Full disclosure: I favour a single AAA system in Sudbury (one team across all age groups) – and have for some time (for reasons which I will outline below).

And while it might appear at various times during my one thousand word+ commentary that I may be biased towards the Nickel City Hockey Association (NCHA) and even occasionally the Sudbury Minor Hockey Association (SMHA), I would like to think that I am viewing this entire debate as objectively as possible.

Though I have now lived for more than twenty years in Valley East (NCHA territory), I was born and raised in New Sudbury, had a brother who played AAA hockey within the SMHA, had a father who coached in that same bracket – all while I sat on the SMHA Board of Directors while I was still in my teens, attending Laurentian University (yep – many, many years ago).

All of which is to say that I do think I bring a great deal of perspective to this discussion.

If you have not ventured off to a local arena in the past few weeks, the gist of the current uproar is that following a season in which the NCHA and SMHA agreed to partner on a project to offer a single AAA team at the U12/U13/U14/U15/16/U18 divisions, that spirit of collaboration had subsided as plans are being made for the 2023-2024 season.

Following a poll canvassing their parents, the NCHA opted to request to extend the existing agreement, asking for one team across the board. Citing a concern over the lack of league / game play (which is a valid concern), the SMHA has effectively reinstated the their AAA cards at U12, U13 and U14 (cards for which they were granted a year leave of absence by the NOHA), with Nickel City doing the same at U15 – basically leaving us with two teams at every age grouping of what used to be the peewee and bantam brackets.

Understandably, the SMHA decision caused a local uproar, largely with NCHA parents, but also with a solid group of SMHA parents as well.

That said, before those in district two (NCHA region) mount their podium, claiming the moral high ground in this saga, they should be reminded that: a) the only reason this debate is currently being waged is because of the very creation of the NCHA (albeit for good reasons) in 2008 – prior to that, there was one local AAA team at all ages up to major bantam, governed by the SMHA; and b) since 2008, at various times, the NCHA and the SMHA have both spent time as the association holding out for a second team – it’s not like it’s always been the SMHA in this corner and the NCHA in the other.

Now, let’s move on to the debate at hand.

For starters, let’s tackle the “lack of games / league” argument. To be clear, while a two-team league is clearly a no-go from a Hockey Canada standpoint (thereby jeopardizing the ability of the NOHA to field a team in all-Ontario playdowns), a three-team northern loop which includes a pair of teams in Sudbury does little to deal with a very real lack of good, solid competition for kids looking to develop in hockey.

For some reason, the option of suggesting that boys AAA hockey must look south in order to firm up the future path of the sport at the youth level in the north is viewed as being somewhat sacrilegious; this despite the fact that competitive soccer, basketball, volleyball, football and even girls hockey follow this model.

Yes, there is a need to find these kids a good, solid competitive place to play. No, a three-team northern loop is not much better an option than having two teams trying to work out a series of tournaments and exhibition games to fill their schedule.

And while it would be nice if the local group of AAA talent could be split into two equally-talented teams, such has almost never been the case – typically leaving one team to sit in the bottom ten of their provincial rankings, consistently going either 0-4-0 or 0-3-1 in tournament play and basically stepping on the ice already three or four goals down to their opposition, based on the on-paper talent of the respective teams alone.

Let’s be clear – this is not all about winning. There is a huge difference between being able to step on the ice knowing that you at least have a chance of winning versus building a system where a “winning at all costs” mentality exists.

Under the current single AAA system, the U12/U13/U14 teams just returned from tournament play this past weekend sporting records of 2-2-0, 3-1-0 and 1-2-1 in round robin play, with the U13 team contesting four straight one goal games a few weeks earlier at the International Silver Stick – winning twice and losing twice.

I would be absolutely shocked if coaches and parents alike of all those involved would not concede that despite not walking away as tournament champions for any of the above-noted events, that the competition was not viewed as being helpful, positive and downright developmental for their youngsters.

Over the years, one of the biggest arguments in favour of two AAA teams lies in the notion that by exposing a larger base of kids to AAA hockey, you automatically end up producing a larger number of more talented players in the end. In and of itself, that argument is not flawed - though when matched against the counter arguments in this particular case, it no longer matches up well at all.

For as much as some folks might argue with me that two local AAA teams per year of birth can be competitive provincially, they also concede that the idea of then making it three AAA teams across the board to expose even more kids to higher level of hockey is simply a case of Randy being asinine. “Clearly, those teams will be far too watered down,” they suggest.

Talk about making my case without making my case.

In the end, we all agree that there is clearly a point where sub-dividing the local groups does nothing to allow them to remain competitive with even the mid-pack of provincial opponents. Our only sticking point is whether this occurs with two teams or three AAA hockey teams in Sudbury.

So is this just a case of the local hockey system not operating efficiently enough to hold its own against municipalities that should provide a great point of reference in Ontario?

While I would concede that the local system is not perfect – never will be – the notion that two teams representing a city of 166,004 can somehow split their top talent in two and believe that these teams will compete evenly against Kingston (132,485), London (422,324), Oakville (213,759) and Hamilton (569,363) (where the Hamilton Huskies and Hamilton Jr Bulldogs just agreed to merge and partner for the next three years) is ludicrous.

Somehow, I ran out of time to add in the argument that a single AAA team actually enhances the entire system below it, allowing local AA and A teams to be that much more competitive as well. Go figure.

Sidenote: since the SMHA decision was made public, a great many discussions have been held – there are options too numerous to mention being thrown about, all of which suggests that this debate and the end result is not about to become crystal clear any time soon - so Stay Tuned!