Originally Posted by Anonymous
The magic number is 18 to play and to have 20+ to practice with the parents of the extra players being notified their children will not be going to games unless absence or injury demand it. No one does it like this.

Nor would anyone, I don't think. I wouldn't pay fees and schlep to all of the practices and risk never playing games. I get that you might get good coaching and competition in practices, but going to tournaments with your team is part of the fun and playing in live games is an important learning experience in itself.

There was a discussion on here a while back about AA teams having poles that could play with elite teams -- I think part of the reason is that most (though certainly not all) parents whose kid is the 5th best pole on an elite team but barely plays would prefer to move down a notch or two if it means that your kid gets to play significantly more minutes. So you end up with kids who are good enough to make elite rosters spreading out over time.