brots
Registered User
- Jan 4, 2023
- 3
- 0
"Tryout" for a rogue league so you get the "honour" of playing (paying) there, way too much while being pitched a whole pile of garbage while you spend to try to get your kid to the next level.
1. Tryout for club hockey. (KC, MLAC, CAC, SSAC) The level is excellent and once you get to the junior tryouts, there is no difference between club and academy players. The clubs are all non profits and the coaching is just as good and the guys who run the programs don't make $75-100K a year.
2. If you don't make club, play federation. It is about the experience along the way.
Dont agree with your statement there is no difference between academy and club. I just finished watching the Macs Cup in Calgary whereby the SAHA out of medicine hat throttled the Calgary Buffaloes 6-0 in the A Final. the Buffs are the run away leaders of the ALberta Midget U18 AAAs. The SAHA group is run owned by Med Hat TIgers and loaded with their own picks. By the way I know of no coach getting paid 75-100k to coach in the HSL Try 50 bucks and expenses paid travel, meals hotel rooms
lastly over 75 per cent of those taken in the whl bantam draft came out of academies Im still a skeptic on the whole concept of over elite hockey. the game itself is damn expensive look at the price of gear, the sticks and skates etc. then add in a 25 000 price tag for a academy and its out of reach for the average parent unless you are mortgaging the future to further junior or yours passion to play junior. Even that aint guaranteed. My son put his boy in the HSL this year, mostly because i think both of them got tired of the same old nepotism and old boys network of every year the same coaches and their kids move along in the association and unless you are a biz parnter, drinking buddy or golfin pal yer ont he outside. He got tired of that dynamic. SO hid dad applied paid the tryout fee, wasnt guaranteed a spot and latched on as the 6th dman. There we more people lining up to try out and at least a dozen didnt make the cut. Most of these kids on this team are all former AAA out of the city quadrant system all cut for a variety of reasons that year. But what ive see today, i cannot knock the value he's received, they get private powerskating lessons, private positional tutoring, education goals setting, dryland training weekly, boxing more of a team event, nutrition seminars, practice, practice and practice. Will any of them make it to any level past this? Its possible. The league itself is officiated pretty tight the director of officiating is Mike Civic former NHL referee. And subsequent suspensions for tomfoolery can be harsh. ALso you have to remember these different hsl teams are basically franchises set up to follow the mission statement of the league and of course to recoup money on the investment these men have made. SO when yu factor in year fee with no cash calls, no bingos, no bottle drives and lets say each franchise takes in 6500 per player and you've got 17 kids we can safely assume nobody is making a retirement gig out of it thats just over 110K per year not counting ice time, uniforms, coaches expenses. Pretty skinny return. But for my son's position on it hey its been worth it. Not sure how the franchisees do it, but iwth multiple income streams from U18 17 16 15 maybe that's how they make it back. He probably is the most improved player on the team as he had so far to climb and catch up to the kids ahead of him who had 3-4 years of elite association hockey behind them. They've peaked now, he's by passing them. So for him its been good