Blog: Colorado Replaces Tryouts With 6 Week Evaluation

Tampa Bay Lightning Care blog has a post on an experiment at the Colorado Competitive Youth Hockey League (CCYHL).  This association, which is Colorado's version of AHAI, moved to replace the old creaky tryout process with a six week evaluation process at the Squirt level this year.

According to the blog, this is how the process worked:

Rather than holding Squirt tryouts at the same time as PeeWee, Bantam and Midget tryouts, the Squirts started a week later around Sept. 7. And rather than dive right into tryouts as usual, the associations focused on skills, drills, and small-area games for approximately five weeks. Associations then held tryouts the week of Oct. 4–7, with league games starting Oct. 15 and the regular season running through March 6 as usual.

During the six-month season, Squirts will still average three to four ice sessions per week and are allowed 45 games (plus playoff games). The practice-to-game ratio stays the same because of the emphasis on practices at the beginning of the season.

To me, this evaluation process makes a great deal of sense compared to spending a few minutes evaluating players at a tryout.  Head on over to the blog for more on how everything worked out.