San Jose Jr Sharks

The San Jose Jr. Sharks a proud to announce the restructuring of the girl's program. With the new direction, we hope to give more girls a place to play until they graduate high school. Here is the state of our girls program:

Strong Foundation:

The San Jose Jr Sharks Girls Program finished the 2015-16 season strong with our 16U AAA (Tier I) and 14U AA (Tier II) teams earning their way to the Pacific District Championship games and each completing their respective seasons as runner-ups in the Pacific District.We looking forward to using this momentum to continue to build on our current foundation of players for the 2016-17 season. Looking into our Club’s future, we are continually striving to provide competitive Tier I and Tier II teams, as well as providing house teams/non-travel teams for our players who want to continue to develop and enjoy the great game of hockey.

Challenges:

One of the major challenges we face at the 19U age division year after year is the age of our high school seniors. Many students are 17 years old as they enter their senior year, while the majority of 18-19 year olds leave the area to attend college. This makes supporting a traditional 19U very difficult. Historically many players that have had aspirations of playing college hockey at this age level are forced to move and/or play for out of town teams. Our goal for the upcoming season is to eliminate these challenges.

Plan Moving Forward:

After carefully reviewing our numbers at the older age groups for the upcoming 2016-17 season, we have developed a new structure for our program which will allow us to retain more players and will ultimately help us build on our current foundation. The following will explain our new structure:

Jr Sharks Girls 19U High School Team:

The Jr Sharks vision moving forward is to restructure our program by introducing a 19U high school team. This will be introduced for the upcoming 2016-17 season. Because USA Hockey does not have a designated 17U age classification, the team will declare as a 19U AA team to compete for the Pacific District Championships / USA Hockey National Championships. The 19U High School team will play in all of the major tournaments around the US and Canada. Each of these tournaments supports a 17U division, which is a designated age classification in Hockey Canada. This will enable all of our competitive, high school aged girls a chance to be seen by college coaches and provide many of them an additional year to compete in tournaments as a Jr Shark. The team will also be competing in the NORCAL league during the season.

Jr Sharks Girls 16U AAA (Tier I)/16U AA (Tier II) Team:

In addition to a 19U High School  team, we will also field a 16U AAA/AA team based on our robust pipeline of players who are either currently in the 16U age classification or entering the 16U age classification going into the 2016-17 season. The 16U AAA/AA team will be competing in the same tournaments as the 17U AAA team throughout the season. The 16U AAA/AA team will be vital for the future of the Jr Shark Girls Program. The Coaching staff for the 17U AAA team and the 16U AAA/AA team will be the same for the 2016-17 season. Their goal is to give every player, that is in pursuit of playing college hockey, the foundation and opportunity to be seen by college coaches and scouts at all of the major tournaments around the US and Canada. The team will be competing for the Pacific District Championships / USA Hockey National Championships and in the NORCAL league during the season.

Jr Sharks Girls High School Hockey Team:

Lastly, The San Jose Jr Sharks Girls will also field a High School Girls team that is open to all girls in high school. The Jr Sharks Girls High School Hockey Team will be competing in the Jr Sharks High School Hockey League and will provide an opportunity for our girls to continue to develop and play without the burden of the extra cost and commitment level of the Tier I and Tier II classifications. This team will offer a fun and competitive atmosphere, while still giving our players the time they need to stay focused on school and other extracurricular activities.

Tryouts:

The tryouts for all three teams will be one combined tryout where each player will be fairly evaluated by a panel of coaches and each team will be selected based on those evaluations.

The Jr. Sharks are committed to the development and growth of the Jr. Sharks girls program. We expect these changes to help promote, develop and give more girls in the Bay Area a place to play competitive hockey, close to home.

Sincerely,

Curtis Brown

Director of the Jr. Sharks