Which national are you attending?

[hyperlabrat]

Well, were about a month or so from all the roller hockey championships. Six Pac is over the 4th, NARCh at the end of July, USA inline 1st week of August, and finally AAU over Labor day.
Tournaments now have two girls divisions and two women's divisions. Two years ago there was only womens. The sport is starting to recognize the girls, but are there enough girls and women playing to fill all the slots available at these tournaments? Will the tournaments continue to have these slots? Which national do you go to? Do you go for the prestige tournament or try to make them all?
Our team has settled on NARCh, but the timing for ice hockey camps has pruned out 3 players. We would love to swing by Georgia on our way home, but the money tree has been cleaned out.

[DannyG]

The Nations-Tobin Polar Bears, from El Paso, Texas (with regional players from Texas, Colorado, and Kent, England) will continue to support the regional and national opportunities provided by USA Hockey Inline in its youth national championships.

Under present eligibility rules, our girls' 17's will also be playing at the USA Hockey Inline Cup in Las Vegas, this September 18-21.

However, almost all of our girls are skating on coed teams that will participate with/against the boys at the SixPac USA regionals and nationals. Should SixPac offer Girls' divisions next year, that will also be our focus.

NARCh has also indicated they are considering offering Girls' Divisions next year. If so, we would certainly focus on their Winternationals offering, and would also consider their national program, as long as it kept out-of-schedule-conflict with USAHIL.

We also have several young ladies skating at the USAHIL National Team Player Development Bantam Camp in August, alongside the boys. We would continue to support that program, but would love to have a legitimate Girl's 17's version of the program.

We have hope that USAHIL and the IIHF will produce an international Women's program soon, and that the USA national team will designate an eligibility for players 13 & older, as with their adult nationals.

We acknowledge the USARS and FIRS international championship women's team program, but have decided not to support this program at this time.

We would again ask that the Congress of the United States designate USA Hockey Inline as the National Governing Body of the United States for the sport of inline hockey. USAHIL has clearly, and continuously demonstrated that it is the one organization that is:

(a) not-for-profit, and
(b) dedicated to growth of the sport for all players, regardless of skill level, or geographic location.

We invite all our sister inline hockey teams and players out there to join us in these decisions.

Thanks! for listening, and we hope to see you out on the blue floor this year!

<font color=purple>DannyG</font color=purple>

[hyperlabrat]

Danny
As far as I know, AAU and FIRS are combining to try and become the NGB. In order to compete in the FIRS world championship, your organization must attend the finals in Detroit this year. Can they become the NGB? I'm not convinced, even though they have made inroads with the USOC for the Olympics. I'm not sure about USA inline, they are great for ice, but I have first hand experience with the girls program, and if you think roller plays a second to their ice program, the girls ice nationals are a distant second to the boys ice nationals.
I don't have an answer to who should be the NGB, but it would be great if someone stepped up to the plate and delivered a true nationals.
I have been to USA inlines, Six Pacs, TOHR's and NARCh's nationals, and hands down NARCh puts on a show. 300 Plus teams and constant hockey. I have seen only one ice tournament that has compared.

[DannyG]

I find your observations to be completely valid, but I would like to further identify what I feel it is that you are looking at.

We identify NARCh as a premier tournament, where teams that enter are completely free to recruit, try-out, and sign up any player from anywhere.

We contrast this to the USA Hockey Inline tournament series, where a team must come from within a sanctioned league. The team can be a select group from many teams within the league, or they can be a club team champion, but all the players must be legitimate participants from that specific league.

The above distinction does two things: first, it places developmental responsibility on league directors and coaches. If you can't just go out and recruit the best ten hotshots, but you actually have to take the kids that you got in your league and develop them into something, then that is a much harder task. If this is part of a continual program of player development within the league then it gives all kids, not just the best ones this year, the shot to improve themselves and make the team later down the road.

Second, this grows the sport. More kids play more hockey. Recruited teams become "pyramidal" in nature, and more kids drop out earlier, if they're "not good enough."

I perceive that USARS/AAU does not have a legitimate league/team requirement for participation in its program. I believe that this position does not serve our sport, it harms it.

We recognize that the NARCh tournament is by far the most "competitive" in skill level, how could it not be? The Huntington Beach Paradise Beach Boys, the Mission Empire Snipers, the Junior Red Wings, the LaBrea Bulldogs, the Corona Edge, The Orange County Blades...all these programs literally pick from thousands of kids to put their best team out on the blue floor. How can these teams not be better than my team, where I put my best ten from 25-35 league players in each group?

We have discussed before on this board that we need both levels of tournament play, as they fill two different needs. We must have the recreation-level of team and player opportunities offered by USAHIL, and the "open," no restrictions, get-your-players-however-ya-want-to "competitive" opportunities offered by NARCh, TORHS, USARS/AAU, etc...

My contention is that USAHIL has continually developed its programs for everybody, not just the top-of-the-pyramid, elite few. It is therefore they who deserve our support. USAHIL can certainly operate an "open" division in all its tournament formats. They would do so as part of a national governing body responsibility.

Just look at the contrasting methods used to select the USAHIL and USARS national teams for the IIHF and FIRS world championship tournaments. Look at who is on these teams. You will find that the USAHIL teams have players from all over the country, and the selection process is open to all. You will note that half the team comes from St. Louis, and the other half from New England, or similar non-balanced result, from the USARS program. How can that be a legitimate "national" team, when the selection process is so closed...

All of this, of course, is the "boys'" side of the house.

I will personally have little to do with USA Hockey's ice national program, which I perceive is not very member-friendly or supportive to its league organizations.

USA Hockey Inline, however, is doing the right things, and has been for years, to give our players, youth and adult, more and more legitimate hockey opportunities.

I believe that they will continue to do so for the girls' programs, both those that they have already instituted, and those they plan for the future.

<font color=purple>DannyG</font color=purple>

[hyperlabrat]

Danny,
While I agree, USA inline is trying to provide a place where grass roots leagues can develop and compete, the reality is we have to harvest from the Mexican border to San Jose just to get 15 girls on an ice team. So when it comes to roller, we draw even less.
With USARS/AAU making it mandatory to attend their tournament in order to even qualify to try out for the next years worlds, you see even less women at NARCh and USA inline.
USA Inline regionals left southern California a few years back. I don't think the grass roots leagues had enough kids left after the tournament teams harvested the good players. Most of the tournament teams frowned on kids playing in other series with different teams. Is this good for the sport? No, but how do solve the problem with parents and kids in this need to be stroked society.
The biggest problem I forsee is most of the girls just want an oppotunity to play. Coed or all girls teams, they just want to prove themselves and have a good time. I see so many posts on other boards, where girls/women want someplace to play and a team to join.
Can we assume that a NGB for all with give the girls a fair shake? I think USA hockey certainly has the leg up with them handling the ice side for the girls/women. Should a tournament series be the NGB? Are they growing the sport for all, or just the cream of crop?
So, I have digressed from the actual topic of the nationals. There has to be more than two girls teams in the country. Who are you and where are you?

[DannyG]

Very good...and I believe that the heart of the matter is contained in your phrasing:

"...the reality is we have to harvest from the Mexican border to San Jose just to get 15 girls on an ice team..."...let alone an inline squad.

However, the fact of this reality might not be a bad thing. This represents a quantum step up from the reality of only two years ago, no? Last year, Girls' 12's was it for us, and we had a full roster, albeit a large number of novice skaters to be really competitive...This year, our 12's team is much more competitive, and our newly added 17's team looks real good. We also had to cover a geographic area to get a legitimate roster of competitive individuals to "make" a team in the 17's group.

I think that is simply reality for this year...I will be coaching four teams at the USAHIL nationals 2 coed teams, and the two girls' teams. A year ago, I could not have predicted that our program would have developed to this point.

Likewise, I expect similar, exciting, totally-unexpected-at-this-point development opportunities for girls to happen in the next twelve months. I am very excited, anticipating these, as they might come up. I am willing to accept the limitations of the present because I hold this belief in the future.

Please monitor my prediction on this. See if you and I aren't having this conversation next year, and marvelling at all the distance that girls' inline hockey program has come on the national level a year from now.

I am going to look at your profile as soon as I finish this...what team program are you with? Southern California ain't that far from West Texas, and if we can give the Arizona, Colorado, East Texas, Louisiana girls an excuse to play in a Thanksgiving tournament, for example, that might be a step in the right direction?

Incidentally, the very restriction you noted from USARS regarding participating in their national team program...what does that tell you about their sincerity when it comes to a legitimate commitment toward developing opportunities for girls/women?

I really appreciate you taking your time to discuss this, and all that you have shared with us.

Keep up all your efforts...

<font color=purple>DannyG</font color=purple>

[TXGoalieMom]

This post is not offtopic for girls/womens inline hockey, but it extends into inline hockey in general. My daughter participated in her first USAHIL regional tournament this past weekend (12U Champions now!) and I have a few comments or gripes if I am totally honest...... Megan has played goalie for both the 14U and 12U Team Hat Trick all year. Because of the rules she had to "choose" which team she would be playing for at USAHIL and the other team had to stay home. Because the 12U team is attending Nationals she had to play 12U. Not to mention the problems we would have had if both teams planned on attending nationals........ We later regrouped and picked up a goalie from a team that we have played with before at other tournies and found that because he did not play in our league our roster was ineligible. We chose not to break any rules and withdrew from the tournament only to arrive with the 12's to find that most every other team did not have "pure rosters". Our boys follow the rules and they are the ones that are "punished" by not getting to participate. Anyway....I have rambled on enough for now. I need to go eat dinner! I guess I am adding my suggestions for changes for next year!

[calselect89s]

I have experienced the same situation with USAIHL, the last time they hit southern California. A ringer team was allowed to play and took the whole thing, did not even consider going to the nationals, because of NARCh conflicts. It will be almost impossible to police the regionals when unscrupulous sanctioned leagues allow this to happen.

[MDE3]

I would be interested to see what USA Inline had to say if you emailed them with a documented complaint. Not defending anything here - just curious - they seem like they go out of their way to play it straight and I would be interested in their take on what happened.

[MDE3]

Have you voiced this complaint formally to USA Inline? I would be curious to see their response. Although in my years involved with ice hockey - there were certainly questionable situations in many of the tournaments we played. Blaming this on the USA Hockey organization would have been difficult because most of the tournaments were run by private individuals or organizations which were under the umbrella of USA Hockey, but not directly part of the organization. USA Hockey was only involved as the parent organization.

In as much as these were USA Hockey Inline Regional events I would be curious to see just how badly the rules were bent - and if this was brought to the attention of the tournament operators at the time what their reaction was?

Wherever there is competition there will always be someone angling for an edge. How well you police this and how fair you make the playing field, will be the long term bellweather for the strength of the organization. In the short term those who feel it is their given right to have an advantage (and there are many) may decry the organization which negates these advantages as second rate and naive, but that organization will stand the test of time if it remains impartial. Let us know what the response was if you have one - please.

[TXGoalieMom]

I must admit that I did not bring this to anyone's attention during the tournament. This being my first USAHIL tourny I did not want to come across as a complainer. As I mentioned in my earlier post my daughter was limited to one age division and had to play 12U only and it so happens that 12U was the only division where I did not see any bad rosters. I did not feel it was my place to challenge a roster in a division I was not competing in. Choosing not to break the rules I saw bent/broken is what kept our 14U team out of the tourny.

[MDE3]

Without projecting a "too injured tone" I would address these issues as accurately as possible to USA Hockey via email and see just what response you recieve - also explaining that you feel your 14 Under team is being unfairly treated by being punished for playing by the rules - IF others are in fact not playing by the rules and being allowed to still participate.

[TXGoalieMom]

We will be attending both USAHIL Nationals this summer and I am hopeful that I will meet more people involved in the organization and have an opportunity to discuss my concerns with them. The people we met last weekend in Tyler were very kind and we thoroughly enjoyed the whole tournament. Thank you for all of your input.

[calselect89s]

I emailed USAIHL and received a quick response. They were upset about the situation and would try to inforce the rules in the future. The problem is they have not returned to southern California since then.

[MDE3]

With Narch so dominant in SoCal, it is not surprising that USA Hockey Inline are busy trying to figure out how best to strategically attack the problem. It would not surprise me if that team was inserted deliberately by one of the Narch local divisions to create a credility gap about the quality and integrity of USA Inline in order to help keep USA Inline out of California. Let us never forget that the Narch series is definitely run by a &quot;for profit&quot; organization, and that they look upon California as their &quot;private preserve&quot;.

Could you tell us which team it was?

[DannyG]

There's also this "travel barrier" question...I realize that C.S.89 did not say this, but I voice a concern to the group who is unwilling to "travel all the way to Northern California," or is unwilling to participate, if the area tournament is not conveniently in their own back yard.

As a group who routinely travels eight hours each way minimum I don't much hold truck with the whiney-butts who feel that more than two hours is a hardship...and we've heard this from Northeast folks, too, ya know...

Sorry to criticize, but if you are going to support the program, then do it, no matter where the location is...

<font color=purple>DannyG</font color=purple>

[TXGoalieMom]

I can sympathize with you Danny....... My new truck has so many miles on it everyone thinks it is several years old! We have a close one this weekend. Less than two hours!!

[hyperlabrat]

Danny
If you looked at our web site, you see that travel is the least of our concerns. We have been to Detroit, Connecticut, Oregon, Seattle and Philly for ice this year alone. We have the option to attend a roller hockey tournament each and every weekend within a 100 mile radius, plus we have 3 Narch qualifiers in the area. I for one am not a big supporter of USAIHL for the reasons I discussed in other post. As a girls team we do not need to attend any of their tournaments at this time to qualify to play in the nationals. We chose NARCh because of the exposure for them and us. Ours women's team took silver at Narch and gold at the Winternationals, giving our club recognition as a roller hockey club. We feel that we can attract the many girls playing roller to come to the ice club. Cultivating ice players was our main concern in the past, but roller attracts more girls in southern California, so we're accommodating that need.
TX Goalie mom, I can sympathize with the miles on your truck, we attend 4 to 5 practices for ice with a 180 mile round trip. We have some player who drive a 300 mile round trip for this team.

[DannyG]

That makes your original post in this thread a little more clear...you consider NARCh to be the prestige tournament (even though they haven't had girls' divisions, only women's), and the money tree has been cleaned out through your national participation in the ice tournaments, which leaves you enough resources to necessitate a single inline summer tourney.

...still hope to see you in Las Vegas in Septmeber...

<font color=purple>DannyG</font color=purple>

[DannyG]

What USA Hockey Inline Sanctioned league allows a team to "represent " it's league in USAHIL Regional competition with a team and/or players that do not legitimately play in the league?

Perhaps these accusations need to become directly specific. These are process of control. The processes cannot be brought to bear upon violators if violators are not reported appropriately.

The League Director must personally sign the official roster sheet, indicating expressly that all the players on the team are bona fide, participatory members of the league. I would like to know the league name, name of the league director, and sanction number of any such league who has violated this honor and privilege. Make no mistake about it, this is an "honor and privilege" thing.

Any team in violation of this process will cause it's league some legitimate trouble. We all need, however, to begin officially, for the record, reporting these things. We need to bring these things out in the open.

Part of the problem is that, in most leagues, any coach is free to simply go out, and recruit players from any league, and then just register them as a team in any league. Then, if nobody else cares, that team can get to represent the league in USAHIL competition, just by asking the league director to sign off on the roster/application.

If that's how your league does it, then you maybe need to change the process.

My full name is Daniel T. Guard. I am the League Director, since 1996, of the Nations-Tobin Hockey League, in El Paso, Texas. Our USAHIL League Sanction Number is TX10017. I call upon all of my fellow League Directors to demand that we all do this right, for the benefit of everyone. If somebody doesn't, then we need to bring the violations to the light of day.

This needs to become something more that just some vague, general, "there was this team that cheated."

<font color=purple>DannyG</font color=purple>

[DannyG]

disclaimer: repeat soapbox/tirade...

Folks, this is another variation of the public/private recreation program format thing...

As an example, if the DFW metroplex had a public rink that offered the best hockey opportunties for $20-$25 per season, all these private rinks would go out of business. All the real players would go to the public rink's programs. The public rink (contrary to Mr. Street's concerns), would run high quality, fair-and-equal-for-everybody programs, and none of this cheating, under-the-table, infighting would occur.

Private rinks must pretty much let anybody do what they want when it comes to team formation, because they depend upon the money they get from these teams for their livelyhood. So there are no equal-playing-field regulations for team formation. So some groups/teams benefit, and some lose opportunities.

I'll have the video and material series that you (anybody out there) can present to your local Parks & Recreation department in August. I am making 100 copies. Let me know if you want a set. The only thing I ask is that you are serious about wanting a high quality, public recreation venue that treats everybody fair and equally (and, hey, not just your own team, either) for all our hockey opportunities.

soapbox over...

<font color=purple>DannyG</font color=purple>

[calselect89s]

Sorry about the murky post. Yes I do consider NARCh as the premier tournament, have attended 2 of them playing with boy's teams and it's like a circus. So much going on, so much hockey to watch.