Teams USA

[hockeymum]

Having never witnessed any of the tournaments on the international level, I am curious about a couple of things. First, I know that the 2 different team USAs play in different tournaments. How do they compare? Do they generally attract alot of the same players/teams, is the talent level and organizational structure similar? Do you find that in the tournaments the teams all play a similar style of hockey?

Then, how would they compare to some of the higher level Pro or D1 teams that you might see at NARCH? I'm looking for a frame of reference, although I do realize answers may be subjective to some degree in some areas.

[missionhockey19]

The IIHF team consists of the best of the best roller hockey players in the US. Hands down, If you are well aware of who the TOP Narch/Torhs/AIHL Pro level roller players are, theyre going to be on the camp list, its without doubt the "real" team USA. No team in US could come close to beating this team. I beg the differ for the AAU team

[calihockey]

I usually have no qualms about pointing out deficiencies in AAU, but they have been able to get some good talent on their roster as well. As to the skill level, it depends on the country and the tournament. I have skated against Mexico's team a few years back and was actually surprised at the individual skill set of some of their players and I have seen other countries surprise me as well. Some of the countries with developing inline programs are likely to be silver level or maybe gold for the better ones, while the Scandinavian and some of the continental European countries are definitely cream of the crop and are at least NARCh pro level. IIHF is definitely a more difficult tournament to win than FIRS as FIRS has less parity in skill level within the overall field.