Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to learn so much about the youth side of the game. Being able to talk to hockey directors, coaches, parents, and industry leaders all over the world has been really, really cool. Getting a wide range of perspectives from a wide range of places has been enlightening to say the least.
And one thing has become painfully clear – Tier One hockey is out of control.
Now before I elaborate, I want to say that I am a product of Tier One hockey. I played for the Chicago Young Americans and Team Illinois growing up, have coached at the Tier One level, and believe there is a place for it with the right circumstances and regulations. There are a lot of good coaches and people involved at the level who I have a lot of respect for.
But what we’re seeing today as a whole is a disservice to hockey families in the US and Canada and it’s going to lead to less and less people choosing our game in the future.
Please check out the chart below. It’s Tier One teams in Chicago’s game count and number of hotel trips as of January 5th. The source is https://myhockeyrankings.com/.
If that doesn’t make you shake your head, you’re living on a different planet than I’m on. A little over the halfway point of the season and there’s teams of eight-year-olds that have already played close to 50 games and traveled with hotel stays 5 times. Teams of 10-year-olds that have played close to 60 games and traveled with hotel stays 6 times. The median for these teams at bantam and younger are below that…but certainly not by much.
And these numbers, they’re not just specific to Chicago. It’s this crazy in plenty of other places too.
Honestly, what are we doing?
I put a tweet out a few months ago asking my followers if they could play Tier One hockey at the midget level (outside of Minnesota), all in, for less than $20,000 per year. The answer was a resounding NO.
But holy hell, looking at that chart there have to be a lot of families that can’t play Tier One hockey in Chicago at age groups below midget for less than $20,000 per year. When you think about what they’re paying for a full season tuition to the organization, travel, off ice, private coaching, spring and summer hockey (which let’s not kid ourselves most families feel pressure to do), and other correlated costs I don’t see a world where most families are paying less than that.
I keep beating the community model drum for a reason. Not only are costs WAY down, but the pressure is down for families to not feel like they HAVE TO spend all this money or their kid will get left behind. That pressure is real. And it’s also backwards.
Here’s a post I sent out the other day, for all the parents out there:
People at the highest levels of hockey think that narrowing the talent pyramid at such a young age is insane. Honestly, they think it’s laughable. They know it’s not good for the game nor is it worth “the investment.”
At the end of the day, the most important attribute of 99% of elite players is a LOVE FOR THE GAME. Starting Tier One at such young ages will eventually suck the love of the game out of a lot of families. And if you have a kid that isn’t in love with the game, or parents that aren’t in love with the game – the chances of the kid being an elite hockey player WHEN IT ACTUALLY MATTERS IN YOUR LATER TEEN YEARS go down the drain.
Guys, we have Mite AAA hockey here in Chicago and plenty of other places. “Elite” level hockey for six-and seven-year-olds. We’re narrowing the talent pyramid for kids taking spelling tests in their second and third grade classes. In what world (other than the reality we’re unfortunately living in) does that make any sense? I can’t find any data on game count or travel for our Tier One mites, but honestly, for my sanity’s sake, I don’t think I want to.
I have three daughters. They are seven, five, and three years old. There is NO WAY I could afford to pay if all three of my kids wanted to play Tier One hockey. And I’ve gotten notes from numerous other families saying their kid wants to play the at highest level of hockey they can, and are good enough, but they don’t have the means to do so.
That’s really freaking sad.
The Tier One clubs won’t give up AAA mites. I’ve talked to many of them and asked them to. They’ll continue to do it for various reasons if you ask them. None of which I agree with.
So instead, next is to educate. Check out my Twitter post above. Do some research on athlete development. Talk to people who understand Long Term Athlete Development. Send that info to people on the fence feeling pressure to professionalize their kid but don’t want to.
Everyone has a different path to high level hockey. The number of “A’s” at young ages doesn’t matter. The coach, the environment, and the passion that is built within a kid and their family does.
The longer we can keep kids in the community model, the better. Is there a time when it’s good to narrow the pyramid, yes. And that answer is different for the different areas around North America. Are there also different ways to narrow the pyramid that could work in different areas of North America, yes. Minnesota is very different than Chicago. Michigan is very different than Boston. Toronto is very different than Western Canada.
But as a whole, the more we professionalize and create this pressure cooker both physically, emotionally, and financially for our kids and our families at younger and younger ages, the more we are going to lose people from this great game that has given so many of us our lives.
I have a lot of friends that are hockey directors and coaches at the Tier One level. A lot of them do a really good job within the confines they operate in. They’re good people.
But the system is broken. We need to be better.
And the people who know better, need to do better.
11 Responses
Love this and agree whole heartedly. But there are some organizations including some Tier 2 organizations that do not have any choice but to travel because of where they are geographically. Southern teams are spread further apart. The league I coach in requires a hotel stay every away game plus tournaments. We have had 10 overnights with 4 of those being multi night stays and have 2 more to go, one of those being a multi night stay. How would you direct your point to this situation?
Great article and spot on. The volume of these teams is also off the chart with no regulations. Team hopping for the “prestige” of playing on an elite team. Quality of the product is secondary. Sucking the love of the game for that title is killing the game.
Sadly, all youth sports and activities have degenerated to this level, because nothing is about the game or the kids, it’s about the money. Lived and coached youth hockey in Dallas, where the stars franchise owns everything hockey related. It wasn’t too bad until the new owner said he would scrap all youth hockey programs if they didn’t turn a profit (and yes, it went downhill rapidly). Moved to chicago and found things to be even worse here (4k+ for 20 game developmental league, mites and up)
My husband played CYA and TI and we have a mite in travel now in the south. We have had this convo many many many times. Thx for sharing!
Great article. We are out pricing the game for many people.
All true, but let’s dissect the Parent thought process a bit. Each year these AAA teams will turn over their third lines or there about. That’s 5 spots a year. Then, many of the programs almost blindly just look for other AAA retreads. Let’s say that takes 3 of the 5 spots. Now you are left with scarcity. Only 2 spots per team open for AA kids. Maybe not all AAA teams, but the top 3 for sure. Now when they form an 8U team, there are 16 spots. Parents do the math so they feel forced to go early.
I would argue a bigger problem is the fallacy that Central States is somehow a different level to NIHL. That is a scam. Deeper teams? Maybe. More talent, 100% hard no. That CS dynamic has community kids club hoping and for what? Very few will play college and now they aren’t even playing with their friends. Just to get their parents more Ws so they can post on Insta. We make IL hockey better first by having one single Tier II league that doesn’t punish small programs over large programs.
Moved my family from Colorado to Minnesota last year. Colorado is completely club based hockey. I had read and heard stories about the community based model in Minnesota. It was actually less stressful and cheaper to pack my family up and move to Minnesota for the community based Hockey, then it was to stay in Colorado and try to navigate the tier one level. Having said that, tier one is slowly creeping its way into Minnesota hockey and it is sad. I can’t express enough how important and vital community based Hockey is. My kids are just about two seasons into our move, and I can tell you they have improved significantly with their hockey abilities, but more importantly, they have already built friendships that will last a lifetime. These kids go to school together, play hockey together, play baseball together, play football together, play lacrosse together, that’s something you don’t get when you move from the community base model to the tier 1 model. I actually chatted with several of the tier 1 hockey players in Colorado frequently, as I worked in a school. Several of them quit, not because they no longer love Hockey, but because at the tier one level a person that is your friend one day is taking your spot the next. They lost the joy and fun of playing hockey because it was so cutthroat. Club sports are overtaking youth sports, and it is becoming a major problem.
Eventually you price exceptional players out of the market and you are left with rich kids whose parents can afford the enormous price tag that comes with AAA hockey. I believe this is a reality in every ice hockey market. Lower the price tag and you’re going to draw way more kids into the sport and you let the dedicated, hard working kids rise to the top, shouldn’t matter how big a parents checkbook is.
this is a great generalization if all youth sports…
tournaments and traveling for teams under the age of 9 years old is ludicrous… how are kids to develop a love and passion for the game… i understand, youth sports is a profit center for a lot of people…
doesnt take a lot of intelligence to figure it out
I agree with this post. In metro Detroit it’s obviously the same situation. We also now have 6 levels of “travel hockey” where only the top two, tier 2 levels, Howe 1 and Yzerman, are actually advanced levels. All the lower levels are high priced house caliber teams. The issue here is all these delusional coaches think someone is going to see their Peewee win/loss record and offer them a professional coaching job. It will never happen. Just because a team selected to win, wins, it doesn’t mean that the coach is any good. I started coaching because I wasn’t willing to pay a guy to run my kid through a 5 month powerskating camp that is a carbon copy of everyone else’s “skating first dogma”. I show up and I did the opposite. I 90% taught the kids how to play the game through constantly playing the game. We absolutely crush all the wanna-be professional coaches and our kids get better at skating faster than those that focus most of their time on it. I’m now the most popular coach in the community and the other coaches really hate me now for proving their approach is misleading. Kids get better, faster through natural competition and play. Not bootcamp. Now all the kids I trained from learn to skate to Howe 1 Yzerman level, 9-10yr olds playing U12 now are planning to form a Howe 1 travel team for 2026 with me and my coaches. However, the more senior coach at our rink has decided he calls dibs on coaching that team which I’m afraid will cause the group to break up. As his teams don’t usually do so well historically and hardly stick together for a full season. Never back to back seasons. It’s sad. Coaching as a product or service is lame and will be the downfall of the while sport. Coaching is a student/teacher relationship. Coaches should be 110% focused on the dreams and aspirations of their students and not using the kids for the coaches personal goals and aspirations. Anyway, I’ll keep working on changing the culture of our program permanently. Or until they finally lock me out of the building. Thanks.
Football would die if a “Texas AAA and AA Travel Football” priced natural ability out.