Emnet: USA U-20 Team

woow... digging thru usa players - no comments.. everybody just taking veterans from other countries.. woow...specially on league 2.. thats it what you can do, guys? grove up natives... woow

The All American Sticky Toads has never had a foreign player. Never will. Currently over half of my starting team are home grown players, come up through the Toad system. My goal is to become a powerhouse team, producing all star players on a regular basis. Getting there slowly.

As you probably know we have lost some power house teams the past few seasons. Takes time to replace the established teams from season 1. But we do have some teams beginning to produce good talent. It will take time.

Good luck with the U20 team. If you need any help scouting let me know.

If we want America to be an international force we need to develop our stadiums and facilities. I took a quick look at some of the older teams in div II and was surprised how under developed some were.

Build your stadiums and hr facilities to maximize income.

Build your training centers and sports academys to get better players and train them.

Don't buy foreign players. Your hard earned money just goes to support some foreign team.

It will take some time but we can return America to the top of the ppm hockey world!

There are 22 U.S. teams with a level 13.5+ sports academy. Level 13 and maybe 12 can produce some decent players, but they are more likely to be depth players, subject to weaker training and regeneration facilities, and generally much rarer.

There are only 10 level 15 sports academies in the United States. All of them have or will soon have level 15 training and regeneration facilities.

Of the 22 teams, a small handful have weak training and regeneration and would need to sell players for them to have a chance at being useful. Prospects that are not elite have a larger chance of selling cheaply and ending up on a foreign team without elite faclities.

1 of the 22 teams, the Detroit Red Wings, will fold in a week or so.

A lot of the top teams only keep (and have roster room for) the A caliber players or 4* prospects. A handful of teams have good facilities but don't train their players well (possibly motivated in some cases to keep salaries down or less interest in training younger players that won't be useful for a long time carefully in the absence of pro pack). Generally, 2:1:1 is an effective ratio with 75% to 100% shooting for forwards. I personally like U18 defensemen that trade off technique for other key attributes, but opinions might differ in this case. A B caliber player or 3 star player, especially pulled early in the season, with top facilities, can easily be NT caliber in hockey, at least for the two youth teams.

There are a few teams that are focusing on youth movements largely based around U.S. players. My team is one of them. I've had some bad luck with CL. Val Taylor could have been a star player on the NT stage, but he has 3 CL already at 22. Now, he'll be a depth player for the NT in the future at best. Ditto for Shackelford, though he might be a special case due to how he is trained (but even if he becomes a top starter, he won't be the star player he could have become). Workman also fell to 3 CL, though he isn't on the same level as the first two. Dowell (now my starter) could be the goalie of the future, but I'm not confident that his CL will stay at 4 for much longer.

Are we going to play any games or just forfeit them all?

Early CL drops are why I gave up any hope of purposely building my own youth up. It's also tough to get excited about youth when even 4.5 star players turn out to be not good enough to justify a roster spot.

nrgsports didn't set the lineup for the first game before leaving the team.

usalatvian was planning to set up the lineup last night but didn't know about the deadline, which would be 8:00 p.m. in the Pacific time zone. I should have reminded him about it. I noticed that I've been added as the assistant when I logged in today (I had volunteered for the role for this season). usalatvian will be aware of this deadline for the future, have the lineup generally set up, and have me available to double check it in the future.

I think a few players like Val Taylor and Harley Shackleford will still be good enough to be competitive in the United States if not on a higher level. They have good experience for their age too. They are 22 right now. In 4 seasons or so, they might be able to be competitive for the playoffs.

In addition, I've had incredibly good luck with prospects for the past 5-10 seasons, producing at least one or two elite players per season. Even if a few like Taylor turn out to be busts, I'll have others, Mario Peak in particular, that will have better luck.

Maybe I'll agree with you eventually, but since I have a still somewhat promising home grown team so close to its prime, I'll probably continue to follow through for now. That includes of course starting to build a war chest now.

please give me vote national elections u20 ..thank you

-Niko

Great game and congratulations on promotion to the top division. Good job.

Congrats on winning the division. On to the top division. Continued good luck!

Hey guys... just want to chime and say that Rochester is happy to finally be grooming some guys good enough for the national teams. Its been a long process!!

Very Nice. I am hoping to join that club sometime over the next 2 or 3 seasons.

Me too