Hockey has always been age based - at least in Canada.
What the directors and $ people don't realize is that age based will lead to more $, not less. By leveling the playing field and making the competition more transparent, they will bring in more families. All businesses want and need growth. There is no room for growth from the elite player. ALL elite players are already playing. All they can do now is poach each other's players, which doesn't grow the industry. Growth can come from the more average players and/or the good athletes that focus on other sports. There are still a ton of kids who play and love lacrosse who don't play for travel clubs but can and should. For most of the country the town lax season is very short - no more than 8-10 weeks. If the club scene did two things (1. make it age based and enforce it; 2. make a better effort to stratify teams into AAA, AA, A and B), they would see significant growth from mid and lower level players. Many of these lower levels can be summer only - with the AAA and the AA teams more year round.
Even without holdbacks its still not working, because different states use different school calendar years making their kids older (or younger) on the average. NY is on the young size, and it is obvious when you play MA and PA teams. Holdbacks just makes it worse. When the same families see their kids play MA and PA teams in hockey, the kids are the same size and look the same age. Because the birth year system forces this. Playing teams from all over is a pleasure in hockey - not so much in lacrosse. Yes, the best of the best from LI and Westchester can often play well against holdbacks. But no one else can. Its a huge turnoff for many families, and helps to limit the clubs to only elite players. In hockey and other sports, families have no problem with their kid being on a B team. They know that the other teams will be the same age and skill. In lacrosse, no one has this confidence.
Even in the town team set up, EVERYONE who has expressed an opinion on the subject thinks the grade system is stupid. I never heard someone say its a good idea. When parents are deciding where to spend their time and money (for both town and club), the grade system is a negative for lacrosse.
Yup - there is more money to be made if you set the sport up to grow!
