Photo Credit: Honeybaked Hockey Club

Traditionally, MYHockey Rankings (MHR) has not provided ratings for girls teams at the 10U age level. There were a few different reasons for this. MHR has continued to monitor the situation and search for possible solutions.

We think we finally may have stumbled upon an answer.

The biggest hurdle to releasing a dedicated 10U girls ranking category always has been, and still is, a lack of interplay. There simply aren’t enough games on an annual basis between 10U girls teams from different geographic regions to produce accurate 10U girls-only ratings.

Our research indicated that the interplay situation at the 10U girls age level is unlikely to change in the near future. A majority of USA 10U girls teams don’t need to travel across the country to find competitive games. And in addition to playing other local girls teams, a majority of 10U girls teams prefer to take advantage of opportunities to compete against boys squirt teams in their local areas. 

The benefits of playing local boys' squirt teams are numerous: less travel, lower costs and . competitive opponents. Familiarity with local coaches, teams, clubs and rinks also makes it easy for teams to schedule these contests. 

That got us wondering if it might be possible to take advantage of the interplay between boys squirt teams and 10U girls teams to produce a representative 10U girls rating. Would including mixed-gender game results in the rating math calculation process at the squirt age level allow us to develop accurate 10U girls ratings, and would those ratings provide an accurate comparison between a 10U girls team and a squirt boys team?

We decided to test our new theory last season. 

We added around 50 USA 10U girls teams, some that regularly played against boys squirt teams and others that did not. For the first time in MHR’s 20-year history, we experimented with placing boys teams and girls teams together in the same ranking category at the squirt age level and allowing game results between boys squirt teams and 10U girls teams to be included in the rating math calculation process. 

After a successful pilot run last season, MHR is excited to announce we will cacultate ratings for USA 10U girls' teams! In addition, have added a new USA 10U Girls ranking category for the 2022-23 season. The new USA 10U Girls ranking category will mirror the recent changes implemented at the boys squirt age level. 

MHR’s administrative team still is in the process of building out our 10U Girls team listings and division/league listings. Please contact us if you don’t see your 10U girls team or division/league listed and would like it to be added, .

A few points of clarification:

• This change impacts USA 10U girls teams only. The change does not impact Canadian U11 girls teams. 
• At the squirt/10U age level, mixed-gender game results will be included in the rating math calculation process. Mixed-gender game results at the squirt/10U age level will not be “grayed out” on the rating math tab like they are at other age levels.
• While USA 10U girls teams are now placed in a dedicated ranking category, boys squirt team ratings and girls 10U team ratings are directly comparable. Thus, a boys squirt team with a rating of 75.00 is equivalent to a 10U girls team with a rating of 75.00.