Name Changes for Youth Hockey

There is a big change coming to youth hockey, and it’s all about names.      

Based on a rule change by USA Hockey, age classifications will no longer have name labels like ‘midget’ or ‘bantam’ in the USAH rulebook.

Instead, all age categories for youth hockey are to be referred to only by age number – 12U, 14U, 16U, etc.

Within the legislative proposals addressed at USA Hockey’s Annual Congress, ‘Legal Council #3 Amended’ is the document in which the name changes take place; the proposal was approved by the board of directors.

The ‘intention of proposal’ states: “To remove references to age classifications using Mite, Squirt, Pee Wee, Bantam and Midget, and instead refer to them using age categories.”

USA Hockey’s Legal Council and Disabled Section submitted the original proposal.

The proposal states that the ‘housekeeping changes’ of removing the names would take place in these areas:

• References to age classifications would list ages only
• ADM chart would list classifications by age only
• Split Season Dormant Program would remove references to “midget”
• Under age coach examples would refer to age categories only
• Junior relocation section seeking information on “midget” teams would refer to 18U
• References to “Midget Hockey” would refer to “Youth Hockey”

You can see the approved proposal here.

How age categories will now be referred to:

Youth

• Seventeen (17) and Eighteen (18) – 18U (Midget)
• Fifteen (15) and Sixteen (16) – 16U (Midget)
• Fifteen (15) Tier I only – 15 (Midget)
• Thirteen (13) and Fourteen (14) – 14U (Bantam)
• Eleven (11) and Twelve (12) – 12U (Pee Wee)
• Nine (9) and Ten (10) – 10U (Squirt)
• Eight (8) and Seven (7) – 8U (Mite)
• Six (6) and Under – 6U (Mini Mite)

Girls

• Seventeen (17) through Nineteen (19) – 19U
• Fifteen (15) and Sixteen (16) – 16U
• Thirteen (13) and Fourteen (14) – 14U
• Eleven (11) and Twelve (12) – 12U
• Nine (9) and Ten (10) – 10U
• Eight (8) and Seven (7) – 8U (Mite)
• Six (6) and Under – 6U (Mini Mite)

The Importance of Positional Versatility in Youth Hockey

In order for your child to one day grow up and become a professional hockey player…or just for him to be a skilled youth player, positional versatility is incredibly important. This term- positional versatility- is simply a fancy way of saying that a player is willing and able to play any position, or at least a wide range of them.

Hockey player Dave Christian is a perfect example of the importance of positional versatility. Though the player spent his childhood playing forward and defense, he had focused his attention mainly on forward during his college years. What surprised him, however, was that when he made the 1980 United States Olympic Hockey Team, it was as defense, not the position he’d tried out for, but one that was needed and that, fortunately, he’d also learned to play in his youth.

Countless other hockey players, many of whom have gone on to great success, thank positional versatility for advancing their careers. Obviously, it is important for players to be positionally versatile, and Bob Mancini of USA Hockey, along with many other industry experts, urges parents to understand that this skill is best developed when players are young.

The benefits these children experience are great. To begin with, children who play lots of different positions get a better overall understanding of how hockey works because they view the game from a wide range of different spots. This makes them better players overall and gives them a better understanding of what strategies work, and which ones don’t, when it comes to playing hockey. These young players will also have the benefit of developing wide-ranging skills and abilities early on and then having years and years to let those skills grow and improve.

If you want your child to grow into a well-rounded athlete with real potential for becoming pro, encourage him or her to try different positions, and find your child a coach who also believes in the importance of positional versatility.

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Pediatric Association Speaks on Body Checking

It doesn’t matter if it’s youth hockey, adult league hockey, or full-on professional hockey. No matter how you slice it, hockey can be a dangerous sport. It’s particularly dangerous for young players, however, and the American Academy of Pediatrics is speaking up. The Academy recently released a professional recommendation that the practice of “body checking” should be fully removed from the youngest youth hockey leagues and only allowed for male players ages 15 and up.

The Academy reports that, via its findings, body checking leads to an increased risk of injury for all young players. “Body checking,” for those not in the know, is defined as one player hitting another in an effort to separate the opposing player from the puck.

USA Hockey was already aware of some of the issues with body checking. In fact, in 2011, it changed the minimum body checking age from 11 to 13. And, though suggestions have been made in the past as to further increasing the legal body checking age, many are speculating that USA Hockey will listen this time around. The American Academy of Pediatrics is a highly respected organization, first of all, and second of all, more evidence is coming out to support its findings.

In addition to the risk of just general injury, recent studies have found that body checking in youth hockey also increases the risk of serious or potentially deadly injuries, concussions, and brain damage. With those kinds of risks, it’s a wonder that organizations aren’t banning checking outright. But its well understood, hockey is a great sport and should be played with a focus on making it as safe as possible.

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests  stronger punishments for athletes who purposefully hit another person’s head or intentionally hit another player from behind, other actions the organization says are likely to lead to serious injuries.  USA Hockey agrees and has implemented more stringent rules as well as more stringent penalties.

It’s not just this one organization that has found problems with youth hockey. A recent research study found that a Minnesota trauma center could blame 38% of the serious childhood injuries it saw on body checking or fighting.

Lets keep our beloved sport safe, teach our children young and continuously the right way to check.

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• USA Hockey Board Approves Stronger Rules to Curtail Fighting in Junior Hockey (unitedstatesofhockey.com)
• Broken Bones, Concussions Most Common Injuries in Youth Hockey (news.health.com)

Hockey Trends Shifting

Until recently, youth hockey was considered a sport only for the “serious athlete,” meaning the young athlete with aspirations of one day becoming a professional hockey player. As such, the typical youth hockey player was one whose parents were very serious about the sport, whose parents started him or her playing at a young age, and who spent a lot of time and money on hockey. Behaving this way was deemed as a sort of “pathway to success” for the aspiring pro hockey player.

Shirt badge/Association crest (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lately, however, the USA Hockey organization has stopped encouraging these attitudes and beliefs. It banned body-checking at the pee wee level to encourage otherwise nervous parents and kids to play the game. It also put an end to its expensive peewee national championship to encourage those families who weren’t willing or able to invest a lot of money in hockey to participate. It also, perhaps most shockingly of all, has encouraged its young players to engage in at least one other sport.

While, to many, these changes seem counterproductive, USA Hockey has its reasons for implementing them. Studies conducted by the organization divulged that by the age of 9, 43% of children who had been introduced to the sport at a young age had quit playing altogether. Delving further into this issue, they blamed the high quit-rates on children who were being pressured into the sport, overworked, and simply not having fun playing it. So, the goal of these changes is actually to increase the number of children playing hockey and, thus, to create more future pro hockey players, naturally. The thought is that if children are able to enjoy and play other sports and to focus less on the competitive aspects of the game, they will learn more in terms of actual skills and techniques and enjoy their playing and practice time more.

In fact, these principles are believed in so strongly that the organization took them one step further and implemented a plan known as the American Development Model or ADM for short. This program is focused more on having fun and learning the fundamentals of the game than it is on competition or excessive practice.

While people have different feelings on these new implementations, early studies have shown that they are paying off. Not only are children enjoying hockey more and playing for longer but new players, players who likely wouldn't have been drawn to the game before, are signing up. Only time will tell if the plan will succeed at its goal of producing more pro hockey players, but the most important benefit speaks for itself: kids are having fun and, best of all, are actually behaving like kids.

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What Will Youth Hockey Be Like in the Future?

Hockey, like any other sport, is constantly evolving and changing. One of the major changes that has been rocking the hockey world in recent years is the increased focus on development of hockey related programs and improving the game itself, both in terms of the way it is played and in terms of its safety. For example, in 2009, the National Hockey League allotted funds to new USA hockey programs for these very purposes.

The people who benefited the most from these funds- and who still continue to benefit- were youth players. After all, these are the players of tomorrow, the players of the future, so it makes sense that the NHL would want to invest in its future players.

It was in this same year- 2009- that the American Development Model was created. The model is essentially a comprehensive plan for ways in which the sport can be improved. It focuses on developing athletes over a long period of time, from youth into early adulthood. It is also geared more toward learning new skills than it is toward competition, a fact that will likely mean that youth hockey will get to be less and less about competition as time goes on.

In fact, that change is already becoming more and more evident in leagues around the globe. Today’s young players are being honed to be more technically developed and skilled than the players of the past, who were mostly just preened to be “winners.”

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been some opposition to these changes. Many are sticklers for the old way of doing things and are holding out, refusing to move to the new methods. Eventually, though, as affiliated programs are required to follow more and more stringent rules, modern hockey players (and coaches!) will have no choice but to get with the program.

Regardless of how one feels about the playing regulations and new training focuses, there are some definite positives to these new methods. For example, hockey, thanks to its new, softer focus, which prohibits body checking until a mature age, is becoming more parent-friendly and player-friendly. Young players and their parents will be less worried about injury or other problems, prompting more players to sign up. In fact, these projected results are already occurring. From 2008 to 2009, for example, the number of children age 8 and under enrolling in hockey jumped from 90,000 to 107,387.

Experts are also predicting an increased focus on recruiting new players under the age of 8. These players will not be privy to the “old way” of doing things, and, in most cases, neither will their parents. That should mean less objection to the new rules and an easier time creating the players of tomorrow that hockey wants.

As enrollment in youth hockey increases and as more focus is put on retaining players, more rinks will likely crop up as well. So, as you can see, the future of hockey looks different but bright.  

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