Every junior scout or advisor has been there. A Saturday morning is spent travelling to an AAA event to see a prospect, only to see a pair of worn-out teams trying to play a game that looks more like four-on-four shiny without goalies. Yes, they’ve already played games Friday and Saturday morning and this disaster is game three of a four-games in three days weekend.
What makes it worse, it looks like the team does not even practice together. That’s because the team is made up of players from all over the country and they only actually practice a few times a year. Welcome to the new AAA.
And most of it is an almost unwatchable poopfest. Especially the second game on Saturday.
AAA hockey has become a fragmented monopoly across the continent. Rules for one state are different from another and let’s not even get into the baloney of state, district, and national camp selections. That’s a political minefield mixed with cronyism and backdoor payoffs. It’s disgusting beyond imagination.
Yes, AAA needs a fix, but the powers of youth hockey have little interest in making any adjustment to their cash cow. The problem is that the game suffers as a result because players are simply unprepared for the realities of junior and college hockey once they get there.
Here’s where the United States Premier Hockey League and/or Murry Gunty is able to completely disrupt the AAA landscape with a better, and more economical, model.
First, let’s be realistic about something, the elite level of the USPHL (and the premier of the Eastern Hockey League) is little more than cash flow to help fund the entire organization. The league could drop that level from the menu and replace it with 18AAA and 16AAA and operate outside of the mess that is USA Hockey sanctioned AAA.
These new AAA programs could function in the same manner as a regular junior team. This means a minimum number of weekly practices, off-ice conditioning, and skill development sessions. All that work gets celebrated with two regulation games. AAA players that display exceptional value and skillset may even get to dress in the occasional junior games.
Here’s the item that will make USA Hockey super uneasy. The league should open their AAA program to additional clubs from the geographical area. Eliminate territorial rights and allow anyone that can prove to have the ability to roster a team, the financial power to complete a season, and ice time into the league. Charge an appropriate annual league fee and watch the rest of the youth hockey world begin to try and copy the model.
This is nothing new. We’ve been in various 3HL owners’ ears for a decade suggesting such a change. Unfortunately, the league office makes so much cash from stay-to-play (teams MUST stay at event host hotels) that they would never seriously consider such a thing.
Gunty can do it. Maybe not for 2024-25, but 2025-26? It’s an idea that he will certainly take seriously.
Gunty does not need USA Hockey to do it either. Non-sanctioned hockey does work. The BCHL, USPHL, and EHL have proven that.
What if Gunty’s USPHL partners want nothing to do with the idea? That would be funny because Gunty (and the Black Bear Sports Group) does not need them, he’s the one guy in the game that CAN do it without them, or anyone else.
And he just might.
Stephen Heisler 