Any news from the Mo Hockey meeting last night ?

It was approved.

this should give them the championship annually at Mite AA, pee wee and up equal benders unite.

at least now the central states teams only have one club to visit and rob.

Quit picking on CS. This program has so much to offer that these players can't get from their respective clubs like, higher costs, more travel, and a chance to include CSDHL on your resume'. I'm sure the benefits of playing CS will serve them well as carpenters, doctors, lawyers, and the like.

from kyha.org

On May 19, 2009 the Youth Division of the Missouri Hockey Board of Directors, in an historic vote, voted in favor to approve the formation of the St. Louis Stars Youth Hockey Association.

Beginning in the 2009/10 season the St. Louis Rockets and Kirkwood Youth Hockey Association will field joint AA teams at all age levels playing under the St. Louis Stars Youth Hockey Association banner.

Both Clubs anticipate several benefits from this decision:

·Players competing at the appropriate level with respect to their skills, enhancing their overall enjoyment of the game

·The ability of both clubs to field teams at all age and skill levels

·Improved chances for both clubs to compete for league playoff championships

·An improved pool of available, qualified coaches from which to choose


The decision to form the St. Louis Stars was taken after several months of analysis and consideration. Our combined districts have, regrettably, produced fewer players over the past decade, due primarily, to demographic issues, leading to a reduction in our collective memberships. This negative trend, which is forecasted to continue by upwards of 10% by our main school districts, combined with a loss of our top talent to other clubs, made it clear that a collaborative effort was necessary to remain viable.

The Boards of both associations are excited about this new chapter in St. Louis youth hockey and look forward to a great season for the Rockets, Kirkwood and to the inaugural season of the St. Louis Stars.

We will be announcing head coaches, evaluation dates and other pertinent information in the coming days. Please check the website on a regular basis for further updates.


Jon Hodgins
President
St. Louis Rockets

Tom Orelup
President
Kirkwood Stars

Its a sad day when winning takes president over an age old rivalry at the youth level. You will find out that the amount of A's behind your sons name means little as he grows as a young man or women. Players are going to be bumped from playing competetive hockey and the young developement years of many players will be stunted so a few ego driven parents can celebrate meaningless AA championships over a smaller Moam league. Congratulations to all the AA championships of the future! Its a lot harder to build a strong program from within so merging is quick gratification.

You obviously don't understand why this was done.

Also, it's precedent.

·Improved chances for both clubs to compete for league playoff championships
Taken from the origional post

Complain about demographics and give that for a reason for failure is a kick in the ass to orginizations like Affton and Twin Bridges. Affton with a zip code like 63123 as its anchor should be struggling. But hard work, aggressive recruitment of learn to play and mite age players and strong leaders in key spots have built a strong and successful program without much outside help. But let's merge two of the oldest and strongest programs to compete for league titles is a joke. Their board members should be ashamed and MoAm should have voted no. The cross ice experiment at Kirkwood is gone and longtime supporters of the programs and great rivals are no more!

When did this "long time rivaly" take place? The Rockets haven't been around for that long!

One can disagree with the decision to merge, and many do, but this argument is silly and doesn't take in to account the realities involved in the current situation.

12:45......don't encourage them to stop their humorous rantings...It is quite amusing.

Maybe the melding of these two long time rival clubs could be the outline for an Israeli, Palestinian peace deal.

club to be named "rockstars".

WEll its obvious that Webster and Kirkwood never have had a rivalary if you listen to these idiots. Yea that Turkey Day football game means nothing. In case you haven't realized it the Rockets play all their home games at Webster and Brentwood rostering mostly webster kids. Yea Kirkwood and Webster both have wanted to beat Affton for years, Well good luck with your new Club Now you will have 17 players playing AA and probably 5 players platying at the end of games so you can "Win" After all thats whats its all about at that elite AA Moam level Geeez

9:43- where on earth did you get your facts?

Most teams didn't even do a turkey day game last year and that is a football tradition!!

Rockets members come from all around the area and in fact most do not reside in Webster proper.

If you wanted to lament about the Webster Wings merging with the Creve Couer Comets your time was several years ago. Those clubs had some history with the Stars.

Ok you are correct The Webster/Rockets Club(s) never had a rivalary at all with youth hockey with the Kirkwood Stars
"Whatever"

9:43 and 12:16

Must be birds of the feather. It has become very obvious that when you have something pertinent and intelligent to say you don't post it here.

Whole thing sounds like an easy way out-I thought Kirkwood was all about development.. I guess the are done with their club and want to develop the Rockets

Must be birds of the feather. It has become very obvious that when you have something pertinent and intelligent to say you don't post it here.

Birds of a feather that see a long time tradition dieing so a few can have their kids have success at the AA level.

Must be birds of the feather. It has become very obvious that when you have something pertinent and intelligent to say you don't post it here.

Birds of a feather that see a long time tradition dieing so a few can have their kids have success at the AA level.

Just exactly what "tradition" are you talking about?

Tradition of 2 of the stronger clubs in Moam league for years.
Affton spends a lot of time building from within,paid their dues and built a strong club. The answer by the weaker clubs is to Merge and then when those mergers/board members kids are playing AAA/central states the club gets weaker and wants to merge again.
Merging> Quick fix long term failure.

So by your own admission CS is weakening some clubs to the point that they need to merge to survive.

could someone provide the population fiqures for Afftons club and others

Affton has built a very nice program over the years - maybe they do a better job recruiting LTP, maybe other demographic factors are important. Regardless, the Kirkwood-Rocket merger makes the AA Stars team draw from about the same number of skaters as the Affton AA teams. What is the problem? If Affton is better at developing hockey players, they should wtill dominate against this similarly sized prgram.

Please go with new colors like Purple and Gold or Green and gold
Red or Blue is not acceptable lol

So by your own admission CS is weakening some clubs to the point that they need to merge to survive.

No the point is Webster was supposed to be a lot stronger after the merge with CCoeur but now as the Rockets they are still a weak recruiting organization. They need to do ground roots recruiting.They want to win but not wuilling to do the ground roots work to do so. So instead of doing the hard work they, entice Kirkwood into the merge. It will weaken both organizations in the long run. Having 17 players at the AA level from 3 former districts just stunts the growth of the whole group. The sad thing is the best players should play AAA. There should be 2 AAA teams in St. Louis and no central states teams. The Cavalinis will prove that it will work. Build it and they will come.

17 players - what level are you talking about?

Or, do it the affton way by recruiting the talent from every other organization, build talented CSDHL teams with mostly non-affton players, and keep your own at AA and below and clean up.

17 players - what level are you talking about?

At one time Creve Coeur ,Webster Groves and Kirkwood all had AA teams (51) players

Now with the merge of the Rockets and Kirkwood that will bring the AA players to 17 or one team

The news is all good until they make us all buy matching GREEN helmets and gold garters

6:38, Ground Roots? Don't you mean Grass Roots? Recruiting efforts by Affton? I don't see a fleet of red, white and blue mini-vans driving through neigborhoods in So County going door to door speading their "good word"!! They figured out how to survive a long time ago without having a population explosion in their zips or finding someone to merge with. CS is a well segmented product that they produce and it works for them. But enough about CS, More about these new Stars teams-who is going to coach these teams?? How would an OTT work? Would you go to Kirkwood or Rockets-would it matter?

WIthout CS, St Louis has a strong Tier 1 program(s) and no Tier 2 clubs capable of competing at the national level. Is this the vision you have for kids that can't find a spot on a Tier 1 club?

Correction THE tier 1 club.

If competing at Tier I is the objective lets annoint another charter for that 2nd Tier I organization, okay with you?

It's all about water cooler dads and the need for a AA championship, so real bragging can take place at work around the water cooler. Very sad fathers. Many kids will suffer, but the there will be a few proud daddys that come out of this cheap twist to get some championships.

Do people really talk near water coolers anymore? Do we still use water coolers?

CS is a well segmented product that they produce and it works for them.

Dumbest f'ckn thing I've ever read.

Again I ask the Affton parents so afraid that their run of AA championships will be threatened, why is it such a sin for another team to draw from a pool of skaters that is the same size as Affton? Flip it around, why doesn't Affton dismantle and create two organizations similar to the size of most of the clubs it competes against? You can make the case that these organizations should go out and find more hockey players and that Affton does a better job. That may or may not be true, but I don't understand why it is so wrong for there to be another club the size of the Affton and Chesterfields of the world. The Affton development program is the best, so why do they need twice as many kids?

Here is what the clubs have to choos from.

AFFTON

Exclusive Zip Codes:
63111, 63116, 63123, 63126

Shared Zip Codes:
63109, 63110, 63139 Rockets
63125, 63127, 63128 Meramec

KIRKWOOD

Exclusive Zip Codes:
63021, 63088, 63122

Shared Zip Codes:
63011 Chesterfield and Rockets
63131 Rockets

ROCKETS

Exclusive Zip Codes:
63043, 63074, 63105, 63108, 63112, 63114, 63117, 63119, 63124, 63130, 63132, 63141, 63143, 63144, 63146

Shared Zip Codes:
63011 - Chesterfield and Kirkwood
63017 - Chesterfield
63044 - Twin Bridges
63109 63110, 63139 - Affton
63131 - Kirkwood

I don't know the actual "area" of these zip codes, but it sure seems to me this new "St. Louis Stars" has a much larger area to bring in players from than anyone else. They now have 18 exlusive zip codes and 9 shared zip codes to form their AA teams compared to Affton's 4 exclusive zip codes and 6 shared.

I would love to see numbers on what organization kids are in that are in open zip codes. I think this is where Affton excels, when people have their "choice" of organization they are choosing Affton over the others, but that is just my opinion. These numbers have nothing to do with OTT.

DEEP THROAT HERE: THIS IS MOAM's WAY OF SLOWLY DROPPING THE DISTRICTING REQUIREMENTS-EVERYONE WILL VIRTUALLY SHARE ALL THE DISTRICTS

its not about zip codes, its about the number of people in those zip codes

I'm sure the Rockets are blowing a great opportunity pulling kids out of 63112 (Dr Martin Luther King & Goodfellow).

With alot of those zip codes you are talking about a large area with little or no interest in hockey.

This large area does not change the fact that enrollment numbers for Kirkwood R-7 Schools are dropping, for example.

quit bitching about cs. it provides good hockey to players who could play or just miss aaa. moam should be considered a rec league at ALL levels.

Affton Exclusive
63111 21,583
63116 47017
63123 49680
63126 15386
Total 133,666

Affton Total District
63111 21,583
63116 47017
63123 49680
63126 15386
63109 29,264
63110 20,163
63139 24,364
63125 33,150
63127 4,852
63128 29,122
Total 274,581

Kirkwood Exclusive
63021 54560
63088 8366
63122 38653
Total 101579

Kirkwood Total District
63021 54560
63088 8366
63122 38653
63011 38,100
63131 16,396
Total 156075

ok, so you want number of people. According to the US Census Bureau which for zip codes is taken every 10 years, so this is based on 2000 numbers. I would think that these areas are relatively the same, maybe more of an increase in the west county areas.

Affton exclusive zip codes - 134,000 +/- people

St. Louis Stars exclusive zip codes - 306,000 +/- people

The other thing that I did not compare, nor do I want to take time to go back and compare, is the median income which is a factor for hockey since it isn't exactly the cheapest sport. One would have to agree that the Webster, Kirkwood, Creve Couer areas have to be higher than the south county areas that are exclusive to Affton.

11:26 - we must have been looking at the same site. I only did the exclusive zip codes, I also combined Kirkwood and Rockets to show St. Louis Stars. I would be interested in seeing the numbers for the Rockets, exclusive and shared.

So Affton draws from almost double the population that Kirkwood does? Perhaps there is more at play than just how good the coaching is...

11:26am........spoken like a true father living off of his kids ability, or lack thereof. CS is a poor attempt to be similar to AAA. So sorry your little Billy isn't good enough for Tier 1. Tier 2 is all "recreational" so stop making CS and Moam seperate. They are seperately ran, yes, but both field Tier 2 AA. CS is just a glorified AA team, since they have to steal all the best players from everyones organization to be competitive. I'd like to see these CS teams compete using the actual players in their own rinks. So talk-up CS all you want, but you are still far below the real deal at Tier 1 AAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also moam has said that the tier 2 championship is done for USA hockey and that they now have to figure out how to determine how to send teams to the new format. So cs or AA no sure thing anymore.

1:12, spoken like a true dick. if your little bender makes aaa at the midget level, when it really means something, then crow about it.

Ha Ha Ha. My little "bender" has played Tier 1 hockey for nearly 7 years. Jealousy will get you no place fast. There is nothing wrong with playing Tier 2, I just want to make sure you know your place in the food-chain:

1)TIER 1 AAA





2)tier 2 (recreational hockey) cs/aa(this includes you)


3)everyone else


Sorry to hurt your feelings so bad that you had to resort to name calling, but you can still be proud of your kid at Tier 2, recreational hockey.

2:22........Yeah, and your kid is, no doubt, 1 of the bottom half of the roster who could be replaced any time with the better CS players. Another fat, dumpy, 5'8" unathletic dad who thinks he has his ticket. Continue saving $s for Flo Valley.

What effect do the illegal immigrants have on these numbers? (sarcasm)

Screw zip code populations, they have very little relevance because the demographics change continually. Look at CC and the Rockets.

You think hockey is expensive now, lose a couple of municipal rinks and watch what happens to prices and time slots.

Grow hockey, not your club at the expense of another club, this cannibalization will eventually kill hockey. Try to think past next season.

Remember it's hard to play ice hockey without an ice rink no matter how many kids you have in your organization or how good they are. Do you really believe St Louis can have the same level of success with fewer kids playing the sport?

2:22 I'm sure everyone in the office knows your little gretzky has been playing AAA for 7 years. It's pompous asses like you that give AAA a bad name.

2:37 Its parents like you, living through your kids sports like it was you playing, that gives the whole sport a bad name. I'm proud of my kid for playing such a high level for so long, but if he was only good enough to play cs/aa, that would be fine to. I would realize though that he wouldn't be playing the highest level, a fact that you cs/aa people just don't want to accept.

Why must these clubs merge? Why don't they just build more rinks? That should create more players in their districts.


We all know that rinks create and preserve hockey players and not the contrary. Isn't that the justification for closed districts because without closed districts rinks that no one wants to play at would shut down and therefore players, teams, and clubs would disappear right along with the rinks? So we force players to play at these clubs and rinks to make sure the rinks don't fold.

It's so obvious. Rinks create players. Want more players? Build more rinks.

Yeah, just build rinks! At $3-5 million a pop, knock yourself out!

Uhh...are you capable of comprehending sarcasm?

I was in charge of the Rockets recruiting last year.
I was suppose to get $1,000 per kid.
I stood for days at Kingshighway and Lindell - not much luck
I tried MLK community center and MLK grade school not much luck.
Did far better in U-city I got one kid.
Not much luck in Maplewood or Dogg Town


I like and respect AAA
I like and respect CSDHL
I like and respect the Merger
My son will most likely play for the merger Stars.

It's not geographically feasible but, I'd suggest Twin Bridges, So Illinois and Meramec form a AA team.

Seems about right for the St.Louis market
1-AAA 2-CSDHL 5-AA That's 120 outskaters at 15 man roster per age group.

One honest question without the merger - Rockets and KW field NO AA teams. Then, we convince the other smaller clubs to also not field AA teams - honestly how fun would it be if there were only 3 AA teams St.Peters, Chesterfield, and Affton?

2:22 is the fat goalie dad.

Kirkwood would be able to field teams Squirt and Mite AA teams without the merger-the Rockets are the ones looking for help there, the problem is at the PeeWee/Bantam level and I am not sure this merger still solves this. Oh yeah and they maybe able to field a mediocre Midget team.

Besides Kirkwood hasn't been Kirkwood for years, most of the kids are from Valley Park, Manchester, and Ballwin actual Kirkwood residents are probably the minority.

Rockets Mite AA a few years back lost by an average of 10-1

Who was that fun for the 6-7 yr old Rockets who lost every game or
for CHA, Aff, StP, Mer, that beat them.

That's not good for anyone.

You are right. There is a big difference in competing and an exercise in futility.

as for coaches;
gotta be SOUPY at Mite, no?

Rockets Mite AA a few years back lost by an average of 10-1

Who was that fun for the 6-7 yr old Rockets who lost every game or
for CHA, Aff, StP, Mer, that beat them.



That's not good for anyone.



This teams failure is a direct result of Dads that think their sons are better than they are, bad coaching as well and combined with MOAMs negligence in placing them in the right division. And at 6 and 7 years old they forget the game five minutes after its over. Its those bruised egos of the parents that lingers.

11:26 you are the dumb f'k here. This dad didn't form this AA team he played on it. It was probably certified AA by some hockey savvy person like yourself.

The St. Louis Stars are proud to announce the appointment of its head coaches for the 2009/10 season.

Mite AA - Jim Campbell
Squirt AA - Jeff Smith
Pee Wee AA - Greg Kozicz
Bantam AA - Todd Brereton

Who are your Midget coaches? You grade an organization on its Midgets not its Mites.

they didn't combine at Midget. teams are open districts already.

2:50 who ever said AAA wasn't the highest level? YOU are the one living through you kid, YOU had to tell ALL of us that he has been playing AAA for 7 whole years. So CS/AA would be FINE what if he only made A1 or A2 or god forbid B level, how embarrassing that would be for YOU.

i hope thats not smith the wash-out golfer.

The bottom half of most Tier 1 rosters are chocked full of grinders who would be nice Tier 2 players, maybe less. This understanding is locked deep inside the brains of the majority of Tier 1 parents....a truth they privately contemplate as it becomes increasingly difficult to roll over another seasons' costs to a 'no fee, no interest for 9 mos. credit card scheme.' Good luck to all as another 12-15K$ season cranks up.

this is one of the most intelligent posts I've ever read on N54.

How many kids on these AA teams?

So if there are 35 kids that are AA quality, will they field 2 AA teams?

NO

this leads back to the original question if the have 34 (for easy divison purposes)thats 17 kids for each club-why are they merging again? And don't give me the local demographics and falling membership crap. They want to win-period.

Yes that is part of it. They want kids to stop going to chesterfield and affton to play central states. They hope this is a better alternative for the kids than going to those clubs. Just chill out dad. Trust me when I say your kid would rather be on a great A1 team than a shitty AA team. Just check your own ego at the door at it's all good.

Record turnouts at Affton Central States pre skates. The Jamie Kompon/Ken davies era will long be remembered as the beginning of the end of Kirkwood youth hockey. First reported here with the cross ice failure. THANK YOU.

How is merging these two clubs going to keep people for leaving to CS/AAA? If the kids are good enough to go CS they will, if they are really great they will go AAA. Nobody is going to stick around for MOAM's crap AA league. I know that the merger maniacs will then say-that exactly why they are merging but most area teams only contribute 1-2 of their AA players to CS or AAA. Saving 1-2 players isn't going to transform this teams into winners. How many Kirkwood/Rocket Squirts made AAA in their first attempt to jump ship?

Cross ice sucks. Sucks at development...sucks to watch...sucks for the kids skating in aimless circles...sucks for recruitment...SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS!

If cross ice sucks so bad, then why do the KWOOD/ROCKETS have a maxed out 3v3 league going. Plenty of outside teams have entered.

Isn't cfield doing a 3v3 league too?

I tired of arguing with narrow minded idiots like you. I think the shitty guys switched to the sucks guy.

A lot of people playing a game that you says sucks.

8:28......what a fool. Another moron dad who has nevered played hockey and doesn't have a clue about various methods of skill development and how the dots are all connected.

Kids playing cross ice now because its the only hockey available. Sure kids like skating in circles, ignoring defense and scoring cherry picker goals! No hockey coach worth a crap would allow them to do it in a real game.

Thats rich. KW powers lecturing the rest of the city about cross ice saving hockey...building numbers with this fun laid back game with so many touches. A few years later KW merges into NOTHING! Bye bye KW stars! One year left before it disappears completely! Maybe the new club will keep the name for the cross ice program as a tribute!

Mr. Babcock, you are totally right, the kids need to playing full ice so the can learn how to play defense and hold their blue line. Until kids are about 9-10, a simple chip shot off the boards defeats just about any defense.

Lets work on tight turns, edgework, completing short passes, finding the puck at your feet in close quarters before we start the defensive zone breakouts..

Crips, the kids should learning individual developmental skill before we burden their young brains with team concepts.

Thank You Mr. Bowman!

2:28 you should have plenty of time to work on a system for teaching those skills now that your club is defunct. We look forward to you espousing your genius again soon when you bug the crap out of everybody at the new club long enough to put you back in charge of something.

Kirkwood just completed their season with 5 state championships - 4 at Squirts and below. That's as many as any other club in town. Clearly that cross-ice thing isn't working.

The problem is they ARE developing talent. They've already lost 6 Squirt kids to AAA/CS with more to go once Chesty announces their CS team. When you lose over 10% of a division, you have to do something to replace those players.

Wouldn't be too worried about the Squirts, they have some good talent coming up from their Mite travel teams.

This merger still hasn't addressed the problems that it was intended to fix, not fielding competitive Peewee, Bantam and Midget AA teams. It looks like they are giving up on the "development" at the older age groups and just focusing on winning. A lot of work to try and win a mediocre moam AA league.

They gave moam all the statistics of failing memembership etc., blah, blah blah but, in the end winning season/records retains and attracts kids

Congrats to the kids and their coaches on making cs/aaa teams that cross-ice crap really seemed to hurt these kids.

1:05 the "state tournament championships" is just a tournament winner, they were tied for 2nd with St. Peters with 5, Affton had 7. You failed to mention they only won 3 league championships, which is what really matters and all of this was completed over 3 months ago, old news.

Nothing quite like the illustrious Squirt Silver "state championship"

Funny - mentions this talent coming up from mite - the very kids that escaped the cross ice farce and got to have fun and develop playing full ice hockey last year. Every organization loses kids to AAA and Central States. That is no excuse why you can't compete at MOAM. If things were rosey at the Squirt and under ages, KW would have gutted it out for a couple of lean years cat AA. Cross ice was not the answer and contributed to KW problems forcing them to merge in order to survive.

for risk of carpal tunnel, I am not even going to bother arguing the benefits of the cross ice program at the younger ages. For the kids/parents that went through it-they know it works. For the other closed minded idiots just keep being that wierdo in the corner of the rink

"only 3 league championships"? That's the most we've had in several years. So something is working. While league championships might be your benchmark, I'd rather be near .500 in league play - that means the kids get to enjoy a few W's but also are pushed by tough competition. What's wrong with being able to beat the best teams at the end of the season. Pittsburgh didn't seem to mind that this year.

"tied for second in titles with St. Peter's, but behind Affton" - those are two clubs with more than double the # of kids and at least 5 more teams in Moam. That's exactly the point for KYHA - being able to do more with less. Who cares if 1 or all of the titles are house? Those kids are developing. Many house Squirts will be travel Bantams. They just got a later start.

Finally, the "talent coming up from Mites" didn't "miss out on cross-ice" - every player '00 or younger at KYHA began in the cross-ice format as it's now 3 years old. Plus some of the '98's & '99's were in the inaugural season as well.

Oh my god, this post made sense-even at 2:08a!

It can't be, its a known fact (at least at Affton/Meramec/Chesterfield) that these children from Kirkwood are permanently damaged by the cross-ice play and that they may as well quit hockey

Cross ice is a farce. It is a money/ice saving idea for KW so that they don't waste full ice on kids who can't make their travel teams. If it was so great people would decine travel in order to take advantage of that great development program! Hmmm funny...don't see that happening. Kids doing double time in lessons in hopes of escaping cross ice as soon as possible.

Oh yeah, Kirkwood is in it for saving money...sure right. This is like arguing with Homer Simpson, and Cross Ice is specifically endorsed by USA hockey....

This is a little long but, since most of the readers on this board use this as their primary source for information, posting a link is useless.

This isn't a kirkwood invention, it been used in well established hockey programs for quite some time and is attributed to helping increase association membership!
'Cross-Ice Program' Works Well In Michigan


by John Raffel
Special to USAHockey.com

Kentwood has been known for many years to be the hockey hotbed of the Grand Rapids area in Michigan. And local hockey promoters are continually taking steps to upgrade the Kentwood hockey program on various levels.

Kentwood Hockey and Skating Association president Steve Stapleton is especially excited with a new "cross-ice program," which the KHSA will be starting next year.

"I believe we're the only association in west Michigan which will do it the way USA Hockey is promoting it," Stapleton said. "It will be set up for mini-mites and mite kids, eight and under. There's about eight to 10 kids per team.

"It gives them more ice time and a chance to work on more skills. The kids will go up and down the ice from one end to the other and the other kids will follow them. You have a child four to six years old skating the same length as a professional with the same puck and same net.

"Research shows the average kid touches the puck 30 seconds a game. In the cross-ice program, we're hoping to have them handle the puck even more. We'll still have learn-to-play programs. Materials from USA Hockey have been very helpful. We have all the resources and volunteers in place. We need to implement and maintain it. We will hope to have from 40 to 60 kids. We'd be very happy with that."

John Alonso, commissioner of the hockey association, said the cross-ice program will allow three games to take place on the same ice surface.

"Kids 8 and under are a little too young to cover the whole rink," Alonso said. "If you make three ice surfaces, you cut it by two thirds.

"Five years old is awfully young to have a child on a full-ice program. It doesn't give you much time to teach the game to the child."

The cross-ice program, Alonso said, seems to be working effectively.

"We've gotten some good response from people we have talked with," he said. "It's going to allow the kids to play on small surfaces and learn skills so they will gain more confidence.

"It's a great program. It will develop hockey players and let them have more fun at the same time."

The East Kentwood High School hockey program has been recognized as being among the best in west Michigan over the years and long-time coach Ron Baum attributes some of that success to his local junior hockey association.

"Our association does a good job in creating opportunities," Baum said. "We're probably one of the most inexpensive associations in terms of registration fees. We do a good job in getting the kids started in the sport."

The 1,200-seat Kentwood Ice Arena presents the junior association with a unique home. It was built in 1984 by the association and then eventually taken over by the school district.

"This provides kids in Kentwood a chance to skate in a local rink at a very inexpensive price compared to other programs in the state," Baum said.

"What the district wants to do, since we're a school and we're not trying to make money, is make just enough to support ourselves," said arena manager Brett Baker. "We're one of the most inexpensive rinks around."

"It's hard to tell you all the advantages we've had with our school's ice arena because we've taken most of those for granted," Stapleton said. "It's so convenient that other teams may not have the opportunity to practice as much as our teams do. We're able to accommodate a lot more practice time and keep the ice costs down."

A few other Grand Rapids area school districts' hockey programs also call the Kentwood rink home.

"The cost for ice is $155 an hour," Stapleton said. "Anywhere else, it costs about $200 an hour. The arena is a not-for profit entity since it's owned by the school district. If you want to play hockey, it's an expensive sport but it would be even more expensive if we didn't have a rink like this."

And the association takes advantage of the facility to the tune of four hours a night for practice and practically all available hours on Saturday and Sunday.

"Until recently, our main hockey association did not focus on developing upper-level talent, so players with skills in our program spent several years here and would then leave for Double-A and Triple-A," Baum said. "Most of those would then come back and try out for the high school varsity. The objective of most of the kids in our (junior) programs is to play for the high school varsity team.

Baum and his assistant coach Todd Bell have taken over the responsibility of developing a higher level travel program to work with the Kentwood hockey program.

"That's not only to enhance the program," Baum said, "but to also allow those players in Kentwood to stay here and not to play on some other Double-A and Triple-A travel team in order to advance their skills. We're trying to keep them all here. We need to offer them high-quality coaching. We want to get them playing in the same systems the varsity team uses.

"For our first year, it's been very successful and we have plans for it to be even better next year. I'm very excited over its potential. The program will continue to build. We've been fortunate to be competitive here in at East Kentwood for many years. We're trying to keep Kentwood kids playing here in Kentwood instead of leaving our association and going all over the place to get travel hockey experience."

The association presently has 320 youngsters playing from ages 3 up to the high school junior varsity-midget level.

"That's compared to 217 last year," Stapleton said. "I think that is attributed to the great job Ron and Todd are doing through the travel program. It brought a lot of travel team players back to our program."

The development of Kentwood's hockey program, from mini-mites through high school level, is very important for Baum, who is coaching his 30th season at East Kentwood.

The veteran high school hockey coach entered this year having won one state title during his three decades at Kentwood plus and two runner-up finishes, 17 O-K Conference titles and 20 regional crowns, plus 10 trips to the Final Four state tournament.

NO KW didn't invent it but they did grasp it as an opportunity to help solve some of their issues getting ice and then hide behind USA hockey. One dork in MI is doing it so it must be great - even he mentions a couple of times that its about more kids crammed on less ice. Its cost saving and ice saving! Kids skating in circles or standing around and the puck hits them once in a while...woo hoo one of those magical touches!!! Cross ice de-empahsizes skating - yeah thats brilliant! Look out here comes KW - oh yeah you already gave up and are merging. Oh well guess well never know.

I'm sorry 10:13, but you and I will agree to disagree. I don't hope to change your mind, but for others reading this...

Apparently he's got it figured out - public skating sessions are more beneficial to hockey development than cross-ice games. Skating full-ice is all that matters. Players PW - the pros take the puck end-to-end for almost every scoring chance. I'm surprised the NHL even keeps track of assists!

In all seriousness, there seems to be some honest, objective dialogue going on here, so I'll continue. One benefit of cross-ice games that gets overlooked is that it minimizes the adults' focus on winning, so they can appreciate player improvement. It takes faith to see that 2-3 years of this focus will lead to enough talent on the other end to be a "1A-3A" club competing with "5A" programs. Three years later, KYHA's commitment to help coaches focus on skills and educate parents to those benefits is showing some reward.

I don't think this philosophy is incompatible with developing winning teams at the older levels as someone mentioned earlier. The kids that have been taught the right way from the beginning at KYHA are still several years away from reaching Bantams. So the current older teams are getting better, but they had a lot of ground to make up and they probably can't catch upn before they move on to HS.

All of the clubs that lose kids to CS/AAA get "double taxed". A Meramec defection to Affton CS, for example, has this effect. Meramec's AA loses it's best player (in theory) and Affton AA just gained its best player (the CS kid pushed down after losing his spot). So when this happens to an "outside club's" age group 10-12 times over the course of Squirt major and PW minor years, it's no wonder those programs have a hard time remaining competitive at PW's and Bantams.

This year's joint KW/Rocket Squirt AA team is going to lose 9-10 probable players off that team to CS & AAA! Add a few more next year and you'll have lost a whole team. Why should we expect, in essence, an A1 team to compete at AA in Bantams? So I don't know that we'll even have proof of concept in 2013.

First of all, using this artical is pointless since it is just starting there and there are no results to be taken. Long post with no supporting arguements. Second, the arguement that sends a meremac kid to CS is just wrong. With your reasoning, every kid that is cut goes back to Affton? What? These teams are comprised of kids from every club. You know, the All-Star team!! Each kid that gets cut may go back to his own club and make them a little better, but it happens to all clubs. This is not why one is better then the other. USA hockey promoted Cross-Ice as the way the Europeans have been doing it for years and thus why the NHL has so many skilled Europeans playing. However, with the increasing number of USA victories in international events, it could very well be that we had it right to begin with.
I am not for or agains Cross-Ice, I am long past those days, but if your are going to argue for it you should at least come to the table with something better then a program that is instituting it for the first time. You might as well have taken that post from the Kirkwood web-site.

Time will tell if Kirkwood's cross ice program has had a major impact. However, I don't think it will be translated into winning records for their AA teams. It will be measured in how many of their players move onto CS Teams or AAA.

Right now, the Kirkwood loses 6-9 players to CS/AAA teams annually. Those kids are typically on the top 1/3 of CS/AAA rosters-they NEVER return to Kirkwood once they leave. I am sure that next year they will lose more like 8-10 kids to CS/AAA, I have watched those kids and they are clearly ahead of the development curve. In two years, I would venture to say that more than 10 kids will move on from Kirkwood to advanced teams.

I would tell the ney-sayers to pipe down because eventually they will benefit from Kirkwood's experiment if their organization has a CS team.

For Kirkwood's long term future, I would say they will do very well at the A1, A2 levels because the overall quality of their players will improve. They won't improve at the AA level because for every one of their AA players that leaves that ensures another competing club retains a AA player.

9:45am and 1:42pm, assuming you are one and the same. Either way, why are you wasting time trying to convince the moron about the benefits of cross ice skill development? Get over it, some people just can't learn........

3:17
You act like Kirkwook is the only club that sends players to AAA/CS. Get a clue, every club has talented kids that leave to play AAA/CS, kirkwood doesn't have the fast track to get there. The fact is, the best kids are going to be the best kids because they are the best kids period. I really don't think that you are going to improve a player that much playing a couple of years of cross ice. Every club has players that are better then the majority of the kids on the team, that is why they move on.

What a whiner. Every club loses kids off their MOAM team to AAA and CS. Hey moron your remaining MOAM kids don't have to play the CS teams. They play the other MOAM teams. All are missing several of the best players. The club teams playing MOAM are then on a level playing field. Now go herd your 45 mite kids on the ice so they can skate in aimless circles, cherry pick, ignore defense and trip over the stupid ice divider! And that dude is right...your wasting your time arguing. The proof is in the lack of success of your program - FOLDING!!!

To all that are blastin Kirkwood, you do realize mini-mites for all clubs are mandated by USA hockey to be cross-ice, therefore ALL clubs are using cross-ice. Additionally, as most like to make comparisons to Affton, you do understand that their LTP is broken into 1/4 sheets of ice where players move from station to station and game simulation is done cross-ice.

yes, but as soon as these kids who are 4, 5 or even 6 years old they must switch over to full ice on their 7th birthday so that they aren't permanently damaged like those kirkwood kids. Don't they understand that the kids will NEVER be able to skate the length of a rink or NEVER understand off-sides if they keep them in the at Euro-Cross-Ice trash.

Its a good thing my kid escaped all that, although the kids on my son's team commit plenty of offsides and you can time them will a calendar to skate the length of the rink.

If you are so worried about off-sides then I think Roller should be outlawed as well.

Roller is elective not shoved down peoples throats like the cross ice crap! Cross ice should be played as a practice tool - not as the primary format - but of course if that were the case it would be harder to schedule 50 kids into one hour of ice time.

8:56 We're glad you "escaped" cross ice as well, listening to you would be almost as painful as listening to Obama, Pelosi, and Reed.

8:56.........keep spewing your opinions and remove any doubt that you know absolutely nothing about hockey skills development.

856 how often do you see players skate the length of the ice. Not much, except at the younger ages. That is not hockey nor development. Hockey is typically played in a small portion of the rink at any one time. Skating ability is key and a player must be able to start, stop, turn and use his edges, make quick decisions as well as handle the puck in tight quarters with players all over you. Cross ice gives this opportunity. In the long run these kids will be much better. You can teach off sides at any age.

As far as European trash. How may just got drafted in the top 10 by the NHL? There is your proof.

Glad you are not coaching my kid. Stick to being a well uninformed parent and keep quiet, your kid will thank you for it.

You cross ice goofs can't even read. 856 was on your side - he was being sarcastic! Here is a news flash...Europe is a big place with LOTS of people. Many of the countries in Europe play hockey like they play in Canada. Of course some of those players are going to be good and want to come play in the best league in the world.

9 36. They skate the length of the ice ALL the time. Its called flow and transition and it dominates the game.

It has been mentioned on the old board and this is a good place to mention it on this board. A few years ago USA commissioned an extensive study on why these other countries who a fraction of the population and a fraction of the players of US hockey players have so many players making it to the NHL while so few americans make it relatively speaking. The study had some interesting findings-

-Many other countries do not start playing organized games until peewees. That at younger ages if they are on the ice it should be about skating and actually learning to control your edges, crossover etc.

-When getting to game playing age of peewee, there should be a minimum of three practice times, preferably 4 or 5 practices for every game.

-They feel like players should have hundreds of hours skating before they ever see a competitive game.

Could you imagine any of this flying in the good ole U S of A? Me neither. I ref and sometimes when I am doing a game and there are kids who can barely stand up playing a game I realize it is just about them having a good time, not about development.

I think cross ice works to add to skill development. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Has anyone checked the number of US kids that were drafted to the NHL this last year? Pretty impressive list over last 4-5 years vs. past history.

To me, the US is making strides. It is about competition and the some of the factors you mentioned.

It has been mentioned before, but in other European countries, the top ATHLETES often compete in winter sports.

Our top ATHLETES often have a multitude of choices: Soccer, Baseball, Football, Basketball, etc.

Even though we are a bigger country, hockey is also not played in most of the southern states and cities. So you can cut our population advantage.

While a relatively new concept here in St. Louis, according to USA Hockey, cross-ice programs have been sprouting up around the country for several years now, including in hockey hotbeds such as Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Have you seen the mini-ice rinks? Rarely, if ever, has any club or affiliate that has adopted the programs complained about the results. And many of these programs are emphasizing more cross-ice training and small area games over boring and tired standard full sheet cone stickhandling and passing, breakout drills, 1 on 1s, 2 on 1s, 3 on 2s, etc. at the much older and later development stages too.

The results are many more and much higher skilled players competing for junior and college roster spots. Not only are these players better skilled at skating, passing, and shooting, they are much better and much more creative working the triangle, cycling the puck, crashing the net, rebounding, deflections, battling for pucks along the boards, off-balanced shots, backhanders, breaking up plays defensively, goalies face many more shots, etc., etc. etc.

Why are they so much better and more creative at these things? Because they ALL have MANY, MANY more opportunities to PRACTICE them much MORE OFTEN in cross-ice and other small area games than they do in the standard full-ice practice drills and games. They do all of these things many more times over in the course of a less structured, practiced competition.

Anyone who has ever coached mini-mites and mites in the full-ice environment knows the ridiculous number of wasted precious and expensive hours on the ice spent:

- attempting to get young children who can't stay focused for more than 30 seconds to pay attention to the explanation and execution of a drill

- understand rules designed for older advanced players not young children such as icing and off-sides

- attempting to explain where they should stand on a face-off in different positions and getting them to those spots

- yelling at them to pay attention and stay focused while waiting their turn in line to perform a drill

- yelling at them to stop playing with the pucks while in line

- to get off the floor of the bench and pay attention to the game

- to stop smashing, poking, tripping each other with their sticks while they are bored waiting in line for a full ice drill

- and on and on and on.

You won't see any of this crap when the kids are involved and focused on the cross-ice and small area games which is all they really want to do anyway, play the game, score the goals, make the saves... and get better.

I've spoken with many of the local former and current pros about their development and if you don't believe me I suggest you do the same. Every single one of them said the single most important aspect of their development was the amount of time they were able to spend playing unstructured pond hockey with their buddies which was many times several hours a day several days a week. That is where they LEARNED the game and where they DEVELOPED their skills. Once they did that, THEN they were taken to higher levels with better coaches on much better teams against the best competition. The great coaching and specialized training DOES NOT come first. It is developing fundamental skills and understanding of the game first that allows you to advance to higher more competitive levels. And cross-ice at the younger ages accomplishes this much more quickly, effectively and inexpensively as if the cost savings to an organization should be a criticism.

It is just assinine to any experienced coach or knowledgeable skilled player to deny the benefits of cross-ice especially at the younger stages of development. I guarantee you those people have either never played the game, never coached, or have allowed their need to protect some political turf to cloud their judgment when it comes to doing what is best for children.

And NO! I am not from Kirkwood but I commend their vision, leadership, foresight, and expertise in developing young hockey players. I believe we have only begun to see the fruits of their vision and plan and being from another club I am not looking forward to that. But our club, like Missouri Hockey is beginning to see the inevitable outcome and has begun to adjust accordingly. I hope that it is not too late for many of the youngsters in our club!

10:37....

Let us look at specific numbers instead of just pulling our guesses out of the air.

USA hockey has over 400,000 youth hockey players. Pretty big number.

Guess how many youth hockey players Sweden has---less than 40,000.

So they have one tenth the players but yet have 6 percent of the NHL players. The US by the way has about 19 percent of NHL born players.

So we have a little over 3 times the players of sweden with over 10 times the number of players. Something is wrong with our development relative to theirs. No other way to slice it.

Hey Einstein, do you think the fact that the entire country of Sweden is frozen 6 months of the year has anything to do with it? They're not exactly burning up the path to the NHL in Italy or Spain now are they? Look at the European countries that do well in hockey, and ask youself what they might have in common: Sweden, Finalnd, Russia, Czech Republik, etc, etc. Gee, come to think of it, it's pretty darned cold in Canada, Minnesota, Mass., and Michigan too during the winter. What a strange coincidence.

Sincerely,

Willard Scott

Waste of timetrying to convince these guys. It is obvious they do not understand the game. Thank god they are not running hockey in St. Louis.

You are just kidding yourself. Is cross ice good? Yes, of course it is; it is ridiculous to say 6 year olds should be playing on a 200 x 100 sheet of ice. Will it lead to more college and NHL draftees? Uh no. Those kids are getting drafted because, in order, (1) they are great athletes; (2) they work their asses off of the ice; (3) their parents invest in their development; and (4) AAA offers them elite competition. Cross ice, full ice, any ice is irrelevant at the top levels once they are 14 - 16.

Let's go Rock Stars!

12:18 WTF???? You cross ice Nazis lecture over and over about what a waste of time games are. The all knowing USA Hockey has come out with guidelines that indicate that ice time will be allocated 70% to practice and 30% to games. What do you think they are doing in practice genuius???? Drills. Now you're are saying there shouldnt be drills because your ADD kids can't possible pay attention??? Just keep molding the argument to whatever suits you regardless of how much contradiction results. One consistent theme comes from BOTH sides of this argument - an indisputable fact of the cross ice farce is that it crams more kids onto less ice. Its a money and ice saving idea - all the other arguments are necessary in order to sell it to the parents who pay more for less. Less practice drills - thats a good one!!! Take your ADD kids to stick and puck and quit ramming your hair brained ideas down the throats of the entire organization. Hopefully the new Rock Star org will throw mandatory cross ice to the curb where it belongs.

Spoken like a true idoit! Keep drinking the KOOL-AID they are feeding you at your organization while they are cashing a sizeable % of your paycheck!

1:48/You just don't get it. Who cares if its a cost savings. Its helpful to make hockey less expensive at the younger ages-if you are able to get more kids on the ice at one time. Hockey has always had the stigma of being an extremely expensive sport-its not bad at all when you take into account the length of the season and all of the facilities required to play/practice. We need more kids playing hockey period if club merging is going to stop.

How many kids are telling their parents after practice/games that hockey isn't the same unless I am playing on a full sheet of ice? Your answer-Zero, I have never heard one kid complain. Do the kids feel that scoring a goal was less rewarding on cross-ice-NO! Do young goalies feel like they are cheated-not really (it would be nice for them have a marked crease but that can be fixed with a sharpie)-they are happy to see more than 10 shots per full ice-game.

So shut-up and relax, chances are your cs or aaa club will benefit from a kid that started on cross-ice formats!

If you don't hear the kids complain then you are not listening. Any of them with siblings or friends playing full ice ask constantly when they can graduate out of cross ice and play with a team, wear a cool jersey, keep score, play by real rules. The others just get bored and quit and you never hear from them - instead you try and figure out why you can't ice competitive teams and merge with another organization - sound familiar??? Now shut your mouth and quit ramming this cross ice crap down everyone's throats! Leave the organization and take your kid to stick and puck. Come back when hes a PeeWee and try out for AAA - he should be a shoe in by then with all those great unorganized touches!

8:48- I am new to the fray but have been reading your nonsense and must say you are a complete loud mouth idiot.

Your logic is that some kids want to play full ice so we should listen to them? That an 8 year old should be involved in the process of how to develop their hockey training because he views his older siblings playing that way?

WTF? That is some funny stuff dude. Funny stuff.

I guess you shouldn't have your boy play with that Cozy Coupe because he will just want to drive a real car like his daddy does.

What a fucking blow hard asshole!

Well said!

New to this - yeah right! CROSS ICE SUCKS!

Uh Oh...3:19 let the cat out of the bag! Finally some truth. You cross ice wackos don't give a rats ass about the kids having fun or not! You need to roll over and ask your cross ice bed buddies what the story is this week to defend this farce. Now better hurry and sign your kiddo up before it fades away along with your beloved K-Star.

I find it extremely humorous that the very same Clubs who complained the most about CHA not having to play their bottom 3-5 kids w/ last year’s shortened roster experiment are now getting away w/ jettisoning their bottom 7-8 to A1. At least for whatever reason CHA fielded multiple AA teams.

Go Stars!

Other than you saying "Go Stars", what the hell does the CHA post have to do with their merger?

How do you know that CHA is "jettisoning" their bottom 7-8 skaters to A1, they haven't even had pre-skates yet much less tryouts. They don't start for two more weeks.

Are you implying that they are going to move kids around because they fear your "Rock Stars" teams? I think not.

12:24 - I think you missed the entire point of the email. The "Go Stars" was meant to be in jest. He was calling the Rockets/Stars hypocrites for criticizing Chesterfield's decision to go with shortened rosters while at the same time endorsing a merger at the AA level. Wake up McFly!!!!!

The preskate at webster had 45 skaters (breakaway camp by Garth and Behan) for PWAA. This could be a tough team to make. The Rocket A1 team will be
awesome, they will have alot of fun.

If they were truly great they won't be skating at that camp. They would have been picked up by CS. I'm still laughing about the A1 comment.

Funny thats what the AAA parents say when you brag about your Central States team.