The age based systems don't work well. Ask the parents whose kids are at the bottom of the age range and are always playing against older kids. Study after study shows they are at a physical and coaching disadvantage.
The last I checked we are a nation of 340 million who can't produce enough top flight players to either form a competitive pro soccer league or a team to qualify for the most recent World Cup. The age based and current organization of soccer stinks in this country. We can debate at what level things contribute to this but it still stinks. Also, there were only 3 soccer high school all americans out of 68 on the roster and there were 9 out of 44 for lacrosse in the Baltimore/DC area.
And you are wrong about hockey. First of all, their ages runs from September 1 through August 31 and they have 2 year segments which is totally different from the MD area where there are enough lacrosse players to run yearly teams. Also, they allow over age exceptions to team rosters of up to 4 regular players and the goalie. https://www.ushl.com/news_article/show/749141
I proposed the idea of roster exceptions to HoCo and my kid's club and they said the Madlax's, BLC's and Team 91's would never go for it. The established clubs love it and the smaller clubs think they are going to become Madlax someday and take solace in competing against teams more like them. The really funny thing is none of these teams are a "class" at a school. What's outrageous is when a team has kids born prior to March 1 and then those kids are repeated prior to 8th grade. These kids/young men are now driving to their HoCo spring games. There are at least 6 playing this year.
Complete straw man arguments. Soccer does great with a strict age based system . Colleges recruit just fine without the grade based system, All competition in US is just like it is all over the world.. Jan 1 to Dec 31. Age based ,, USA soccer world cup woes have nothing to do with you straw man argument.. Tiny Spain goes by age based too and they do just fine in world cup. I actually tried to explain to a Spanish soccer rep about grade based lacrosse and youth..He said I was nuts! LOL
And to top it off you make the argument against holdbacks ! " kids are at the bottom of the age range and are always playing against older kids" So you think it is ok for select holdback kids to be the oldest but only them, not on age based kids??? LOL
Hockey AAA at top level is strictly year born based like Soccer..Might want to look up AAA Hockey in Michigan or anywhere ( State that has produced most NHL players) . Many youth rec/club hockey are Sept 1-Aug 31 like Lacrosse used to be for over 50 years until recently.
Lacrosse has only been grade based in last 5 years..Somehow it survived for many years..Even Crabs top Youth teams were U13 and U15 plus they had High School teams which were based on grade ( rightly so) .
I am glad you are doing something with HOCO..But you will never get anywhere with this Top Hall of Shame league. I wrote to them several times at beginning. Got NO WHERE ! Not sure now..But a few years ago, HOCO personal had children and ties to Private school with holdbacks.. Go figure
