Was checking for myself after reading the thread and still nothing from STJ. Even smaller clubs that rely on parent coaches (like Potomac, Howard) have many of their coaches announced. Kind of getting weird at this point, a week from tryouts.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have any insider info on this? Did they tell the current families who the coaches are? We are trying out for CHA certainly but are between STJ and Reston for our other spot to try out. CHA and Reston have about half the coaches named but I can't find any info on STJ. My 10U tries out in a week and want to know beforehand.

I can't add to what's already been said about the STJ. No idea why no coaches have been named at this point.

I can speak to Reston where my kids play. They have parent coaches. For the coaches already named, their kid is a lock to make that team. For example, if their kid played on the top team the previous year as a minor or played on the second tier team and was one of the best players that will surely level up as a major. The teams w/o coaches named likely have kids that are somewhere in the mix for different teams.

Perhaps google some of the coaches from last year. Lots of Reston coaches progress year to year with their kids. It's rare to see a brand new coach, unless it's at 8U.

I have seen very knowledgeable (former Division I, youth AAA players) parents coach the lowest level, middle tiers, and top level teams at Reston. The forth tier 12U team did great in CBHL last year winning the regular season and playoffs with a quality coach. IMO Reston has a well thought out, fair, and ability based selection process for their tryouts. If your kid is a 10U, 12U, 14U player they will have four teams per age group. I'm not sure how many teams Cap Academy and STJ is offering. If your kid is dead set on playing travel next year I'd suggest trying out for at least one club with the most teams for selection.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have any insider info on this? Did they tell the current families who the coaches are? We are trying out for CHA certainly but are between STJ and Reston for our other spot to try out. CHA and Reston have about half the coaches named but I can't find any info on STJ. My 10U tries out in a week and want to know beforehand.

You can reach out to them, they’ll reply. But my guess is the 10u coaches will be the same as this year.

Not a guarantee but my kids play there and usually 1-2 head coaches change at each age group each season. Some have been around longer and are better bets to be back but you do get a lot that only do 1-2 years, prolly cause it's lots of work and time, more than they thought.

So I'd guess at 10U you might have one head coach changing

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have any insider info on this? Did they tell the current families who the coaches are? We are trying out for CHA certainly but are between STJ and Reston for our other spot to try out. CHA and Reston have about half the coaches named but I can't find any info on STJ. My 10U tries out in a week and want to know beforehand.

You can reach out to them, they’ll reply. But my guess is the 10u coaches will be the same as this year.

Anyone have any insider info on this? Did they tell the current families who the coaches are? We are trying out for CHA certainly but are between STJ and Reston for our other spot to try out. CHA and Reston have about half the coaches named but I can't find any info on STJ. My 10U tries out in a week and want to know beforehand.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it matter if they are a registered non profit or not, if the cost is essentially the same as other clubs nearby? Goodwill is a non profit and I think their CEO makes over a million a year.

This is a ridiculous discussion. We’re talking about tier ii hockey and you all are acting like their coaches should be former d1 players that are announced 6 months before tryouts.

Backstroms kid played at stj, carlsons kid plays at myha. There’s no difference. It’s tier ii hockey.

That's a really bad argument. Just because two things cost the same amount of money does not make them equivalent. The salaries for paid coaches don't appear out of thin air - they come directly out of what players pay in team fees. That means less money for practices, less money for games, less money for skill clinics. That's why so many people in the area don't send their kids for STJ - they want value for their money, not piss poor paid coaches.

You think you get “more for your money” than you do at other youth clubs? Now that’s a bizarre take. We live in Bethesda right near the beltway and my kids played at tce, myha, Reston and stj. They all had their pros and cons and their own individual cultures, but to say you get more value for money at those compared to stj does not line up with my experience. IMO it’s a net wash.

Find the right club for your kid …I’d let traffic play a huge factor (why we shifted from tce/myha to Reston/stj…they was actually easier get to for us), but to search for reasons to bash stj is makes me think something else is going on.

Go to any programs with public schedules for their teams and compare the number of hours of ice time between them and a comparable team at STJ. If their cost is nearly identical to STJ, then they more time on the ice than STJ. Full stop.

What? Every tier 2 club im aware of is 2 80 min on ice practices per week. I think tce might’ve had a free powerskating session every month, stj has weekly strength training. There are so many clubs here they are all in competition which each other for players, so cost and ice time is roughly the same.

So I’ll put this back on you, which clubs offer significantly more that leads you conclude stj is fleecing their families?

Not OP. My kids play at Potomac and we get regular powerskating sessions throughout the season. One of my son's friends from spring hockey said they had fewer practices since STJ often rents out their ice to tournaments on long weekends, ends the season earlier, has all of Thanksgiving week off, etc. I don't know if that's true, just their parent's complaints.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it matter if they are a registered non profit or not, if the cost is essentially the same as other clubs nearby? Goodwill is a non profit and I think their CEO makes over a million a year.

This is a ridiculous discussion. We’re talking about tier ii hockey and you all are acting like their coaches should be former d1 players that are announced 6 months before tryouts.

Backstroms kid played at stj, carlsons kid plays at myha. There’s no difference. It’s tier ii hockey.

That's a really bad argument. Just because two things cost the same amount of money does not make them equivalent. The salaries for paid coaches don't appear out of thin air - they come directly out of what players pay in team fees. That means less money for practices, less money for games, less money for skill clinics. That's why so many people in the area don't send their kids for STJ - they want value for their money, not piss poor paid coaches.

You think you get “more for your money” than you do at other youth clubs? Now that’s a bizarre take. We live in Bethesda right near the beltway and my kids played at tce, myha, Reston and stj. They all had their pros and cons and their own individual cultures, but to say you get more value for money at those compared to stj does not line up with my experience. IMO it’s a net wash.

Find the right club for your kid …I’d let traffic play a huge factor (why we shifted from tce/myha to Reston/stj…they was actually easier get to for us), but to search for reasons to bash stj is makes me think something else is going on.

Go to any programs with public schedules for their teams and compare the number of hours of ice time between them and a comparable team at STJ. If their cost is nearly identical to STJ, then they more time on the ice than STJ. Full stop.

What? Every tier 2 club im aware of is 2 80 min on ice practices per week. I think tce might’ve had a free powerskating session every month, stj has weekly strength training. There are so many clubs here they are all in competition which each other for players, so cost and ice time is roughly the same.

So I’ll put this back on you, which clubs offer significantly more that leads you conclude stj is fleecing their families?

Story time.

Two seasons ago I was one of the managers for my son's team. It was late in the season and we were playing St James. They only had one coach on the bench and this kid looked overwhelmed. USA Hockey had a way to search registered coaches on their website to see their credentials, so I decided to look the coach up from his name on the game sheet to see how much experience he had to be coaching a 12U game by himself.

Well folks, it turns out this was his second season coaching and he had missed the deadline to renew his coaching certification for the current year - all coaches much complete training by December 31st of each season. He shouldn't have even been allowed on the bench. So the parents on that team were paying for an overwhelmed, inexperienced and unlicensed coach to be the only coach on the bench - a violation of USA Hockey rules (technically they should have forfeited but we beat them by 5-6 goals so it didn't matter). Who knows if he had even done his background check and safe sport training.

I dunno if this was the exception or the rule over there but once I saw that I knew my son would never play there. Like, come on, getting your USA Hockey training is the bare minimum. You get paid to coach, this is your job. Having enough qualified people on the bench is a close second. You couldn't find a single other person to give this guy some help?

Anonymous wrote:

to search for reasons to bash stj is makes me think something else is going on.

This. No program is perfect abnd I think if parents did some digging they’d discover some coaching skeletons abd drama at other programs.

Interesting that the timing of OP’s post and calling out STJ happened to line up with the announcement of the TPH Academy at Loudoun Ice. Maybe just coincidence.