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New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

HockeyEast33 said:
Looked at the Tryouts page on the League website. The league-wide and Wizards tryouts were cancelled (Wizards held a meet and greet) which seems like a pretty bad sign. All the other programs appear to have held at least 1 tryout session. Most charged for the tryouts, which while I conceptually understand the concept of ensuring some level of player commitment, doesn't seem the way to go for a startup program trying to demonstrate its affordability. The Rockets are a long-standing (and generally reasonably successful) club program in an area with generally few quality season-long girls hockey options (other than maybe Morristown-Beard and Lawrenceville), so I would have expected them to draw pretty well. I'd be interested in how attendance was at the rest of the tryouts which were in New England where lots of other options already exist. Any input from the forum?

Edit: Just looking at some of the league head coaches and seeing some cause for concern if I'm a palyer/parent looking for college placement out of this league - pick your team carefully. The Express coach is graduating from BU in May and was a low impact player who played 18 games as a Fr/So and wasn't rostered as a Jr/Sr.... The Wolfpack coach was a Quinnipiac assistant for 6 years, but appears to have been out of coaching since 2008-2009 based on their announcement .... Bandits don't have a coach identified - makes you wonder how serious they are .... Wizards, Cyclones, and Rockets coaches are established, relatively well-known coaches.
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Think this is surprising for a first year league? I believe tryouts were mostly for non-recruited players but could be wrong.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

giwan said:
Think this is surprising for a first year league? I believe tryouts were mostly for non-recruited players but could be wrong.
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Non-recruited players? Are you suggesting that the 6 teams have already largely filled their rosters with recruited players? That is certainly not what I have heard for the Wizards at least...
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

HockeyEast33 said:
Non-recruited players? Are you suggesting that the 6 teams have already largely filled their rosters with recruited players? That is certainly not what I have heard for the Wizards at least...
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As a follow-up, the Wizards announced yesterday that they have signed the first 5 players for next season's team. They still have a ways to go in filling the roster at a time when most kids are making up or have made up their minds where they will be playing next season (at least in New England).
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

HockeyEast33 said:
As a follow-up, the Wizards announced yesterday that they have signed the first 5 players for next season's team. They still have a ways to go in filling the roster at a time when most kids are making up or have made up their minds where they will be playing next season (at least in New England).
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By comparison, the PWHL teams have all been selected for 14-15 at this point.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

The Wizards have not even run their regular U19 and U16 tryouts, the Shamrocks have not run their JWHL try outs, both the Islanders Juniors with their new coach, and Digit Murphy's new Jr Blades programs are still actively recruiting. Many girls considering women's junior hockey in New England are looking for quality full season (50+ games) alternatives to really awful or non-existent public high school teams without having to leave their local communities, friends and schools. Not all of them will play Division 1 hockey but many want to see how far they can develop their skills and where it will take them - D1, D3 or club. Unless they go the prep route, the alternative is playing 10 games in the NEGHL half season and then seeing their skills get worse during the high school season.

These new programs are filling a need and will likely get a decent amount of traction recognizing they are serving a broader community than just acting as Division 1 feeders.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

curious said:
The Wizards have not even run their regular U19 and U16 tryouts, the Shamrocks have not run their JWHL try outs, both the Islanders Juniors with their new coach, and Digit Murphy's new Jr Blades programs are still actively recruiting. Many girls considering women's junior hockey in New England are looking for quality full season (50+ games) alternatives to really awful or non-existent public high school teams without having to leave their local communities, friends and schools. Not all of them will play Division 1 hockey but many want to see how far they can develop their skills and where it will take them - D1, D3 or club. Unless they go the prep route, the alternative is playing 10 games in the NEGHL half season and then seeing their skills get worse during the high school season.

These new programs are filling a need and will likely get a decent amount of traction recognizing they are serving a broader community than just acting as Division 1 feeders.
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Like most programs, the Wizards U16 and U19 teams, Shamrocks, and Islanders have players already in their systems that will fill the majority of the spots - these teams are likely 80+% already picked before the tryouts even begin and those kids are committed to those programs. They are really only filling a few spots here or there. So the majority of players have made their decisions already about where they are playing next season.

But your comments reinforce why this league will likely have trouble gaining traction - already many options in the region (too many). The new league is waiting for the dropouts from the other programs, which isn't a great basis for a league that is designed for player development towards college placement (which is what the league is advertising itself as). The programs holding tryouts are not chock full of D1 players - only 15-30 players a year from these New England programs go on to D1 spots and 25-50% of those are from Assabet. The rest end up playing D3 or not at all in college.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

HockeyEast33 said:
Non-recruited players? Are you suggesting that the 6 teams have already largely filled their rosters with recruited players? That is certainly not what I have heard for the Wizards at least...
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Not sure about largely but offers have gone out to players, from Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, etc that I know of
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

giwan said:
Not sure about largely but offers have gone out to players, from Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, etc that I know of
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That's interesting as the league is positioning itself primarily as a lower cost option for local players to gain college development/exposure while living at home/going to their home town school and staying in a geographically constrained area for games/practices/etc. Why wouldn't players from Alaska, et al pursue the already existing and proven routes to college hockey (JWHL - Shamrocks, NAHA, NSA, etc. or prep/club) rather than this new unproven league? Only answers I can come up with is they couldn't make a team in the JWHL (brings into question the quality of the new league's play again) or cost (but if they are billeting it seems this would likely be comparable to a JWHL team). Really not seeing how this new league grows into a success story.....time will tell.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

HockeyEast33 said:
That's interesting as the league is positioning itself primarily as a lower cost option for local players to gain college development exposure while living at home/going to their home town school and staying in a geographically constrained area for games/practices/etc. Why wouldn't players from Alaska, et al pursue the already existing and proven routes to college hockey (JWHL - Shamrocks, NAHA, NSA, etc. or prep/club) rather than this new unproven league? Only answers I can come up with is they couldn't make a team in the JWHL (brings into question the quality of the new league's play again) or cost (but if they are billeting it seems this would likely be comparable to a JWHL team). Really not seeing how this new league grows into a success story,time will tell.
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Not sure about a low cost option, ie what's the cost of a JWHL, PWHL team? They are billeting, and recruiting is much further than local.

Why wouldn't they pursue other routes? Maybe they are unaware of other routes. In some cases can't transfer depending on class ie Juniors sometimes are not allowed to transfer in for a Senior year at certain institutions. For some I am sure cost is a reason as some prep schools can be expensive for a family.

The men's side has huge expansion of junior hockey and seems to still be expanding. Now if a college in the men's game still finds players in the Junior 3rd Tier what does that tell you?

Not sure of success in that new league either, I think it depends on backing, who is willing to stick it out, and who is really willing to find that talent. All those other leagues started at one time as well.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

Bump. Wondering what people are hearing about this league and the teams in it. I see that the first showcase is in September at Wesleyan and that the Cyclones fielded a team at the Beantown - only 14 players if the roster was accurate. Are other teams fully rostered? Not much showing up on the websites.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

HockeyEast33 said:
Bump. Wondering what people are hearing about this league and the teams in it. I see that the first showcase is in September at Wesleyan and that the Cyclones fielded a team at the Beantown - only 14 players if the roster was accurate. Are other teams fully rostered? Not much showing up on the websites.
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Not all players appeared at Beantown. I believe EC wizards had a team there as well. Teams are fully rostered. Regular schedule is supposedly done. College scouts are interested and have been looking. Remains to be seen how much interest.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

giwan said:
Not all players appeared at Beantown. I believe EC wizards had a team there as well. Teams are fully rostered. Regular schedule is supposedly done. College scouts are interested and have been looking. Remains to be seen how much interest.
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Wizards teams at Beantown were their traditional club teams, not the Junior team.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

looked like 13 or 14 skaters and 2 goalies on ice this week for Wizards
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

What Wizard team will be at NAHA this weekend? I'm sitting at MSP waiting to fly to Burlington.
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

Wizard Junior team not at NAHA - that is the regular half season Tier 1 team - enjoy Vermont!
 
Re: New Women Juniors Program. Will it work?

curious said:
Wizard Junior team not at NAHA - that is the regular half season Tier 1 team - enjoy Vermont!
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I really can't see this concept working out. Most of the good younger players are already either committed to a college by Jr. year or are at least on the radar by then...and the better D3 players are in the same boat by early Sr. year of HS. The only players I could see playing in this league are the marginal D3 players who either haven't generated any interest while playing at u16 & u19 or the player who needs some extra time to improve scores/grades to improve chances of admission...and I'm not even sure that's realistic, especially if they've already completed HS by the time they join this league...how are grades going to improve at that point? Wouldn't a PG year make more sense?:D
 
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