USA Hockey Adult Hockey

Playing at the right adult hockey skill level sounds relatively easy, but it can be difficult for a variety of reasons. Some of them are self-induced, some of them are league-inflicted and some of them are just human nature.

Tyler Shaffar, adult hockey director at Sharks Ice in San Jose – one of the largest adult leagues in the United States with roughly 4,000 registered members – has some good tips to avoid playing too far up or too far down. He also offers some ideas for leagues to corral improper level problems if they are having them.

Obvious Signs

Some cases of players getting in over their heads or being head and shoulders above the rest of the players on the ice are easy to spot, Shaffar said.

“Some of it’s just obvious,” Shaffar said. “You can see a good skater who controls play – or a guy has three goals in two minutes.” We track all stats electronically, and all our scorekeepers keep notes.”

That helps the league keep tabs on players who maybe should bump up or down.

“Even if they’re just playing defense and not doing much but then controlling the entire flow the game, it’s like, ‘why are you at that level.’ Same thing if a phenomenal goalie comes in,” Shaffar said. “You get to a point in a league where you just know people.”

The same principles apply to players who are clearly not skilled enough to play at the level they’re at – which can be a danger to them and others in the league.

New League Structure

The more significant issue with Shaffar’s league in San Jose involves players at a high skill level playing down too far. In an attempt to combat it, league officials streamlined the levels and created new guidelines that took effect this summer.

Where the league used to have 16 different levels of play – “they didn’t even really mean anything at a certain point,” Shaffar said – that number was trimmed to nine. Level 1 is considered the best, and nine is the worst. Each existing player was assigned to a designated level, and they are allowed to play a maximum of one level down from there.

Because it was an inexact science and to keep existing teams intact, players were allowed to appeal their designated rankings – and there were about 300 cases of that, many of which were given tentative approval to do so.

A handful of players needed further scrutiny because they played previously on multiple teams at multiple levels or their skill levels were right on the borderline.

“It’s gone a lot better. I think it’s more analytical now, but there’s still judgement involved,” Shaffar said. “Now we have players ranked in a range they can play in, so going into winter, there will be fewer people we have to deal with.”

The Ringers

A challenge in restructuring the level system was making sure longstanding teams – particularly those comprised of friends – didn’t get broken up in the process.

“Guys want to play with their friends, and that’s important,” Shaffar says. “Obviously we had to be cognizant of what is fair. But we’re not in the business of dictating rosters. It’s more about protecting teams.”

The restructuring came as a result of complaints that certain teams had ringers – a well-known term describing elite players mingling with average Joes and Janes, giving that team a better chance to win. The three biggest complaints in the San Jose league, Shaffar said, were ice time, ringers and officiating.

“One and three are long-term solutions, but the second one is something we just had to be more clear-cut about,” he says. “It was affecting some of the satisfaction of the customers. So we made things a little more clear what level is what level.”

Amusingly, Shaffar notes, there is a consistent message from teams when it comes to ringers.

“The one thing I always find fascinating with adult hockey teams is nobody has a ringer but everyone else does,” he said with a laugh.