US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Boys 2022- 7th Grade Fall 2016/ Summer 2017

No chance. Igloo has not had any competitive games since the qualifier. The chemistry of the World Series Igloo team will be no match for true a true team. Those ninth graders will feel the pressure and the eighth graders will be thinking of their true teammates who were left behind. How much do you want to bet?

You are the biggest loser troll on here -classy is your favorite word. Get out of mommy and daddy's basement and get a real job loser

WSYL will come down to face offs between igloo, express and 91.

Igloo should make the championship and it will be a pickem between express and 91 and the winner of that game will win the steinfeld cup.

Hmmm..lets talk about trends..which team will look different for the WSYL because they have boys that don't qualify due to their age?

What has igloo been doing? Just playing non-competitive games?

Has the Igloo 8th & 9th grade team played games since the WS Qualifier? If so, how did they do?

What has igloo been doing? Just playing non-competitive games

Igloo had a special 2022 team and they busted it up to bring older players who lost last year. They could win WSYL but the damage has been done. Money graaaaaaaaab.

igloo has the best coach in the age group and will probably be a better version of what was seen at the qualifier. Even playing poorly they were still the best team there. 91 will beat Express just like they did at the qualifier because Express has a couple key players that play the regular tournaments but don't qualify for the WSYL. I agree that leaving kids out was a poor decision by the organization. That said it should be another fun 4th of July for the Long Island kids

When are you people going to realize that every game is anybody's game???? Stop wasting your time and brain cells (or lack thereof) and quit it with the predictions!!!!!

Why? As long as it's light hearted, it's just conversation. When people get silly, then I agree. Waste of brain cells. It will be interesting to see who wins this and then 2 weeks later in Marylamd. But it will be fun for the kids as the paren'ts watch on with stress levels rising.

If that's true then those kids should not be playing sports...that is not a competitive kid.

Using the word "grade" for this tournament means that you are to confused to be worth explaining anything to.

I won't be surprised if the 4 LI teams make it to the finals. Legggaaacee and Igloo are bringing 9th graders - Express is losing players due to age and 92 is really the only team that has been playing Tournaments with their WSYL Team.

My Guess - Igloo and 91 in Final with 91 winning, but won't be surprised if Igloo or Express wins. I will be schocked if anyone else wins or even gets into the finals.

Agree here that using the word grade for this tournament is absurd and an attempt to diminish kids or teams with innuendo. Of what exactly? If there are kids that normally do the opposite of the sad play down / hold-back / re-class norm and the boy plays not only on-age but normally "plays up" a grade or even 2 if you are talking about a 9th grader being able to qualify by DOB - well good for that kid to have a chance to be one of the older more mature kids for once in his freakin life if he wants. This tournament will hopefully gain more and more traction and will help US Lax and others to get their acts together and realize that playing by grade until 9th grade - is ultimately ridiculous. There are cheaters every where you go - they are literally at every tournament - often times countenanced by the host or tourney directors - its a sham - but it is the unfortunate reality. I for one find this tourney uniquely interesting because it is your only true apples to apples comparison. Say what you will about "the best 7th graders not being there" - but the fact is - if the best 7th grader is 15 well than that's just ridiculous. At 15 we were playing Varsity not 7g or 8g lax. Joke.

Yeah, let the age kids (even if going to 9th) thrive. I laugh at every post that says the bringING 9th graders. It's age based and it's like they can't process that a team will gear themselves accordingly. This tourney is growing and I predict this will continue to grow. E.g. clubs will hold separate WSYL open tryouts and it won't be the defacto grade based team. They'll charge separate tryout fees, practices/training fees, etc, etc and we will coming running.

Stop using logic you two! The holdback "grade" based parents are going to have their head explode! They can't even figure out that the term "grade" doesn't apply here.

And charge them $75 a person for the extra tryout. Stop complaining people. You all drank the Kool Aid. Look in the mirror. No one to blame but yourself

igloo was the biggest protester of legacy's guest playing 9th graders participating in the world series last year and this year igloo is doing the very same thing by bringing 6-8 players from the black ice team. total hypocrisy. it is unfortunate what happened to the black ice team last year. i guess the director and coaches thought if can't beat them, join them. conscience: do two wrongs make a right?

Maybe that would lead to other non-WSYL teams also going age-based, and eventually tourneys as a whole - wouldn't that be refreshing??! It would be hard to go to a pure WYSL approach with one team within a program without throwing the rest of the adjacent grade teams (6th & 8th) into turmoil. There is then a further residual affect on the whole program even further out from those two teams, at least below 6th. So, the question then becomes does WYSL drive programs from 2nd grade up through 7th grade, which reshapes all or most of the pre-HS club landscape, or do teams decide the status quo is more lucrative, and WSYL is just a extra? USAL could be a bigger player here, but they are not stepping up.

My initial post about this was neither a defense for nor an indictment of any specific program or team. I honestly don't care about Igloo, Legacy, Diamondbacks or whomever... Let's try, for once, not to waste our time determining who is the lowest of the low in the race to the bottom that youth lacrosse has become. I think that there is a basis for some actual discussion about this as opposed to the sad usual drivel we have to sift through here. "My errrrr my son's club team is better than yours", "Our kids are just older - stop your whining", "hold-backs are just somehow smarter and richer than all the rest"... Quack Quack - what a colossal waste of energy.

When people try so hard to diminish something it does make you wonder why? This tournament never claimed to unseat the self proclaimed "Top 2022" team as the best 2022 team in the country. It is a tournament that is exactly what it says it is - a tournament for highly skilled young players born on or after 9/1/2003 (who can and are willing to prove that about themselves). Yet the defenders of the grade based status quo try to tear it down - why? I like that someone, somewhere, with enough clout to pull this off has at least interjected the idea of "on age" competition mattering back into the discussion.

Rip me, rip it, I frankly couldn't care less - but there is no rational argument against age based youth competition that holds any merit (maybe the town rec - let them play with their classmates - and I mean maybe). The idea that kids, who love this game, are forever saddled with this silly, rigged system we currently endure is lazy and pathetic. But your welcome to it if that's the one you like - you have a lot of the cards at the moment. I'm sure there's a future generation of wealthy boys (that is my favorite argument against those opposed to hold backs that somehow we would all do it if only we had the resources) who will thank you for it at a victory pool party after their team of 15 year olds beats another team with 13 year olds on it. Nice job boys way to dig it out! If you think it doesn't matter have your current 2022 team play your current 2024 team and see how they do.

Beyond the qualifier, what other games has the 2022 Igloo team with 9th graders had and how did they do?

Unfortunately this is what every club is doing now. Can't beat them join them? Why not. Nothing is done about this anyway. Two wrongs make a right? Again nothing is done to prevent this..I think there are more parents that would want Lacrosse to go age based, not grade based. Birth certificates and photo I'd's. Sooner the better before a child of 12 or 13 gets seriously injured because they're playing against 15 or 16 year old young men. The Laxblack 2023 team was a perfect example of this at Tri star lax clash this past weekend. How could these tournament directors turn a blind eye to this? It was more than obvious! It wasn't a couple of players from this team, it was all of the team. Any of the other players from this division could have been seriously injured. It's like beating a dead horse though, Until parents demand the change, it's going to remain the same until someone is slapped with a lawsuit. Everyone is paying enough money to play travel lacrosse. It should also ensure the safety of these boys. My question is...how can these PARENTS allow their sons to absolutely maul these boys that are at least 2-3 years younger or more depending on how many times they've been left back. Is that a conscience checker? Absolutely. Would I be a "proud" parent? Nope

YOU'RE WRONG! Move on and GET OVER IT!

Best post I ever read on this site.

I think the reason some teams were up set was because rules were changed in January/ Febuary. At least now rules were set way in advance .

Totally agree about Igloo, it is obvious and most all but Igloo recognize the wrongdoing of depriving the true team of being a team and dividing the boys. A real shame that egos and adult self interest took precedence over all of the 2022 boys on the actual Artic Blast team.

You're still being stupid, not a grade based tournament

Until Jan/Feb when the could change again.

Eh, I've read better.

#truthmusthurt

It's probably the most on the level tourney in the youth lacrosse world. It is astounding that people think you should follow a flawed system in a tourney that clearly wants a level playing field.

It is not about "the tourney", it should be about the boys and the team. The group of boys that have played together for the entire lacrosse season and or multiple years, the ones that have gone to practice every week throughout, the ones that hangout together in the tent in between games, the one that bond at the hotel on the lax weekends, the ones that socialize off the playing fields, etc... Not about recruiting older kids from the team a grade above to replace team players and try to compete just for the one WSYL tournament.

#notevenalittle

You would be one of the egomaniacs, living vicariously through your child and the 9th graders

Every tournament should be age based. Any arguement against that is illogical .

Cutoff is sept. 1... stack kids born in sept.
There always a way to "work" the system. Hold backs are a joke and are looked upon that way from the parents coaches etc.

When a boy stands out -- bigger faster stronger -- 99% of the time it's because he's a holdback.
Sad because it's just assumed .

You would be one of the egomaniacs, living vicariously through your child and the 9th graders[/quote

I love it when people make these kind of guesses! Keep telling yourself anything you need to so that you don't have to deal with the rejection. I get that you're licking your wounds but calling people names is not the way to deal with life's setbacks.

Guys, these kids are not 2-3 years older. They are in some instances a year older . Still unfair, but if you exaggerate the numbers your argument loses its luster. Remember you cannot be over 19 and play varsity sports.

This is not meant to be argumentative but just my opinion having been through the recruiting thing four times. The age based vs. grade based argument has no right and wrong answers it just all depends on your goals.

For my kids the goal of a summer team grades 2-7 were to become better lacrosse players, make new friends, have fun and also win some games and age or grade based teams were immaterial.

Once you start playing in the recruit tournaments, prospect cams and prospect days age no longer matters. The college coaches recruiting your kid only wants to see freshman play against freshman not 15 year old play against 15 year old .

IMHO you should not be worrying about winning tournaments after 7th grade, only the clubs care about championships and that is for their web sites and tryout turnouts.

Unfortunately this is not USA Hockey where a kid is registered by age and is on one team and can only play for that team and if he wants to change organizations he needs to get a release. In youth summer lacrosse, your team is who shows up that weekend or even that day and has the same jersey as the rest of the kids. That is not cheating as long as the kid is age or grade appropriate for that tournament.

When a team is selected by grade and then wants to enter an age based tourney you will almost always have to get additional players to make up for the kids that are grade appropriate but not age appropriate, you will see this again in two years when you put together your USL U15 National team.

good luck to all of your sons, don't burn them out and do everything you can to keep this fun for them

I have no arguments with your points, although I think:

* that you can extend your point about not worrying about winning tournaments after 8th grade, especially considering the new NCAA recruiting rule
* that you can still borrow from the USA Hockey idea to have kids legitimately certified as to being on age through U14 - the commitment/release aspect of USAH is above and beyond the considerations here

Its unclear what you point is ... but as for the argument that age based is flawed because teams can stack themselves with Sept born kids if Sept-Aug is used, or January kids if calendar year is used ... we are not trying to achieve perfection. Ideally, we would have a division for kids born Aug 1, 2005, a division for kids born Aug 2, 2005, and so on. But there clearly are not enough kids for that. There are also most likely not enough kids to have a 2005 major divisions (Jan-June) and a 2005 minor division (July-Dec). But a 12 month window is easily achieved, and most importantly it provides for fairer and safer competition for all kids. It is a significant improvement over a grade based system where a kid can bizarrely play the same division two years in a row just because he decides to repeat a grade.

In hockey no one, and I mean no one, ever complains about the birth year system. Occasionally, you will hear someone say "Oh, my Johnny has a bad hockey birthday", but it is never in the form of a complaint - more like an "Oh well". None of these parents advocate for a different system. I have also never heard a parent say "oh look, that team probably has a lot of january or february kids". No one says this, because its stupid. If all kids are born within the same 12 month window, its as fair as it can ever be, and everyone accepts that.

In hockey, if I put a AAA 03 kid into a AAA 05 game, he would smoke those kids. Yet in lacrosse, this same thing happens all the time.