asked to sub more often and their opportunities to skate become even more frequent with every sub situation. So you end up seeing their names in more books.

With the MN Machine Black teams it's all part of their program and their parents all buy into it. They roster 11 or so and sub with Orange. Nothing wrong with it as long as everyone "within their program" is comfortable with it. The rest of us who play them regularly may not like it but we'll all need to adjust, which might mean changing your programs to attract better players. Add a camp, add dry land, add weight lift, etc... This will attract better players and improve depth. Subs will not be neccessary hopefully...

Spot on. I personally like when my son plays against stronger teams. Most parents look at it different. I think we all know how the Machine teams operate. The only problem I see in our age group is when the coach shortens the bench in the first period in order to get Orange players more ice time. Sad to see. Last year was the first time they had Machine Black teams and I know this was an issue with some of the parents. You know what? They all opted to come back. So it must not be that big of an issue. Even know the parents still question it in the heat of the battle.
Bernie is a genius by adding Machine Black name to his program. He tells the Machine Black parents that he will add three orange players for tournaments. Once again. I think we all know who gets majority of the ice time? When you look at it so does 99.9% of all invite teams.

What still baffles me is using the name Attack? Why?

irish skater · Post by **irish skater** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:37 pm

Irish wrote:
Aimforthefivehole wrote:Many times the subs are just that - for one weekend. The really good players are asked to sub more often and their opportunities to skate become even more frequent with every sub situation. So you end up seeing their names in more books.

With the MN Machine Black teams it's all part of their program and their parents all buy into it. They roster 11 or so and sub with Orange. Nothing wrong with it as long as everyone "within their program" is comfortable with it. The rest of us who play them regularly may not like it but we'll all need to adjust, which might mean changing your programs to attract better players. Add a camp, add dry land, add weight lift, etc... This will attract better players and improve depth. Subs will not be neccessary hopefully...
Spot on. I personally like when my son plays against stronger teams. Most parents look at it different. I think we all know how the Machine teams operate. The only problem I see in our age group is when the coach shortens the bench in the first period in order to get Orange players more ice time. Sad to see. Last year was the first time they had Machine Black teams and I know this was an issue with some of the parents. You know what? They all opted to come back. So it must not be that big of an issue. Even know the parents still question it in the heat of the battle.
Bernie is a genius by adding Machine Black name to his program. He tells the Machine Black parents that he will add three orange players for tournaments. Once again. I think we all know who gets majority of the ice time? When you look at it so does 99.9% of all invite teams.

What still baffles me is using the name Attack? Why?

I see what you mean, but I wasn't even thinking of that. I'm thinking of teams that play invite, then sandbag and play open to win, even though they don't belong there. Then there's always a group of 2 or 3 dozen kids (my son's year) that get picked up by teams and play both tournaments. I kind of feel that a kid should be in one or the other, but pick one. We've all seen teams in the open levels that clearly don't belong there. I'm no angel. My kid has played both, but it was my decision, not his. I won't do it again.

I have several doozy stories about a current team. It's all new players now, but management is the same. They used to pull stuff I couldn't believe. I think that's where my strong feelings came from. Anyway, it's that way in most sports, you play at one level. Hockey apparently has a different set of rules.

Fun times · Post by **Fun times** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 10:06 pm

What if a team plays up to the next age class in an open tourny, and most of the players are invite players at the level below? Is it ok to play up???

Just asking.

Aimforthefivehole · Post by **Aimforthefivehole** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 12:04 am

I have a bigger issue with playing in a tourney that isn't up to the teams' level. But they don't enjoy ripping through a tourney as much as you might think. The kids and the parents like competition, thats what they thrive on. Winning a lower level tourney is something that the director of that organization has to explain to the parents afterward. It will go something like this " nice win by the team but next season we're problably going to look into a different tourney closer to our level".

With regards to playing up a year, I think for the most part that younger team is problably only a couple months younger on average anyway. The really good teams ( younger teams playing up) are built with primarily Jan- April birthdates and often times the open teams ( in this case they'd be the older team)have birthdates after August. All the same grade just sperated by change in year. If checking is involved then I feel differently because it does definitely put that younger class in jeopardy for injury.