Calendar year is used in hockey mostly because the Canadians use it, and USA Hockey more or less emulated them. Soccer recently moved from Aug-July (I think - am not sure) to calendar year simply to be in line with what is done internationally.
In Hockey the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow is the NHL draft and that is age based for when kids are eligible so age based makes sense. in lacrosse the pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow is the college commitment and that will always grade based for obvious reason so travel lacrosse should (IMHO) always be grade based so a college coach can go to a game and know all the kids playing are graduating in the same year
With the new NCAA rules can you imagine an age based tournament? college coach would go to a November recruiting event and try to figure out what 17 year old (is on an age based team) he can talk to because some might be Juniors and some might be sophomores.
Before any of you call me a jack off or a cheater, my son is "on age" and he turned 18 in the spring of his Senior year .I just liked him playing against his own grade in travel lacrosse and never really cared about age.
Why does everyone always fixate on black & white solutions??! As has been mentioned previoulsy, go with age-based through 8th grade, and then grade-based for HS level athletes -'problem' (!) solved! Anyone who wants to can play up at ANY level.
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