Quote:
Originally Posted by edn88
My son has played 2 years of Novice hockey in Springbank, and in that time have talked to lots of parents both in our association, as well as the other ones. Although there are always concerns about how teams are selected (both valid and not) I have not heard anyone complain that their kid was not getting played enough. My kid was in Novice 5 then Novice 2 (fairly competitive hockey, but not top level). My son was in the lower end of the skill level on his Novice 2 team, and all players got equal ice time. All players had equal chance to play goal as well.
Our Novice 5 coach was quite competitive, and would engineer games so the best forward/defense combos (and goaltender) would face hardest teams, and when we played weaker teams he would have it the other way around. In game, he would sometimes make an adjustment of moving a forward to d, or switching up lines, but all kids got same ice time.
I think quitting hockey outright because of lack of playing time is wrong, there are always other avenues (lower tiers, grass roots hockey, etc) and I think as a parent you need to understand the level of competition that you are putting your kid into, and if they have the mental makeup to thrive in that situation. But quitting a team because you don't get to play at that level of hockey is fair (and if this is just a spring development league - then shame on the coaches - our spring 3 on 3 hockey is first in first out, and if one team is ahead of the other by a lot, we move players onto the other team to even things out.
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I'm in Springbank as well, and one advantage is that there are a huge number of teams in each division, which means that on each team the difference between the strongest and weakest skaters is usually not that great. In Pee Wee this year there were 12 teams which was a lot, or so I am told.
I've never had a placement process issue (maybe because I didn't care too much and preferred my kid being placed lower if he was on the bubble).
Our coaches have almost always rolled lines equally as much as possible. A couple coaches created stronger lines (but not PP units), which didn't sit too well with me, because it meant some of the lower lines didn't benefit from having to keep up (and didn't get the sweet passes from the star). And, as I said above, thought they could be tougher on kids who played a shift and a half by not changing when called (meaning some other kid got a half shift).
As an aside, Novice 2 is pretty high level in Springbank because of the number of kids. There were 14 teams the year my kid played Novice (he only played one year of N because he started late).