USA Hockey Adult Hockey

For Larry Abbott, a player on two NCAA championship teams at Boston University and a former member of the coaching staff at Melrose (Mass.) High School, evaluating an adult hockey player and placing him or her in the appropriate league generally isn't a problem.

"I do most of it myself just by watching the skaters," says Abbott, who now owns HockeyTown in Saugus, Mass., a rink that hosts several adult leagues. "[New players] can tell me anything, but if I see them skate once, I can tell you where they belong."

It works well enough for Abbott's purposes—HockeyTown tends to see far more fully formed teams than individual players, and runs mostly open leagues—but it's not ideal in all situations. For one thing, not everyone running a league has Abbott's experienced eye with which to evaluate players. More important, however, is that for leagues that get a high volume of individual players, individual on-ice evaluations aren't feasible (due to time concerns, if nothing else). But to build a fair and fun environment for all players and achieve competitive balance, some kind of initial evaluation system is critical. That way inexperienced players don't find themselves out of their depth, and veterans of junior or collegiate play don't ruin the experience by running up scores on less skilled opposition.

"The one thing you hear from players, even when they lose, is 'As long as it's a close game,'" says Rich Hansen, adult hockey program coordinator with USA Hockey. "They don't want to be going out there and getting killed."

It's not an easy problem to fix, but USA Hockey's adult hockey program has found a promising solution with its adult player rating system. By assigning players scores based on their age, years of recreational hockey play, and highest level of competitive hockey, adult leagues across the country are able to place players in appropriate leagues right out of the gate, cutting down on administrative headaches and creating a fun, competitive atmosphere for all.

"It makes a huge difference as far as how we scale out our tournaments," explains Brandon Koontz, director of the Minnesota Wild Adult Hockey League. "We're always doing our best to try to scale and make the most competitive brackets we can."

In theory, making sure players are at the right level based on age and experience shouldn't be a major issue, but as Koontz found—he plays in the league while also running it—that isn't always the case.

In the past, Koontz notes, teams or leagues would simply rely on current players to vouch for new ones. "We're just patting each other on the back,” he says. “Hey, I'm going to take your word for it.” That didn't always work out, however, as using the honor system to select an appropriate league didn't always yield the best results. The introduction of a rating structure from USA Hockey, however, has made a real difference.

"We put rules into place that went off of the ratings," Koontz explains. For instance, our D-level league [has] no college experience, definitely, and it's supposed to be no high school experience. It's hard to find high school records on some guys, but anytime someone produces documentation—whether it's high school, college, junior, whatever—and they're playing in that league, we remove them or we tell the team they have to move up. If it's early enough in the season, we have room where we can move them up into a different league. We definitely follow through with our rankings."

Of course, there's no reason why leagues can't take an extra step or two in rating players, and in fact, USA Hockey recommends on-ice tryouts. The Minnesota-based Adult Hockey Association, one of the largest adult hockey leagues in the country, runs its players through an on-ice evaluation in addition to the online rating system players use when registering with USA Hockey.

"Our evaluation system is four drills," program director Pete Morrow explains. "All with the puck, and then we time them in each drill, and there's a formula that calculates the score.” Then, after the drill, Morrow has the players participate in a scrimmage and matches up the numbers to make sure the ratings make sense.

"Not all leagues go into it in that depth," notes Hansen. "What usually happens is that some leagues do a draft. You get six of the captains and they draft players every season, so guys start to know who are the better players and who to pick, and that's been successful. Then, you have cases where the league operator is managing the league, and if you have one team that just destroyed the league, they'll go through and move the players themselves.”

In any event, whether moving players around or matching them up, it's helpful to have guidelines for representing players' capabilities, which is what makes the player rating system so valuable. "It's pretty accurate," Hansen notes, "Obviously, age comes into play and skill level, but it's pretty accurate when it comes to making a league competitive."

In addition, the system is particularly helpful for recreational players coming back to hockey after years or even decades. While stepping back out onto the ice for the first time since grade school - or ever- can be intimidating, the knowledge that the level of competition won't be too hard to handle can be reassuring. The online player rating system can help an adult player find an appropriate league for his or her skill and experience level, often without the stress that an on-ice tryout might put on an inexperienced player.

"Almost half of the 2,000-plus participants in our league are [inexperienced]," Koontz says. "There's a lot of guys that never played high school hockey, and stopped before that and are back now playing.”

For those players, USA Hockey's online player rating system means a smooth transition back onto the ice. For others, the system means less frustration caused by players who play below their skill level to feel like superstars. For all of USA Hockey's adult players, the player rating system means a fair, competitive, and fun night at the rink.