TJHN has been steadfast in its belief and public statements that Tier III Junior Hockey in the United States has become a mess to make the simplest of observations.
Both USA Hockey and AAU sanctioned leagues have expanded far too often and faster than the available player market can sustain. It is a simple mathematical equation. When the USHL and NAHL do not expand to allow more player opportunity to compete at those levels it is primarily because they do not see enough players to support that expansion without diluting the on ice product.
Tier III on the other hand has in the case of AAU over estimated the availability and desire of import players to come to North America and pay to play. In the case of USA Hockey leagues, teams have over estimated the ability to recruit players simply because they are USA Hockey sanctioned or in a well established league.
Leagues have been too quick to grab the franchise fee’s for expansion without thinking about how a player pool that is not growing will inhibit the ability of existing teams to recruit new players. The short term gain of collecting a franchise fee is put before the long term health and viability of existing franchises, and that is called being irresponsible. Yet, the owners themselves contribute to this behavior by approving the new franchises at the league level without thinking of their own health as well.
The idea that you can put out a press release, design a logo, hire a coach and then build a team is an idea that has been clearly demonstrated itself to be one that does not work.
Many of the teams not moving forward this year are those that did not market themselves properly, and did not recruit properly throughout the summer. This only takes place when the team is financially unprepared to do so.
Existing teams think that because they have had success in the past that it will simply continue. They fail to see the competition at their door, and fail to plan to be aggressive in the market. Not that they are bad organizations, but they did not have the foresight to recognize that the players they may normally get, other teams would be actively recruiting for their teams.
When well run organizations go dark at the expense of expansion, it is never good for the game. If it were simply a matter of taking out poorly run organizations with expansion then that would be good for the game. Unfortunately you are seeing some of each of those situations.
What the consumer is left with is a clearly unstable market.
What happens to a team that may start with 15 player this year that experiences injury to a few players? What happens when that team can suddenly not play scheduled games?
How can leagues not know the health of their organizations throughout the summer? The teams going dark are doing so at the last minute in most cases. Does that not represent a league that is not keeping their fingers on the pulse of their league members? Had they done so, and earned those franchise fee’s and league dues, more could have been done to help those teams throughout the summer. Or, have teams simply been providing false roster counts, or counting players who had not actually committed but might commit?
This is the year of the great Tier III market correction. Unfortunately some good operations will be taken down with those that are not so good.
Will anyone learn from this? Will expansion be halted? Will anyone exhibit some level of self control next year? Or, will the great race to more franchise fee’s and the fight over geographical positioning continue?
Clearly it is a sad state of affairs, and the only person who really suffers in the end is the player who simply wants to play. That is the greatest disservice of all.
Joseph Kolodziej – Publisher
