I can't speak to this tournament specially, but I will say this: almost all tournaments have ranking requirements to play, so a team cannot play down if they have a higher ranking than allowed by that division. The Ukraine team is also a mixed team of 11 and 12 year olds, so it's unlikely they'd be competitive in a true peewee major AAA division. I can't speak to whether they should be in AA, elite, or AAA, but the tournament likely controls that better than any spectator realizes.

No, it’s a bitter hockey dad. I’ve been to 100’s of youth hockey tournaments and there is a group of dads that do nothing but complain about team placement. You can spot these pansy asses a mile away. It’s sad, I feel bad for their kids.

The Ukraine team won their first game 3 - 1. And the last goal was an empty net goal. The game was zero - zero until the third period when Boston took the lead early. Ukraine score two late goals, then the empty netter to secure the win.

A game like this is exactly what you are looking for in one of these tournaments. If they were playing two leagues down it would have been 10 - 0. Another game in the same division with different teams was 9 - 0. Why isn’t daddy complaining about that? I assume the team that got smacked down is placed too high.

Overall take anything you hear from a nutter hockey dad with a grain of salt.

I’m not sure for the status of this team but I do know that teams can mix up their teams with better players from their rink. I know this has happened with the first team we played (still won though).