Yes, you read the headline correctly!

In light of our big announcement last week at the Project Play Summit, hosted by the Aspen Institute, MYHockey Rankings is proud to announce we will be making major changes to the 10U/U11 ranking next season. MYHockey Rankings, with the support and backing of USA Hockey, will stop the practice of ranking 10U/U11 youth hockey teams on our platform.

MYHockey Rankings will continue to collect game scores and calculate performance ratings for 10U/U11 teams. Teams in this age group will even continue to be listed in descending order of rating. However, we are going to discontinue the practice of assigning a numerical ranking to 10U/U11 teams in the United States and Canada.

MYHockey Rankings, in coordination with USA Hockey, will also be making a major push next season to better educate our newest users on how our rating system works. We will be allocating a significant amount of resources toward implementing new features and educating tournament and league administrators, coaches, and parents on how to properly use the performance-rating information as a positive tool to improve youth hockey.

MYHockey Rankings will begin rolling out new educational material for the youth hockey community this summer. This will include in-depth featured articles, FAQs, instructional videos, coaching resources, seminars and more.

Now let's address the "why"...

Why, in our 20th season, are we removing the ranking aspect at the 10U/U11 age level?

The answer is simple: It's the best thing for the kids and the best thing for youth hockey.

It became abundantly clear that was the case during our conversations with Tom Farrey, a former ESPN reporter and the current Executive Director of the Sports & Society Program at the Aspen Institute. Once Ken Martel and other leaders at USA Hockey agreed and supported the change, it was a no-brainer for MYHockey Rankings.

Not only is it the best thing for the kids and youth hockey, but it also is the best thing for coaches and parents. It takes our newest users back to the roots of why MYHockey Rankings was created in the first place; the rankings were intended to be used as a tool to help teams schedule appropriate levels of competition.

Our goal is to educate coaches, managers and parents on how to appropriately use rating data to help them schedule teams that provide an appropriate level of competition, foster player development, reduce pressure on young players and increase the overall fun factor of the sport.

Unfortunately, the travel youth sports culture in our country has evolved into a money-making, high pressure, and at times downright ruthless environment. Youth sports have become a rat race to the top amongst parents, coaches and clubs. There is this “If you aren’t keeping up with the Joneses, do you even love your kid?” mentality out there.

The youth hockey community isn’t immune from these issues. And let’s be honest, rankings are a contributing factor when they’re used in a negative and exclusionary manner instead of as a coaching tool and scheduling resource.

Rather than contributing to the problem, we want MYHockey Rankings’ platform to be part of the solution. 

It’s going to take the whole youth hockey community to make a difference. Let’s all do our part to improve the sport we love for the next generation of youth hockey players!