Let's say for a minute that AAU is willing to work with USAHIL for the betterment of the whole sport. Because both groups recognize that without cooperation the sport will die.
USAHIL already has programs and staff in place that are "world" recognized for training coaches, training and qualifying refs, training players by age group and ability level, the NTDP program and the Junior Festivals.
AAU (as an extension of USARS) has the NGB status to play in the Pan Am Games, the World Games and the FIRS World Championships. They also run the Junior Olympics for youth (which has always been larger and more competitive than the USAHIL Summer Finals).
Rumor has it the AAU insurance program is better all around than the USAHIL one. Also, I have heard (not experienced) that USAHIL nevers pays off and is hard to claim, while AAU has paid off even though it is hard to claim.
It seems to me that USAHIL with the experience in programming of their parent USA Hockey is better equipped to run some parts of youth inline hockey, while AAU's expertise as it is now is complimentary to the expertise of USAHIL.
Maybe if the top 3 of USARS/AAU sat down with the Top 3 of USA/USAHIL; shelved their egos and their pride and started on a mutually agreeable outline to do what they do better then the other group as a compliment to what the other group does well; once they combine their experiences and their pluses and helped each other with their minuses maybe, just maybe the sport would get on the right track and grow.
If not, we will have Narch, PIHA, MLRH for the elite and the older players and nothing for the younger players. Because there will be no younger players to learn and strive to compete in all the other tournaments we now have: AAU, USAHIL, TORHS, 6 Pac, TopCat, 2 Hot 4 Ice, Coastal Cup, etc.
AAU has experienced explosive growth in the JO's every year; the Disney Classic on Memorial Day weekend has sold out the last 3 or 4 years. USAHIL is happy to get 85-100 teams at their Nationals and few of them could even compete at Narch Silver level. Why not let AAU run the tournaments of the combined group with the agreement that their will be one combined insurance program and all tournaments will accept it, as well as all leagues, NGB's and others.
Let us hope the powers of each group can bury the hatchet in the ground (not in each other's skulls) and work together or my 3 year old will be done playing before he could even tryout for a TEAM USA team at age 9. This sport will not last in its current form for more than 5 more years. Sad but true.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by schlzout on 10/31/05 07:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>