Classifying Tournament Teams    Everyone wants tournaments to be fair, being comprised of the same types of teams, with similar skill levels. McAA has expanded the team description help clarify the skill level of teams participating in tournaments.

Team Types
Tournament managers specify the types of teams that will take part in their tournament:

Single Community Teams
Multiple Community Teams
Commercial Organization / Travel Teams

Community Teams are made up of players from non-profit organizations of specific municipalities – townships, boroughs, etc. ALL players on a Single Community Team must come from ONLY ONE community. Multiple Community Teams can have players from more than one township, borough, etc.

Single vs Multiple Community designation can be defined in terms of school attendance. The difference can be determined by this question: When the team members are old enough to be enrolled in their local public high school, would ALL of the players on the team go to the same high school? If the answer is yes, the team is a Single Community team. If the answer is no, the team is a Multiple Community team. An example of a Single Community Team would be Hampton, where all team members would attend Hampton High School (when they are of high school age, assuming they attended a public school). An example of a multiple locality team would be Brad-Mar-Pine, where some students would attend North Allegheny, and others would attend Pine-Richland.

Tournament managers may also specify population limits -- e.g. Single Community teams must be pulled from no more than 60 in-house players at their age level, or Multiple Community Teams must have a population base of less than 50,000, for example.

Commercial Organization Teams / Travel Teams are teams from for-profit organizations, or teams that generally travel outside their own locality to play in tournaments. An example of a Commercial Organization / Travel Team would be an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team.

Levels
Have you ever seen an A Level team playing in a B Level tournament? It can be difficult to assess the level of a team, so teams looking for tournaments should know how the assessment is being made. Tournament managers must specify how they determine skill level, in one of three ways:

Subjective opinion of the coach entering the team
Subjective opinion of their organization
Require that Level B and C teams come from an organization that has a separate Level A team


The system isn't perfect, of course, but teams now have more information for determining which tournaments are appropriate for them. Tournament managers are encouraged to provide as much information as possible regarding team type and skill level. Hopefully, this will result in a better overall experience for our players, coaches and organizations.       

McCandless Athletic Association
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