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Guest wrote: ↑Mon Mar 17, 2025 3:00 pm
A lot of unanswered questions with the Burlington team. Where are they practicing and at what time? 2 hour weekday practices. Where are they getting the ice? Early morning practices or late night? What is the cost?
Burlington along with Gateway and Harry Howell
I'm assuming with multiple arenas, practices will be in the evening where ever they can get ice.
Not mentioning of costs in their brochure. I've seen other ORHL teams list fees at $2800.
I know they say there will be a lot of ice, but will the competition be good enough to really develop?
Have the coaches played high level hockey?
Interesting
It looks like the coaches have all played high level hockey but that alone doesn't make them a good coach.
I've seen great coaches who didn't play as a kid and crappy coaches who played AAA and above.
Being a good coach has nothing to do with how good of a player you are.
Guest wrote: ↑Mon Mar 17, 2025 1:46 am
Reach out to some teams near you and go for a skate. We did this and were very impressed with the training and quality of the hockey. My player thought the quality was on par with some of the AA states she attended in the GTHL. I hear you on the politics this year. The movement rules have made it difficult to get information on spots for some teams who revert to OHL key messages instead. So frustrating.
No team is even close to GTHL AA level, not even GTHL A level. Not even close! This is Select level pond hockey.
I’ve had kids in both AA and A levels and they played one year of ORHL also. If you find the right team it can be a fun experience but it’s Select level hockey with a lot of parent coaches who have been pushed out of conventional leagues due to poor attitudes. Find the right group and you can have a good experience.
It should be a lot cheaper than OHF leagues so that’s a bonus. $1,800 per season or so and we had fun
$1800...thats lucky! in Niagara its around $6000. And most teams are filled with kids who got cut from Single A - and then a few AA kids. Tryouts are always "a private tryout" - so the kids and their parents cant see how weak the rest of the team will be. So I guess it depends where you are from.
Guest wrote: ↑Mon Mar 17, 2025 1:46 am
Reach out to some teams near you and go for a skate. We did this and were very impressed with the training and quality of the hockey. My player thought the quality was on par with some of the AA states she attended in the GTHL. I hear you on the politics this year. The movement rules have made it difficult to get information on spots for some teams who revert to OHL key messages instead. So frustrating.
No team is even close to GTHL AA level, not even GTHL A level. Not even close! This is Select level pond hockey.
I’ve had kids in both AA and A levels and they played one year of ORHL also. If you find the right team it can be a fun experience but it’s Select level hockey with a lot of parent coaches who have been pushed out of conventional leagues due to poor attitudes. Find the right group and you can have a good experience.
It should be a lot cheaper than OHF leagues so that’s a bonus. $1,800 per season or so and we had fun
$1800...thats lucky! in Niagara its around $6000. And most teams are filled with kids who got cut from Single A - and then a few AA kids. Tryouts are always "a private tryout" - so the kids and their parents cant see how weak the rest of the team will be. So I guess it depends where you are from.
If somebody is paying $6000 for the ORHL thats absolutely INSANE....so is the "private tryout"
Never heard of that before but ya huge red flags
Guest wrote: ↑Mon Mar 17, 2025 1:46 am
Reach out to some teams near you and go for a skate. We did this and were very impressed with the training and quality of the hockey. My player thought the quality was on par with some of the AA states she attended in the GTHL. I hear you on the politics this year. The movement rules have made it difficult to get information on spots for some teams who revert to OHL key messages instead. So frustrating.
No team is even close to GTHL AA level, not even GTHL A level. Not even close! This is Select level pond hockey.
I’ve had kids in both AA and A levels and they played one year of ORHL also. If you find the right team it can be a fun experience but it’s Select level hockey with a lot of parent coaches who have been pushed out of conventional leagues due to poor attitudes. Find the right group and you can have a good experience.
It should be a lot cheaper than OHF leagues so that’s a bonus. $1,800 per season or so and we had fun
$1800...thats lucky! in Niagara its around $6000. And most teams are filled with kids who got cut from Single A - and then a few AA kids. Tryouts are always "a private tryout" - so the kids and their parents cant see how weak the rest of the team will be. So I guess it depends where you are from.
If somebody is paying $6000 for the ORHL thats absolutely INSANE....so is the "private tryout"
Never heard of that before but ya huge red flags
What level did the coach play is absurd, irrelevant and a dumb mindset. Some great hockey players are terrible coaches and some great coaches never played at a high level. Absurd.
The ORHL has a mixed bag of talent, your top end could be AA/A level players and your bottom end 100% HL. There is slim pickings at some tryouts so most teams are cobbled together. With that said, there are better programs / teams /associations in the ORHL than others, do your research.
Good associations who value players and parents will stick around. So don't buy into the narrative that they're cast aways or problem kids.
It's a good experience, it's growing as an independent option. I would likely suggests open borders make it tougher for them now. The Oxford team offering is the model to beat there.
From my experience, it's highly dependent on the age group your child is playing in. At the lower age groups most teams group teams by 2 year increments (i.e. 2014/2015), and my son was on the lower end of the age group so he ended up playing with some older kids and the hockey was decent. Having said that, our team had a wide variance in skill level between the best players and the weakest, with the weakest players being 'select' quality at best.
The majority of our team also plays in OHF and uses ORHL for extra reps/games. On my son's AA team he is a middle-of-the-pack player but on his ORHL team he's by far the best and scores a ton - it's great for his confidence. Cost was approx. $1800 for the season with 2 practices per week at decent times, along with multiple showcases and tournaments. We have had a positive experience with the quality of coaching, parent groups, and the kids seem to be having lots of fun. Just my 2 cents.
Guest wrote: ↑Wed Mar 19, 2025 9:47 am
From my experience, it's highly dependent on the age group your child is playing in. At the lower age groups most teams group teams by 2 year increments (i.e. 2014/2015), and my son was on the lower end of the age group so he ended up playing with some older kids and the hockey was decent. Having said that, our team had a wide variance in skill level between the best players and the weakest, with the weakest players being 'select' quality at best.
The majority of our team also plays in OHF and uses ORHL for extra reps/games. On my son's AA team he is a middle-of-the-pack player but on his ORHL team he's by far the best and scores a ton - it's great for his confidence. Cost was approx. $1800 for the season with 2 practices per week at decent times, along with multiple showcases and tournaments. We have had a positive experience with the quality of coaching, parent groups, and the kids seem to be having lots of fun. Just my 2 cents.
Guest wrote: ↑Wed Mar 19, 2025 9:47 am
From my experience, it's highly dependent on the age group your child is playing in. At the lower age groups most teams group teams by 2 year increments (i.e. 2014/2015), and my son was on the lower end of the age group so he ended up playing with some older kids and the hockey was decent. Having said that, our team had a wide variance in skill level between the best players and the weakest, with the weakest players being 'select' quality at best.
The majority of our team also plays in OHF and uses ORHL for extra reps/games. On my son's AA team he is a middle-of-the-pack player but on his ORHL team he's by far the best and scores a ton - it's great for his confidence. Cost was approx. $1800 for the season with 2 practices per week at decent times, along with multiple showcases and tournaments. We have had a positive experience with the quality of coaching, parent groups, and the kids seem to be having lots of fun. Just my 2 cents.
Good assessment, similar to our experience.
Sounds like the consensus is that it’s A level hockey or, at best low end AA hockey on the better teams, with the weakest players being houseleague caliber.
It is 100% a mixed bag of talent when it comes to players. The talent group all depends on age group as well. Because the league plays for the majority of teams with dual age groups U10/U11 - U12/U13 and so forth you can land on teams that will try to roster mainly senior players. Some teams will roster what they have to choose from, it varies from one organization to another.
The top teams will roster more AA/A players and some will have the odd AAA caliber player, very rare though. Bottom teams will have very few AA players and more of A and Select players.
For the most part you will have 1-4 teams fighting for first in the division while the others battle it out for all the other spots. Tournaments end up the same situation except for the tournaments where they will split the division into two groups, the top teams only play each other and the bottom teams only play each other so even if you happen to be on a bottom team you can still have a good outing at those tournaments.
Like any hockey league there are politics involved everywhere. We are part of the U15 age group but found out this year that they are taking hitting out of the league. Apparently this was voted on but the consensus around the league and word of mouth from other teams is that the owner of the ORHL (who also coaches a team) is trying to protect his child and ignored the actual results of the vote. This change in direction from hitting has caused many of the older age groups to leave and head to the NAPHL. The owner of the ORHL might have ruined what he had going as borders opening up would have taken players away from him, and now with taking hitting out even more are set to leave.
The ORHL owner is the main issue with the league, it's more of a "my way and that's the way it is" kind of mentality. He will listen to your issues with the league but has no intention of doing anything to rectify situations. Because pretty much all of the teams and age groups end up at the same tournaments together or at the same hotels you start to run into the same people and get to know them well. When we talked to a younger age group about the ORHL owner coaching a team we couldn't believe what we were hearing so when we had time between our games we would stay to watch the owners team play, and it was very apparent that things would fall heavily in their favor when ever they could, it could have been a one off situation but the referees (who are basically the same for all tournaments) are chatting it up with the owner, conversing with the owners teams kids in their dressing room, having small talk on the ice, not listening to opposing teams complaints during games, phantom or incredibly weak calls being made in game, it was just an overall horrible look for the ORHL.
That's my essay, again we enjoy the ORHL, we have a great parent group, I feel my son is where he is happy and is having fun, we aren't here thinking he's being drafted or should he be in AAA hockey, he is a lower tier AA higher tier A player. We have asked him, and we leave the choice up to him what he wants to do, he chooses to stay. With us now headed to the NAPHL who knows it might be a whole new story for us, we will see.
