not sure why the fuss about grade-based leagues and teams. unless you are advocating for single year age groups -- u11,u12,u13,u14 etc -- the age based format leads to plenty of mismatched competition in tournaments since they are always u11, u13, u15. For the record I'm not defending holdbacks. My kids are in the grade they're supposed to be age-wise and my 6th grader is on a 2020 grade team with just 1 kid who was held back when he was 5. when we play in u13 tournaments we play as a B team and we always end up playing teams made primarily of kids in their 2nd yr of u13. Maybe they aren't a u13 A team so they play B. skill levels might be similar but the size difference is huge. When we play grade the size differences are not as pronounced. Someone mentioned on of the crabs 5th or 6th grade team having 7 holdbacks. My guess most if not all of those kids had spring or summer bday. SO i'd rather play a team with 1/3 of the team a little bit older vs. a full team of older players. Now if tournaments and league went to single year age - that would be the most fair. But I have never seen any that do this.
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age based teams by calendar year makes sense. clubs are planning on going to grade based down to 4th grade so they can field more teams, make more money. should not be a concern to them to do it by calendar year d.o.b. for same. $$$ is still more and it is fair to the kids.
