What if you made a product few people wanted to buy - unless they were strong-armed into doing so?
That's pretty much the situation this year in the heartland of minor hockey as the London Junior Knights competitive minor hockey organization and the city's various neighbourhood hockey associations wrestle with how to best organize the city's more skilled kids.
The Junior Knights run the city's elite AAA program, drawing kids from across the city and doing a fine job
But they also run the second-tier AA program fielding teams to compete in the same league as A teams from London's neighbourhood associations.
It's at the AA-A league level where trouble lurks and where the Junior Knights, using the power given them by the governing Minor Hockey Alliance of Ontario, tip the balance by having first dibs on all AA-A players. The object of the exercise is to make sure the Junior Knights teams win.
But many, many of the city's hockey families want no part of the Junior Knights teams for a myriad of reasons from cost (Junior Knights teams tend to spend more on extra tournaments and travel) to playing with friends to avoiding certain coaches.
The situation came to a dramatic head last week when the North London Nationals midget team was stopped from playing a league game against the Junior Knights.
And the Junior Knights scooping of players to create not one but two midget teams under its brand led to the collapse of the South Southeast Bandits A team.
Solutions and compromise are possible. Maybe trying out for the Junior Knights needs to be voluntary. Maybe the Junior Knights should focus only on elite AAA players.
Sports columnist Morris Dalla Costa writes for a second time on the situation in today's London Free Press. You can find his excellent column here http://www.lfpress.com/sports/columnists/morris_dalla_costa/2010/10/17/15724381.html
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