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As this season starts, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the large peewee programs for size and tryout approach. A large program is defined here as one nearing 100 peewee players trying out for traveling hockey.

If you go by Districts 1 to 16, the following associations met the criteria.

D1 has no association that has near 100 peewees trying out. In D2 only White Bear Lake nears that number. In D3, Wayzata and Maple Grove exceed that number. In D4, the larger associations are only capable of fielding three traveling peewee teams.

The two more dominant associations in D5, Buffalo and Mound Westonka, field only three traveling peewee teams. Both D4 and D5 are fairly balanced in the numbers of peewees playing traveling in all their associations.

In D6, however, the associations have a wide range of numbers with the large ones fielding well over 100 players to small ones struggling to field 40 players.

D8 also appears to be balanced this year if one says the Rochester Association that will field 9 teams is a split association like Lakeville. That would make Woodbury the largest. But the Rochester association in the past has always selected the top players and fielded that team as one peewee A team. Then the association takes the next set of remaining top players and fielded that team as a second peewee A team.

Woodbury and Rochester are the only D8 associations to meet the criteria. In D10, Centennial is the only association to come close to 100 players.

In Districts 11, 12, 15 and 16, only one association, Moorhead, has numbers exceeding 50 players. Grand Rapids and Duluth East may come close to 50, but all the other associations field mostly two traveling teams.

The following associations are considered large associations (listed by estimated number of peewees trying out for traveling hockey).

1. Maple Grove
2. Edina
3. Wayzata
4. Rochester
5. Eden Prairie
6. Woodbury
7. White Bear Lake
8. Minnetonka
9. Centennial


1. Maple Grove plans to field 10 peewee teams. There will be one Peewee A team, three B1 teams, three B2 teams and three C teams. With nearly 150 players trying out, the team selection date is targeted to Oct 11 or 12, but may extend to Oct 16. Their tryout selection process is similar to Edina except they have a “preskate” that sets up four tryout groups. With only four tryout groups, the “preskate” may reduce some numbers to a C pool.

2. Edina plans to field 9 peewee teams. There will be one Peewee A team, two Peewee B1 teams, three Peewee B2 teams and three Peewee C teams. With over 130 players trying out for these teams, the process has some confusion. They will grade players in to five groups and then conduct 4 tryout sessions for all five groups. It would appear that players can be moved into higher (or lower) groups until the final session when the team decisions would be made (Oct 11 or 12).

3. Wayzata plans to field 9 peewee teams also with over 130 players trying out. There will be one Peewee A team, three Peewee B1 teams, three B2 teams and two C teams. The team number and level of play for Edina and Wayzata associations maybe determined more by in their respective District team numbers. D3, Wayzata, has fewer associations then D6, Edina’s association. Edina maybe restricted by D6 to two B1 teams where Wayzata may not be. Wayzata’s Peewee A team should be selected Oct 4.

4. Rochester fielded 9 peewee teams last year and will likely have over 120 players trying out. If they follow last years plan, there will be two Peewee A teams, three B teams and four C teams. Note that associations located further from the cities like Rochester, C teams have to travel more to get competition. In the cities, C teams can easily arrange scrimmages with other associations and not necessarily be considered traveling teams. Tryouts are scheduled for Oct. 4.

5. Eden Prairie usually fields 8 peewee teams, one A peewee team, two B1 teams, two B2 teams and three C teams. There should be about 130 players trying out for various teams, but their evaluation process is not clear. They will have three groups skating scrimmages on two nights. Then an A pool will be formed and three more scrimmages held with other association peewee teams. After the third scrimmage on Oct 5, the A team will be selected.

6. Woodbury plans to field 8 peewee teams. There will be one peewee A team, two B1 teams, two B2 teams and three C teams. There should be about 130 players trying out with the Peewee A team selected about Oct 10 or 11. Their evaluation approach is similar to Edina’s except they will have four groups in three sessions before they split into A and B pools Oct 5.

7. White Bear Lake plans to field one Peewee A team, two B teams, one B2 team and a TBD number of C teams. Their evaluation approach groups the players trying out by alphabet (last name) and has a single Phase I session. The players selected then move to Phase II and those not selected are moved to the C pool. Phase II consists of a single session where players are grouped and compete against another group. This divides the players into an A and B camp team. Each camp team gets an additional week of practices and scrimmages for evaluation with A team selected on Oct. 4.


8. Minnetonka plans to field 7 teams. They will field one Peewee A, two B1 teams, one B2 and three C teams. They will have over 100 players trying out. Their tryouts will consist of five sessions with four groups per session. Teams will be formed after the last session on Oct.11

10. Centennial plans to field 6 teams. They will field one Peewee A, two Peewee B1 teams, two B2 teams and one C team. Centennial breaks the tryouts into A tryouts and other tryouts. To participate in the A tryouts, a player has to pay $50 more that is not refundable. The A tryouts have two Phases. Phase I is three sessions with players selected moving to a Phase II. The Phase II is over on Sept 28 with the A team selected.

Freddy,

Thought I'd clarify what Rochester will be doing for peewees. A big concern for a lot of families is the cost of driving to an away game and the amount of time committed for approximately 14 minutes of skating per player.

The plan is to have an A team and a B team entered in the D8 league. There will be 4 other B teams playing a Rochester v Rochester in-house B schedule. Those four teams will also enter into B2 tournaments. The remaining 4-5 teams play an in-house C schedule and go to one away tournament. The in-house B and C programs will used a lot of skills based, shared ice practices to give the kids lots of ice touches and minimize the number of "windshield hours".

Associations with over 100 skaters trying out for any level should have two A teams...either that, or break up the large associations into multiple associations. There is no level playing field with the system as it's currently set up.

Even before the season gets underway, there are probably only 5 associations in this state that can be considered to be contenders for the State title.

Mac15 wrote:Freddy,

Thought I'd clarify what Rochester will be doing for peewees. A big concern for a lot of families is the cost of driving to an away game and the amount of time committed for approximately 14 minutes of skating per player.

The plan is to have an A team and a B team entered in the D8 league. There will be 4 other B teams playing a Rochester v Rochester in-house B schedule. Those four teams will also enter into B2 tournaments. The remaining 4-5 teams play an in-house C schedule and go to one away tournament. The in-house B and C programs will used a lot of skills based, shared ice practices to give the kids lots of ice touches and minimize the number of "windshield hours".

I sympathize with communities that have to travel to find competition and wonder if Minnesota Hockey rules need to be changed in anyway to allow a more games per visit style of competition in a non-tourney environment. I believe variety in competition is needed to help stimulate parent and kids interest.

A few of the larger associations that I am aware of with deal with the large numbers of kids at their tryouts this way; beginning in July and August, coaches of say an "A" Bantam team invite returning BA, Bantam B1 and PWA kids moving up and have four on four hockey once or twice a week at the local arena. They then split the kids into equal teams and scrimmage other tryout teams from other associations.

The good and bad is that the kids all get a really good look from the coaches and season long decions are not made off a few combine type tryouts. However, tryouts are now 6-8 weeks long and there is some prolonged pressure put on the kids trying to impress and move up.

Overall, this is probably a good way to do things IMO, and the kids are placed onto the right teams more consistantly. Compared to the small associations however, I have to laugh. Kids in the big associations have been skating and preparing for the season weeks and months before tryouts even start for the little guys, and this is just another example of how different things are between small and large associations.

Lowstickside,
There will always be top kids in a program that will always make the A level and there will always be kids that just love to play hockey, but will never make a traveling team. It is the kids in the middle whose play improves (or not) with age who can be cheated by a "pre-canned" evaluation approach such as a system that is based on last year’s performance. That evaluation approach in effect restricts a kid to a lower level the next year when his play could qualify him to a higher level.

I will cite two examples based on watching kids mature over the past years. One kid was the top player at an age level in his second year. He was so good, that he won a mid-season and year end awards that year. Then he moved up to the next level and never made a traveling A or B team for the next four years. He simply grew wrong.

A second kid in the same association never made more then B2 until one year he suddenly leaped to A level bantam from B2 level peewee. He grew right, added height and weight and strength.

But it does not stop with a kid’s physical growth, it sometimes is mental maturing that gives a kid with good physical skills through a sudden understanding of the game.

The problem is how do you find these players if you have a pre-canned solution that allows an association to form a team without doing “do diligence” in the evaluation process. The association that found these kids started with a clean sheet of paper at tryout time.

The pre-canned solution that doesn’t find them is because the association has a wealth of players. They don’t need to find them.

To finish the “catch-22” the large association uses the large number of kids as an excuse to use a pre-canned solution to simplify the evaluation process. But they are just being lazy or reluctant to spend the money on an elongated process.

This is why they should split the large associations, to give everybody in their system a chance to develop. But then they would really have to work to win a state title.

The ironic thing is that these large associations constantly pushed Lakeville on splitting as the South High School was being built. Lakeville has split and if you total North and South teams, they would rank in the middle of the list above.

I think the process I discribed is not "pre-canned" and is an attempt by the larger associations to find the "players" and place kids on the right teams. I have no ties to a big association and was just passing along a process I became aware of through my hockey friends from other districts. This time of year is always tough.

Lowstickside wrote:I think the process I discribed is not "pre-canned" and is an attempt by the larger associations to find the "players" and place kids on the right teams. I have no ties to a big association and was just passing along a process I became aware of through my hockey friends from other districts. This time of year is always tough.

None of my comments above are directed at you, Lowstickside, but at the idea that a "pre-canned" process similiar to what you described is a good evaluation process. I appreciate the data and the exchange of ideas you provided.

I agree that the process I mentioned would exclude an up and coming kid from a B2 team. There are so few spots open for this "hypothetical" big association BA team that the probability of a B2 kid jumping up is slim, however, a B2 kid is being excluded as we speak, and somewhere, hopefully, a B2 kid is also breaking through to the top team.

I took me a while to find out this was happening in my son's association. In most cases the board even claims it's not happening, when it's so obvious. If it's happening and secret, what does that say about the board and coaches? It looks shady and dishonest to me, if it wasn't why would they hide it? For that matter why have tryouts at all?

HockeyDadMN wrote:I took me a while to find out this was happening in my son's association. In most cases the board even claims it's not happening, when it's so obvious. If it's happening and secret, what does that say about the board and coaches? It looks shady and dishonest to me, if it wasn't why would they hide it? For that matter why have tryouts at all?

All one can do is press the board for change. Unfortunately, any change will happen long after your son has moved on. I believe the large association boards must be held to some accountability by Minnesota Hockey. Minnesota Hockey should have rules that will encourage kids to play hockey and not be caught in a "bottleneck" of limited access to traveling teams because their hockey future is determined by a "large association".

Minnesota Hockey has always found ways to encourage participation in small associations by relaxing rules. They should do the opposite with large associations and pass rules that force them to open up avenues of play for all their players. One rule they can pass is a "transfer rule" based large size.

If a peewee program is considered large, then players can transfer associations for that year with some restrictions on where they transfer (such as the new association has to be small and have a losing record the year before). This would encourage competition and maximize use of available ice (large associations run out of ice also).

The problem with doing this in the past is that it has been difficult to determine the number of players by level and a single rule would not make sense for all one association levels of play. If a transfer rule was in place, to counter this, a large association can "split" to add more teams if they desired to do so.

In the past, such a rule would have been difficult to manage. But today, most association know the number of players trying out long before sign-ups especially at the peewee level where the bottlenecks starts to develop. Add to that, almost all associations have on-line sign-ups with USA hockey resulting in establishing the player pools in August.

One can argue that there would still be attempts to circumvent rules that can't be stopped, but if it worked for 90% of the kids involved, it should be considered a success.

HockeyDadMN, I hope your son does well enough in his tryout to encourage him to play hockey this year and in the future. Enjoy this time between you and your son. Its special.

frederick61 wrote: HockeyDadMN, I hope your son does well enough in his tryout to encourage him to play hockey this year and in the future. Enjoy this time between you and your son. Its special.

I don't have to encourage him to play hockey, he dragged me into it and is still on the pulling end. I was totally blown away by the association politics though, even though I'd heard from other parents with older kids, how bad youth hockey politics were, I thought it was because they were making unrealistic assumptions about their children's abilities. I just keep telling my son he will meet more girls, if he quits hockey and takes up snowboarding.