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Part II – USA Hockey Nationals Team Selection & Seedings – Girls U16 Tier I

Post author By Ray Tenenbaum
Post date March 26, 2024

This is Part II about the analysis of USA Hockey 2024 Nationals Girls Tier I Hockey playoffs taking place in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Here is Part I – Girls Tier I 14U

This analysis look at the teams selected for the Girls Tier I U16 playoffs. Given the importance of being seen at Nationals from recruiting perspective, I examined the at-large team selections and the seedings.

As a reminder: If you are heading to the Tier 2 girls playoffs, you can still be scouted by DI coaches. This week I spoke with a DI coach who will be in East Lansing and will be looking for the top players from smaller regions that can’t easily play for a Tier I team.

Girls 16U Selections

Below you can see the ranking of the 16 teams who will be playing at the 16U Tier I Nationals. The 3 highlighted teams (Minnesota Magazine, Massachusetts Spitfires and Minnesota Hardware) are the at-large invitations, then there is the host team (Florida Alliance) and the other 12 are the district champions.

The USA Hockey 2024 National Guidebook provides the following description for how they decide on the at-large teams and seedings:

Unlike the U14 Tier 1 Selections, all of the at-large teams made sense since they were the 3 highest ranked teams on My Hockey Rankings that didn’t win their district. The only thing which is confusing to me is that lack of consistency of Minnesota Elite League teams accepting at-large invitations. It seems that some highly ranked teams do and some don’t attend nationals. I will need to research this further.

As far as the last team to miss the playoffs, the Mid Fairfield CT Stars had a 95.57 which was 0.93 below the last at-large team, Minnesota Hardware. Similar to the U14s, that is a pretty large difference in ratings (in other age groups I’ve seen a rating difference of only 0.01 or 0.02 between bubble teams) and thus there shouldn’t be much concern about the Stars not being selected based on their rating.

Girls 16U Seedings

For the U16 age groups, the seedings are non-controversial. They match identically to the MyHockeyRankings sorting of the 16 qualified teams.

However, if the selection committee looked at the last 10 games for each of the top 10 teams (as they appear to do in other age groups), there is a reasonable argument to be made for a re-arranging of the Top 8 teams. Specifically, two of the at-large teams could have been seeded higher. The same for Belle Tire. Especially since those teams’ full-year ratings were so close to the teams above them in the rankings.

The next posts will discuss the USA Hockey Nationals Girls U19 selections and seedings.

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Tags college-hockey-recruiting, girls-hockey, tag, usa hockey nationals, usa-girls-hockey, usa-hockey, womens-college-hockey

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Part III – USA Hockey Nationals Team Selection & Seedings – Girls U19 Tier I

Post author By Ray Tenenbaum
Post date March 26, 2024

This is Part III about the analysis of USA Hockey 2024 Nationals Girls Tier I Hockey playoffs taking place in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Here is Part I for U14 and Part II for U16

This analysis look at the teams selected for the Girls Tier I U19 playoffs. Given the importance of being seen at Nationals from recruiting perspective, I examined the at-large team selections and the seedings.

Girls 19U Selections

Below you can see the ranking of the 16 teams who will be playing at the 19U Tier I Nationals. The 4 highlighted teams (East Coast Wizards, NAHA, Team Wisconsin and the Connecticut Polar Bears) are the at-large invitations. Unlike other age groups, there is no U19 team from the Northern Plains district – thus the 4th at-large team. Then there is the host team (Florida Alliance) and the other 11 are the district champions.

The USA Hockey 2024 National Guidebook provides the following description for how they decide on the at-large teams and seedings:

Similar to the the U14 Tier 1 at-large Selections, it is unclear why the Minnesota Empowers and Tradition teams are not at-large teams. Maybe they opted out due to the higher priority of the Minnesota High School hockey playoffs. There is a lack of consistency of Minnesota Elite League teams accepting at-large invitations.

As far as the last team to miss the playoffs, the Pittsburgh Pens Elite has a 95.20 rating which is only 0.24 below the last at-large team, the Connecticut Polar Bears. But it seems this is large enough to make the Polar Bears the at-large selection.

Girls 19U Seedings

For the U19 age groups, the seedings do not match the rankings. Shattuck St Mary’s is ranked #1, but seeded #2 behind Bishop Kearney Selects. East Coast Wizards are ranked higher, but seeded lower than the Boston Jr Eagles. And NAHA is ranked higher than the Mid Fairfield Stars, but seeded lower. As described in the USA Hockey Guide above, it is likely a combination of head-to-head and Last 10 Games that were factors in these seedings.

Specifically, BK Selects beat Shattuck in their only game back in October, and but Shattuck still had a much higher rank in their last 10 games (see below). In addition, S-SM has a 0.65 higher rating than BK, which is quite large. So it seems the head-to-head was the primary factor in the flipping of positions. I suspect this will have impact the motivations of both teams should they meet in the playoff round.

The Boston Jr Eagles won the Massachusetts district, so it seems to make sense that they would be higher than the Boston Jr Eagles.

For NAHA and Mid Fairfield, being seeded #8 vs #9 doesn’t really make a material difference, since they will be in the same division. It just impacts the order of games and who is the home team when they play each other. The two teams never played each other during the season, but Mid Fairfield has the higher rating over the last 10 games.

Here are the links to Part I – Tier I Girls 14U and Part II – Tier I Girls 16U

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Let NCAA coaches know you’ll be at Nationals and your game schedule. The Champs App Messaging tool is the fast, easy way to send error-free messages to coaches before and during the event.

Watch the demo (Desktop Version) (Mobile Version) and try it out today!

Tags college-hockey-recruiting, girls-hockey, tag, usa hockey nationals, usa-girls-hockey, usa-hockey, womens-college-hockey

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USA Hockey Nationals Team Selection & Seedings – U14 Tier I Girls

Post author By Ray Tenenbaum
Post date March 25, 2024

Being selected to go to Tier I Nationals is a big deal beyond just competing in the national playoffs to win a championship. Almost every NCAA DI women’s hockey program sends at least one coach to scout players and watch the best teams compete against each other. It gives U.S. players another great opportunity to be seen. While there are many elite players that play for teams that don’t end up qualifying for Nationals – it isn’t the end of the world for them, there are still many other opportunities to be seen (e.g. showcases, USA Hockey camps etc.). However, playing at Nationals is an excellent opportunity and timing to get seen. While the process to make Nationals for District winners and the host team is clear, the at-large selection process is a little murkier. This analysis looks at the at-large selections and how the teams were seeded.

I recently wrote about the selections for the NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey playoffs and how the selections and seedings compared to their MyHockeyRankings ratings. Unlike the NCAA, the USA Hockey National Playoffs actually uses MyHockeyRankings to help select the at-large teams for both youth and girls divisions. On the youth side, in addition to the 12 district winners, there are typically 4 at-large teams selected for Tier I (AAA). On the girl’s side, they also have 12 district winners. However, this is the final year where the girls host team gets an automatic spot in addition to that districts winner. So there are two teams from the Southeast district this year. Next year there will also be 4 at-large teams for Tier I girls.

Candidly, I haven’t taken the time to learn how the Tier II selections are made for Nationals. And I certainly don’t understand how the High School Girls teams are selected – because the last couple of winners have not really played high school hockey teams for their regular schedule, but mostly against other Tier I (AAA) classified teams. So this 3-part analysis will focus solely on the 14U, 16U and 19U Girls Tier I selection and seeds for next week’s USA Hockey 2024 Nationals taking place in Wesley Chapel, Florida.

Note: If you are heading to the Tier 2 girls playoffs, you can still be scouted by DI coaches. This week I spoke with a DI coach who will be in East Lansing and will be looking for the top players from smaller regions that can’t easily play for a Tier I team.

Girls 14U Selections

Below you can see the ranking of the 16 teams who will be playing at the 14U Tier I Nationals. The 3 highlighted teams (Minnestota Walleye, Assabet Valley and Chicago Mission) are the at-large invitations, then there is the host team (Florida Alliance) and the other 12 are the district champions.

The USA Hockey 2024 National Guidebook provides the following description for how they decide on the at-large teams and seedings:

From a selection standpoint, the only team which is not clear is the Minnesota Lakers not being selected for an at-large spot. The two reasons I can think of are a) the first at-large spot already went to a Minnesota district team (Walleye) so maybe the committee didn’t want to take two at-large teams from the same district. The other might be that I have heard Minnesota players care more about their High School playoffs than USA Nationals, therefore getting re-organized (after their High School season ends_ and the cost to play in Florida may not be appealing to some teams. If someone has more information on these decisions, please feel free to provide more information.

As far as the last team to miss the playoffs (excluding the Lakers), the Bay State Breakers were had a 95.48 which was 0.77 below the last at-large team, Chicago Mission. In my experience, that is a pretty large difference in ratings (in other age groups I’ve seen a rating difference of only 0.01 or 0.02 between bubble teams) and thus there shouldn’t be much concern about the Breakers not being selected based on their rating.

Girls 14U Seedings

Pretty much all the seedings make sense with 2 exceptions:

Minnesota Walleye were ranked #1 according to MHR, but Lovell Academy was given the #1 seed. The two teams never played each other during the season, so that could not be a factor. However, when looking at just the last 10 games for each team, it seems Lovell Academy had a higher rating by 0.3 goals – so that may have been the determining factor in giving Lovell Academy the #1 seed.

2. The Minnesota Green Giants and Philadelphia Jr Flyers were ranked #5 and #6 respectively according to MHR. But the Jr Flyers were given the higher seed. But looking closer, both teams had an identical 95.81 rating. And the Jr Flyers had a 0.3 higher rating over their last 10 games – so this could likely be the determining factor for promoting the Jr Flyers.

The next posts will discuss the USA Hockey Nationals Girls U16 and U19 selections and seedings.

Want to be scouted at Nationals? Use Champs App Messaging to quickly & easily let coaches know your game schedule

Let NCAA coaches know you’ll be at Nationals and your game schedule. The Champs App Messaging tool is the fast, easy way to send error-free messages to coaches before and during the event.

Watch the demo (Desktop Version) (Mobile Version) and try it out today!

Tags college-hockey-recruiting, girls-hockey, tag, usa hockey nationals, usa-girls-hockey, usa-hockey, womens-college-hockey

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5 Observations From Attending USA Hockey Nationals

Post author By Ray Tenenbaum
Post date April 13, 2023

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first USA Hockey National Championship. I was in both Dallas for the Girls Tier I round robin games and New Jersey for several Youth 15O games. Here are a few things I learned while I was there – mostly from my time in Dallas.

1. Accurate Seedings

For Girls Tier 1, 23 of the 24 Top 8 seeds qualified for the quarterfinals from 14U, 16U and 19U. Which shows how accurate and reliable the rankings that are used to decide the both the at-large invitations and seedings are. However, once in the playoff round, the lower ranked teams had a reasonable chance to win, with many of the higher seeds losing to lower seeds. On the Youth side, only 24 of the 32 teams made it to the quarters.

2. Scouts Everywhere

In both locations, I saw coaches scouting players at every round robin game. On the youth side, there were junior and college coaches in every corner and in the stands. For the girls,nearly every DI college and many DIII coaches were along the glass and in specially designated areas to watch all the 16U games and many 14U and 19U games.

While Nationals, clearly isn’t the only opportunity to be seen, it certainly helps. It is a big deal. So I now understand why making Nationals from highly-competitive districts is so important to winning their district if they won’t be one of the 3 at-large invitation teams.

I also saw several DIII coaches talking to eligible players who hadn’t committed yet after games.

3. Many Scouts Left After the Preliminary Divisional Games

I flew back to New Jersey from Dallas at the end of the round-robin play, and saw many coaches checking out of our hotel or pulling their carry-on bags on that Saturday. Clearly they were heading home after 3 days of non-stop games. Based on my previous conversations with coaches, if they are efficient in their scouting, they will have seen enough of all the players they were watching.

4. Networking Galore

I happened to be staying in a hotel where many other NCAA coaches were staying. I was able to view first-hand lots of talks happening between team coaches and college coaches in both the arena and the hotel lobby/bars. Once again, reinforcing the importance of being at Nationals for the recruiting process. I know of at least one eligible player who was contacted after Nationals based on their appearance at Nationals.

5. USA Hockey Scouts in Attendance

It was nice to see at least two USA Hockey representatives watching games and players. I am assuming it was in anticipation of the upcoming USA Hockey District camps taking in place in May and June to select player for the 15’s, 16/17s and 18’s Camps. This gives USA Hockey a bigger body of work to judge players rather and greater level of consistency across districts rather than just relying on the coaches who may only attend one or two District camps.

Tags college-hockey-recruiting, girls-hockey, tag, usa hockey nationals, usa-girls-hockey, usa-hockey, womens-college-hockey, womens-hockey

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Why Your Team Should Play AA Instead of AAA Youth Hockey

Post author By Ray Tenenbaum
Post date March 21, 2023

Do you want a chance at playing at the USA Hockey National Championships?

Did your team play AAA last year?

If yes, what was your final ranking on MyHockeyRankings?

If your team wasn’t in the Top 50 teams for your age group, then this post is for you.

Last week, USA Hockey announced all the team that either qualified or were invited to Tier I and Tier II National Playoffs taking place at the end of the month. Many low ranked AAA teams never had a chance of going to Nationals.

This post discusses why your AAA team might be better off being designated as Tier II (AA) instead of Tier I. And while this post primarily focuses on youth (boys) hockey in the U.S., some of the same principles can be applied to girls hockey.

Here’s why…

1. Teams ranked below the Top 50 rarely qualify for USA Hockey Nationals

lowest ranked team qualifying for 2023 USA Hockey Youth Nationals Playoffs

If you aren’t at least a Top 50 team in your age group, there is almost no chance you will win your Tier 1 District playoffs – the exception being a team from Northern Plains (Team North Dakota for 16s) and the Rocky Mountain District (for 18s).

2. Lower ranked AAA teams are rated about the same as top AA teams

Here is how the bottom half of Tier 1 team ratings compare to the top teams in both Tier 1 and Tier 2

2023 USA HOCKEY tier i vs Tier 2 ratings comparison

As you can see, after the ~50^th ranked team, the AAA teams are pretty competitive with top AA teams in each age group. There is less than a goal differential between these teams – so games between 50th ranked Tier 1 teams would be close with the Top Tier 2 teams.

3. It should be easier to qualify for USA Hockey Nationals

There are 48 spots for each Tier II age group. By classifying at the Tier II level, they would have a much better chance of qualifying for Nationals and playing competitive games in that tournament.

4. You can still play in AAA tournaments and showcases.

At the same time, they can continue to play in the same leagues and events during the regular season.

There are already tournaments specifically set-up for the bottom half of AAA teams. Some tourneys are explicit about this by segmenting their division names (AAA and AAA elite – or Ribcor + Supertacks + Jetspeed). Others make sure that similarly ranked lower rated teams attend the same event.

For some regular season Tier 1 leagues, they already do this implicitly. In one league, the weakest teams don’t even get to play in the leagues end-of-season playoffs, instead they are relegated to their own ‘Consolation’ division. This past season, there was a club which had all 4 of their Tier 1 teams in the consolation division due to poor regular season performance at each age group. Once again, these leagues are set-up to treat the lower ranked teams at the level they actually play – a tweener between AAA and AA.

Be Realistic

From a game and tournament perspective, weaker “AAA” teams are playing each other anyway, but not really playing for anything. It is unlikely any of them will with their districts and to be one of the 12 automatic qualifiers to Tier 1 USA Hockey Nationals, and they certainly won’t get an at-large invitation for the remaining 4 spots.

However, there are 48 spots for each Tier II age group. By classifying at the Tier 2 level, they would have a much better chance of qualifying for Nationals and playing competitive games in that tournament. At the same time, they can continue to play in the same leagues and events during the regular season.

At the end of the day, these weak “AAA” teams will still be who they are – but now they would have a chance to play against their peers for a National Championship. Considering that youth hockey is all about development, competing in a real playoff environment is a great development opportunity and playing competitive games. Certainly better than what is happening today, where most of these teams are enjoying limited success – and when they do, it usually versus their true peer group.

Youth hockey is all about development. You really shouldn’t care how many letters your team has as long as players and teams are getting better every year. It’s not about being able to tell your friends that you (or your kid) plays AAA.

So, are you willing to trade playing triple-A for double-A in exchange for a legitimate chance to play for a National Championship?

Data Source: MyHockeyRankings.com

Tags aa hockey, aaa hockey, hockey-development, tag, tier 2 hockey, tier-1-hockey, usa hockey nationals, usa-hockey, Youth & Girls Hockey