Minor Hockey Talks - Hockey Forum

Coaches finalizing their teams in January and February has been happening across all age groups and skill levels since long before open borders.

If your coach is not doing this then unfortunately they're at an extreme disadvantage because everyone else is doing it.

By the time tryouts come around in April most teams have no spots left at all and the top 90% of kids have already chosen their teams. Only the bottom feeder teams will have open spots for the bubble kids that are still free agents.

Coaches are also under a lot of pressure from parents to get an answer as to whether their kid is on the team for next year or not in Jan/Feb so they have to start making decisions.

It sucks because many players know they're leaving a team in Jan and still have to play out the season and the playoffs are tainted by kids knowing they're leaving and losing interest and care less about their team's success.

If the GTHL truly wants to get serious about ending this, they have to enforce their rules much more strongly and start handing out real penalties.

I don't see it happening.

This summary should be handed to every parent who are new to the GTHL. The only kids guaranteed a spot no matter skill level is the coaches kid. I would also include close friends of the coaches. When you do the math there may be five open spots and at most ten.

Is it too early to look for a spot on a 2026-27 season team yet?

Guest wrote: ↑Sun Apr 06, 2025 11:12 am Is it too early to look for a spot on a 2026-27 season team yet?

It's not lol

So, a parent booking ice and having the HC run skates in a rink out of town for out of area players to get seen and evaluated by the coach before tryouts… tampering?

Yes. Look at section 8 of the GTHL rule book.

https://gthlcanada.com/rulebook/

It looks like the GTHL wants evaluation skates to take place only if the position remains available after the tryouts.

That actually makes sense and is way less disruptive to the kid, family and team.

Its April 11th.

Are there seriously any players who haven’t at least verbally committed to a team for 25/26 season yet?

Guest wrote: ↑Mon Apr 07, 2025 6:12 pm So, a parent booking ice and having the HC run skates in a rink out of town for out of area players to get seen and evaluated by the coach before tryouts… tampering?

HC should not be running any skates. They can go watch a skate run by another party.

Have a Free Agent signing period when your team is done foe season. Then post how many kids you need to fill team for tryouts.

Pretty much what happens at tryouts now anyway.

Guest wrote: ↑Mon Mar 31, 2025 10:33 am

Guest wrote: ↑Mon Mar 31, 2025 10:29 am OMHA family here. Coaches are having birthday skates under the guise of 'spring tryouts', and verbally offering families spots well in advance of tryouts. In fact, the coach of our local aaa team informed us that they are going into tryouts with only, '2 fwd and 1 d spot to fill.'

The OHF tampering rules are laughable and nearly impossible to enforce.

This sounds awfully familiar. We may know each other. LoL

This is every team in OHF. Happens every year. Now they can just accept more players from other areas