Anonymous wrote:One thing to keep in mind is that well-established teams, and by that I mean teams that have had the same players or a majority of the same playing year after year, is that playing time will be determined by relationships, parent pecking order, and other types of quasi-nepotism. DO NOT ASSUME THAT THE MOST SKILLED AND OTHERWISE BEST PLAYERS WILL PLAY THE MOST. I'm really talking about U13 and up. If the head coach is a parent, his daughter isn't coming out of the game. Then you can safely assume that the children of the two volunteer-parent assistant coaches will also receive full PT as will the team mom's kid. Then the friends of the head coach's daughter will be on the field a ton, too. IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT THESE ATHLETES MAY PERFORM POORLY AND CAUSE THE TEAM TO LOSE. And you don't want to know what kind of blazing dumpster fire breaks out when it's time for a club like Stars to push kids to D1 programs. The kids with connections are offered directly to programs. They may be the most talented D1 prospects, but they might not. In some cases the best talents won't get a look and their parents will be told "don't get in the way of our recruiting at School X."

I'm sorry, but sports aren't about winning. They're about parents banding together to wield power.