Looking at the Youth Schedules, does anyone see a 5th place game?
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What part do you find sloppy?
Birth year is a better call than grad year. I think going with city over club is a great idea. After all this is the Olympic Development Program.
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I thought that region is defined by city of residence and NOT club. Club affiliation is a nice to have but doesnt determine region (or that is what I was told). Of course then a region that is short players may take on players from outside their region so the region thing is confusingā¦
also kinda fun to see the cities where the various clubs are pulling fromā¦
That the information deviates from prior years significantly and is less informative? Or thatās itās incompletely filled out with duplicated entries? Take your pick
The entire pipeline concept revolves around birth year. Birth month is actually relevant because Aug-Dec second year 12U use a smaller ball and never see 6v5 but shouldnāt be penalized (and yet invariably are). But HS grad year? Almost completely irrelevant.
Including club shines a spotlight on shady favoritism. City of residence is completely irrelevant.
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Great interview with Kocur on ODP. Very informative. Iām not sure why Greg hasnāt posted it.
New link:
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Has anyone done the work to add club to the ODP rosters and would care to share? First time in 10+ years club and birth year arenāt included with rosters. Any explanation? Maybe attempting to avoid dozens of parent complaints about retributive club politics in PSW (although Iām told itās actually worse on the girls side this year).
Also new this year - some squads w 13 field players vs standard 12. Good luck getting even playing time with 13 field players.
That 13 player number is sometimes due to a player being sick or injured but still being on the roster. Or it could truly be 13 players and a terrible decision. 
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which teams did you see with 13? I only checked the 8-9 teams i care about, and they are all 12 field players and two goaliesā¦.
Here are teams with 15 players (via ChatGPT)
CST Youth Blue
CST Youth Red
PAC Youth Blue (3 goalies)
SPA Blue Youth
CST Cadet Blue
NEZ Cadet Red
CST Development Blue
For Youth, why is PSW red the 4th seed in their bracket? And SEZ 3rd seed overall? Am I reading the schedule right or do the seedings seem off?
I read it the same way, seedings seem really off for Youth.
In Coach Kocurās interview with Greg Mescall, Coach mentioned that the top 8 teams play in their own bracket and the bottom 8+ teams play in their own bracket, with 4th in A playing 1st in C and 4th in B crossing with 1st in D.
The winner of the A/C B/D crossovers advance to the quarterfinals to play the 1st place teams in A and B, such that if the team placing 4th in A wins against the first place team in C, that team would play the 1st place from B (avoiding a rematch of the first game of A1 v A4).
2nd and third places in A and B cross as well.
Per Coach Kocur, this is designed to ensure competitiveness in the games.
[Ed: I note that the interview that was posted above in this thread and elsewhere in the Counter Attack thread has been removed, so I cannot post to the exact point in that video where the schedule/bracketing was discussed.]
| 12:00 | L25- SPA BLUE | 10 | L26- PSW | 13 | 7th-8th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:00 | W25- NEZ | 13 | W26- CEN | 12 | 5th-6th |
| 2:00 | L27- PAC Blue | 13 | L28- CST Red | 15 | 3rd-4th |
| 3:00 | W27- SPA Red | 15 | W28- PAC Red | 11 | 1st-2nd |
These were the final results of the top 8 medal and classification games from 2025. If the teams were seeded in their order of finish from last year (and other than A4 and B4, they were), SPA Blue would be A4 and PSW Red would be B4. If that were to carry to the last 2 seeds, youād end up with SPA Red v SPA Blue, which does not make much sense.
The teams appear to be seeded as follows:
A1
B1
B2
A2
A3
B3
B4*
A4*
C1
D1
D2
C2
etc
with extra spots for PSW and SWZ second teams at seeds 17 and 18.
Here are my predictions, often wrong, for the Youth tournament:
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SPA Red. Among the teams in my top 4, SPA Red has the oldest team, with 6 players from the Class of 2026, 4 from 2027, and 4 from 2028. SPA Red has 4 āBig 4ā recruits, one of the top 2 goalies in the tournament, one of the top 2 centers, and one of the top center defenders.
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PAC Red. PAC Red could finish anywhere from 2nd to 4th. They have the 2nd youngest team in my top 4, with 1 player from the Class of 2026, 8 from the Class of 2027, and 5 from the Class of 2028. PAC Red has one of the top 2 goalies from the Class of 2027, one of the top 2 or 3 goalies from the Class of 2028, and one of the top 2 or 3 field players from the Class of 2027. They probably have the fastest team in the tournament. PAC Red has two āBig 4ā recruits (one from the Class of 2027) and another 5 or 6 who may end up being āBig 4ā recruits.
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CST Red. CST Red could finish anywhere from 2nd to 4th. They have the 2nd oldest team in my top 4, with 5 players from the Class of 2026, 8 from the Class of 2027, 1 from the Class of 2028, and 1 from the Class of 2029. They have 2 āBig 4ā recruits.
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PSW Red. PSW Red could finish anywhere from 2nd to 4th. They have the youngest team in my top 4, with no players from the Class of 2026, 7 from the Class of 2027, 5 from the Class of 2028, and 2 from the Class of 2029. They have 1 āBig 4ā recruit (from the Class of 2027) and several others who will probably be āBig 4ā recruits in the future.
PSW Red just beat SPA Red, 13-10.
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The running game clock is one thing but a running shot clock has turned these first few games into some pretty hard water polo to watch.
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Agreed. Unfortunately not every venue had the ability to stop the shot clock separately from the game clock. They should have checked that prior to implementing the time changes.
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