USA Hockey Select Camps

[sticks21]

Nine forwards, six D, two goalies...though other permutations are possible.;)

You seem to be very knowledgable. Wh y last year did the 17/18s take 9 D?
How does this group look this year? Fs don't look all that strong except for slozick and foley. Ds look ok . Wheeler and Martino are strong. don't know the others

[OTH]

I don't know whether you are from NE, specifically Mass, but for some years it's been noticeable that many players that would be considered high end are passing on the national camp tryouts at the U16 level and up. I suspect this is true in other districts and there's probably a number of valid reasons. The end result is that some years the field of players in one position or the other will be stronger. So the ratio sent to NY isn't balanced and adjustments to camp team composition is made there.

[Black Bear]

From the Illinois site:

The AHAI Player Development Committee has been informed of a few mistakes in the player rankings for the upcoming Summer Camps. Several evaluators at the AHAI Player Development/Evaluation Camp “mistakenly” ranked players that did not attend this Evaluation Camp on March 23-25, 2007. The invited player list has been adjusted to reflect only players that did attend the Evaluation Camp on March 23-25, 2007. The evaluators who “mistakenly” ranked players not in attendance will no longer be invited to evaluate these events.

[Hux]

From the Illinois site:

The AHAI Player Development Committee has been informed of a few mistakes in the player rankings for the upcoming Summer Camps. Several evaluators at the AHAI Player Development/Evaluation Camp “mistakenly” ranked players that did not attend this Evaluation Camp on March 23-25, 2007. The invited player list has been adjusted to reflect only players that did attend the Evaluation Camp on March 23-25, 2007. The evaluators who “mistakenly” ranked players not in attendance will no longer be invited to evaluate these events.

Yikes. Talk about a major faux pas! :eek:

[gotice]

From the Illinois site:

The AHAI Player Development Committee has been informed of a few mistakes in the player rankings for the upcoming Summer Camps. Several evaluators at the AHAI Player Development/Evaluation Camp “mistakenly” ranked players that did not attend this Evaluation Camp on March 23-25, 2007. The invited player list has been adjusted to reflect only players that did attend the Evaluation Camp on March 23-25, 2007. The evaluators who “mistakenly” ranked players not in attendance will no longer be invited to evaluate these events.

This was in reference to the boys select try outs if I am not mistaken, however it would not be surprising if it also affected the girls.

[THE Icemom]

IMO...doesn't matter if it was at the boys end or the girls, this is totally unacceptable. Has it happened elsewhere in the past...you bet! Until last year, the majority of the evaluators at the Colorado camp were associated with one of the girls team in Colorado. Naturally, the majority of the girls advancing to the district camp were from that team. Enough parents complained, the state authority listened and brought in some outside evaluators, some actually from boys teams. Needless to say, several girls not associated with that team did advance last year to the district evaluation camp and did quite well. I am sure there are alot of the camps run correctly, Colorado and Illinois hopefully have learned their lesson. As a mother of a boy who went thru the Colorado camp last year, that side of it appeared to be run correctly. Although mine was selected as an alternate, I felt he got a fair skate and a correct evaluation.

[Hockeydad4two]

This was in reference to the boys select try outs if I am not mistaken, however it would not be surprising if it also affected the girls.

AHAI decided that last year's National Camp attendees were exempt from the state qualifier for the Central District tryouts. Those girls got an automatic invite to the Central District tryout.

[notfromaroundhere]

AHAI decided that last year's National Camp attendees were exempt from the state qualifier for the Central District tryouts. Those girls got an automatic invite to the Central District tryout.

The practice of giving an automatic pass out of Affiliate (or state) to District camp tryouts to previous year National Camp attendees is fairly common. You'd hope they hadn't forgotten how to skate in a year. Some affiliates/states allow these players to participate in the tryout anyhow, just for practice.

Not knowing who was at your tryout is quite embarassing, however. :o

I know at one girls district tryout last year, they accidentally misread the player jersey number on a score sheet and as a result posted a B-level girl as having made the national camp on the district website. The parent of the girl, upon hearing of this, immediately called the district girls rep and got things straightened out.

I guess you could say the judging was truly blind there!:D

[Black Bear]

The practice of giving an automatic pass out of Affiliate (or state) to District camp tryouts to previous year National Camp attendees is fairly common. You'd hope they hadn't forgotten how to skate in a year. Some affiliates/states allow these players to participate in the tryout anyhow, just for practice.

Not knowing who was at your tryout is quite embarassing, however. :o

I know at one girls district tryout last year, they accidentally misread the player jersey number on a score sheet and as a result posted a B-level girl as having made the national camp on the district website. The parent of the girl, upon hearing of this, immediately called the district girls rep and got things straightened out.

I guess you could say the judging was truly blind there!:D

What about automatic passes to Regional Festival in the case of girls who are injured and cannot attend the initial tryouts? Anyone had any experience with that happening?

[notfromaroundhere]

What about automatic passes to Regional Festival in the case of girls who are injured and cannot attend the initial tryouts? Anyone had any experience with that happening?

Never heard of it. I imagine if they had it, there would be quite a few more injuries reported near tryouts. :rolleyes: Not that your D's injury (IIRC you mentioned that earlier) was questionable, but I could imagine some people abusing that.

The thinking behind the automatic passes is that these kids who went to National camp were way beyond what was needed to get out of state/affiliate, so why waste everyone's time and crowd the ice even more.

I can remember a few years back attending a boys affiliate tryout (peewee major - so this wasn't for national camp - they did district camp tryout combined with national camp at this tryout) with my D (yes she tended at the boys tryout - it was good ice time). The automatic passes did not attend. It was a good thing that they gave out the free passes at some age brackets, as the ice was quite crowded (I remember 80 kids at one session).

The stupid thing was that my D was clearly the best goalie on the ice at her age level. Unfortunately, they wouldn't give her a bid to the boys camp (I offered to put her up in a hotel). I guess it didn't help that she sent one kid who charged her in net on a breakaway off the ice with a concussion. :rolleyes:

Over the years, I've come to accept that these are very imperfect processes. Any attempt to change the system ususally results in even more problems. Just recognize that you can't expect to be able to take advantage of a lot of these things, just because stuff (can't use the right word) happens.

[Black Bear]

Never heard of it. I imagine if they had it, there would be quite a few more injuries reported near tryouts. :rolleyes: Not that your D's injury (IIRC you mentioned that earlier) was questionable, but I could imagine some people abusing that.

The thinking behind the automatic passes is that these kids who went to National camp were way beyond what was needed to get out of state/affiliate, so why waste everyone's time and crowd the ice even more.

I can remember a few years back attending a boys affiliate tryout (peewee major - so this wasn't for national camp - they did district camp tryout combined with national camp at this tryout) with my D (yes she tended at the boys tryout - it was good ice time). The automatic passes did not attend. It was a good thing that they gave out the free passes at some age brackets, as the ice was quite crowded (I remember 80 kids at one session).

The stupid thing was that my D was clearly the best goalie on the ice at her age level. Unfortunately, they wouldn't give her a bid to the boys camp (I offered to put her up in a hotel). I guess it didn't help that she sent one kid who charged her in net on a breakaway off the ice with a concussion. :rolleyes:

Over the years, I've come to accept that these are very imperfect processes. Any attempt to change the system ususally results in even more problems. Just recognize that you can't expect to be able to take advantage of a lot of these things, just because stuff (can't use the right word) happens.

My feeling is that, girls or boys, if you have a record that indicates that you are highly likely to move from tryouts to District Festival (i.e., made it multiple times in the past, All Camp status at Regional Camp, current level of play, feedback from coaches, etc.), allowing that to happen when extraordinary circumstances occur is pretty easily supportable.

[Grim Reaper]

Many girls who are not picked for the Festival camps go on to prove themselves at the D-1 and D-3 level. It's just a shame that USA Hockey doesn't provide a better tryout/evaluation .

This is simply not true, those that don't go to the festival hardly get a look at D-1 let alone play at that level! If they can't get out of their district what makes you think they can play D-1. Maybe 1 out of 50 unless they are well known and had an injury at the time of tryout! Every college team is loaded with Talent! Where most kids in their "fish pond" college club or high school where awesome, many captains, many stars, many great players.But the level of the college ranks are 100 times better.

[Hux]

Many girls who are not picked for the Festival camps go on to prove themselves at the D-1 and D-3 level. It's just a shame that USA Hockey doesn't provide a better tryout/evaluation .

This is simply not true, those that don't go to the festival hardly get a look at D-1 let alone play at that level! If they can't get out of their district what makes you think they can play D-1. Maybe 1 out of 50 unless they are well known and had an injury at the time of tryout! Every college team is loaded with Talent! Where most kids in their "fish pond" college club or high school where awesome, many captains, many stars, many great players.But the level of the college ranks are 100 times better.

Actually, it is very true. When you have 60 girls tryout, and then cull 34 out for two teams to play in state, and then select 17 from that group, I can guarantee you are leaving out players that will end up at the D1 level. In Minny, they have even more tryout, then select four teams of 17 to compete against each other in the second phase of the process. To make matters worse, they do it regionally, and the "best" players picked from each region move on, not the 68 best players in the state.

[Black Bear]

Many girls who are not picked for the Festival camps go on to prove themselves at the D-1 and D-3 level. It's just a shame that USA Hockey doesn't provide a better tryout/evaluation .

This is simply not true, those that don't go to the festival hardly get a look at D-1 let alone play at that level! If they can't get out of their district what makes you think they can play D-1. Maybe 1 out of 50 unless they are well known and had an injury at the time of tryout! Every college team is loaded with Talent! Where most kids in their "fish pond" college club or high school where awesome, many captains, many stars, many great players.But the level of the college ranks are 100 times better.

I'll give you two off the top of my head from last year in NE. Teddy Fortin who will be heading to UVM and Elizabeth Denis now at Brown. If you for a minute believe that politics does not play a part at times in who does and does not get selected you are living in a dream world. And, if not politics, Festival formats, such as NE uses (four games, no skills sessions), that promote long shifts, showboating and produce games that are ten times slower than a lot of the girls play in their regular seasons.

[BKDad]

This is simply not true, those that don't go to the festival hardly get a look at D-1 let alone play at that level! If they can't get out of their district what makes you think they can play D-1. Maybe 1 out of 50 unless they are well known and had an injury at the time of tryout! Every college team is loaded with Talent! Where most kids in their "fish pond" college club or high school where awesome, many captains, many stars, many great players.But the level of the college ranks are 100 times better.
Grim,

Yours is a widely held view. Could you explain your thinking or reasoning for this? I'm not saying you're wrong; I'd just like to understand better.

[BKDad]

If you for a minute believe that politics does not play a part at times in who does and does not get selected you are living in a dream world. And, if not politics, Festival formats, such as NE uses (four games, no skills sessions), that promote long shifts, showboating and produce games that are ten times slower than a lot of the girls play in their regular seasons.
If it's so bad, and I'm not disagreeing here, then why keep bothering with it?

[Black Bear]

If it's so bad, and I'm not disagreeing here, then why keep bothering with it?

I'm not saying that it's not worth the effort. I responded to a post that implied that if you didn't make National Festival you could forget about D1 or high level D3 hockey and that is flat out not true. There are cracks that occassionally very good players fall through. My personal opinion is that the NE Festival format could certainly be improved upon and I've expressed that opinion to the District. Maybe the current format would be tweaked if the District would talk to players about how well they think it works. Obviously you will never make everyone happy but if you've been to NE Festival, and I'm betting that you have, where would you rate the level of overall play against your daughter's regular season?

[BKDad]

Obviously you will never make everyone happy but if you've been to NE Festival, and I'm betting that you have, where would you rate the level of overall play against your daughter's regular season?
These try-outs and Festivals are always very difficult because of the formats used and what they are trying to do with so many kids in such a short time. I think this is also true for most team try-outs in the larger organizations.

My daughter has chosen to design her own summer plans for hockey and other activities, and has for the past few years. She also made her own choice for the high/prep school she goes to. So far, it has worked out fine for her and she is pretty happy with her choices.

[Grim Reaper]

Grim,

Yours is a widely held view. Could you explain your thinking or reasoning for this? I'm not saying you're wrong; I'd just like to understand better.

Ok, D-1 hardly ever go to regional tryouts! They wait and go to Lake Placid and or Rochester NY to see whats in the pipeline. They are in Canada and Europe recruiting. They don't waste their time at regional tryouts! Now at the Usa select camps all colleges are present scouting. You have 8 teams that consist of 8 defensemen and 12 forwards, thats 64d and 96f. You have 30 something colleges each school may need to reload 3-6 players. We have not even touched on the players coming out of Canada and Europe. So 1 player might make but very very hard. They want to see them play against stiff competion. Everyone thinks their kid is good.

[BKDad]

OK, that's pretty clear and straightforward. - I appreciate the candor. Thank you.

I'd better go tell my kid to stick to the Math Team. (Dunno if these exist everywhere, but they really do around these parts.)

Follow-up: She took the news pretty well. I guess this may be it for me here...