MYHockey Rankings (MHR) is continuing its pledge to provide the youth hockey community with enhanced ways to view the rankings data. We have implemented several new enhancements to go along with our rankings update this week. Our latest changes will mainly affect the USA Bantam Major (06), 15O, 16U and 18U age levels. MHR has received hundreds of requests over the years to list only USA Hockey national-bound teams in the Tier 1 rankings. For those of you who requested this change, some even 3 or 4 times, Santa has come early! Is it too early for Christmas references??

Over the past few weeks we have worked with virtually every USA Hockey District to identify Tier 1 national-bound tournament teams. Moving forward, only Tier 1 national-bound teams will appear in the Tier 1 ranking categories. While not yet implemented, this change will also affect the Tier 2 ranking categories in the coming weeks. Teams that are not Tier 1 or Tier 2 national-bound will be placed in the "All" ranking category at their respective age level. We have also added Tier 1 District ranking categories at the USA Bantam Major (06), 15O, 16U and 18U age levels.

MYHockey has made these changes (and others) in order to a) make the rankings more relevant; b) take the subjectivity out of the classification process; c) enable consumers to compare all teams in a ranking, regardless of declared level of play(AAA, AA, A, B, etc), which varies greatly from area to area.

In addition, we wanted to remove the confusion and ambiguity surrounding the Tier 1 ranking categories and USA Hockey national-bound teams. MHR had strict Tier 1 requirements at the younger age levels (bantam minor and below), but the Tier 1 rankings had become a little bit of the wild wild west at the Midget age levels. It was time to implement new enhancements to provide the youth hockey community with a better viewing experience.

Note that for MHR's entire existence (almost two decades), we have always ranked all Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams in the same pool together for each age level and simply displayed the rankings of Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams separately, but mathematically, the teams are very comparable and rated on the same scale. Because some regions of the country have decided to regulate Tier 1 and keep very high standards while other regions have let pretty much any club field Tier 1 teams, we have felt that it is important to allow consumers to see how teams compare without the artifical delineation between Tier 1 and Tier 2 except when the data represents the teams that are eligible for USA Hockey National Championships.

Major Updates (18U, 16U, 150, 14U)
1. Only USA Hockey/District approved national bound tier 1 teams will be eligible for MHR's Tier 1 ranking category at each respective age level
2. National bound tier 1 teams will also appear in their district ranking category at each respective age level
3. All other non-tier 1 national bound teams will be placed in the "All" ranking category at their respective age level

If you are still confused (we all know who you are), below is an additional crash course for dummies…

- USA 18U All = ALL eligible USA 18U teams in the system
- USA 18U Tier 1 Tournament Bound = Only 18U Tier 1 national-bound teams
- USA 18U Tier 2 = No updates have been implemented yet. In the future, will only include 18U Tier 2 national-bound teams.

- USA 16U/15U All = ALL eligible USA 15U and 16U teams in the system
- USA 16U Tier 1 Tournament Bound = Only 16U Tier 1 national-bound teams
- USA 15O Tier 1 Tournament Bound = Only 15O Tier 1 national-bound teams
- USA 16U Tier 2 = No updates have been implemented yet. In the future, will only include 16U Tier 2 national-bound teams.

- USA 06 All = ALL eligible USA 06 teams in the system
- USA 06 Tier 1 Tournament Bound = Only 06 Tier 1 national-bound teams
- USA 06 Tier 2 = No updates have been implemented yet. In the future, will only include 06 Tier 2 national-bound teams.

*District Rankings only include Tier 1 national-bound teams.

There were two USA Hockey districts that were unresponsive to our inquiries regarding Tier 1 national-bound teams in their area. We were able to gather enough information based on state websites and our general knowledge of youth hockey after 18 years in the business. However if you feel there is an error in our Tier 1 rankings data, please reach out to director@myhockeyrankings.com with additional concerns.

We appreciate the support regarding our decision and are truly excited that so many kids are back on the ice playing hockey during these trying times! Stay safe and remember to follow the precautions put in place to allow us to keep playing hockey!