uhg, stop the non-sense.
Yes KSL kids made up most of the AAA teams that were any good last year, and yes, they will likely make up the good ones again this year.
But that doesn't mean kids in MD can't be good. They just need to do a bunch of "extra" to keep up generally. The deck is stacked against them:
Practices:
KSL: mandates 3 Practices a week minimum, most teams doing 4 with some time of either skills/skating coaching as part of it. Our team had a $2000 budget for goalies. Others had slightly different ones. Some goalies played for free.
OMHA: I am not sure what the mandate is, but most teams I know practiced twice a week. The two teams I am pretty close to parents on had skating coach out, but it was once a month. Nothing for goalies - no budget. The one team had an organizational wide day once a month for goalies.
Games:
KSL: 6 or 7 tournaments, all with a guarantee of 5 games each. So that's 30-35 games right off the top. Most teams did at least 10 exhibition games on top of those tournaments. Some did more. My team did 18 games. The exhibition games you schedule yourself, so you can be picky and play against teams that are similar skill. Plus tournament organizers do a pretty good job of moving teams around so they play competitive games. Sometimes its "embarassing" to people because they are playing an age group below, or a T1 team is forced to play T2 teams. But, its hands down the best part of the KSL.
OMHA: Regular scheduled games against set opponents. Most games are blow outs one direction or the other. Sometimes you get a good competitive match. Tournaments are one or two for the season if the team schedules them. Most of the best teams are breaking the rules and playing full ice "off the record games" and the teams not willing to, get crushed when full ice starts.
Rules:
KSL: Full ice, full rules all season long. From U7-U9 (plus Klevr Cubs if you include that on full ice small rinks like NTR).
OMHA: U9 Half ice until Jan and then full ice for a couple months. Prior to that, no rules, no face offs, no score keeping, buzzers for line changes, no icing, no offsides. Half size nets for U8 and U7.
I think this has been talked about at nauseum, but there are still TONS of parents I am meeting at AAA tryouts where little Jimmzy was the best kid on the ice at their MD program for the last three years; they are showing up to AAA tryouts asking WTF is happening? Where did these kids come from? What are those stickers on their helmet?