Start and End Times
Tournaments may start as early as 1:00 PM on Friday (except Thanksgiving events) and the finals, in most cases, will not begin any later than 6:00 PM on Sunday. 
Schedules
Schedules will be e-mailed to the team contact, no later than the Friday proceeding the event. Our experience indicates that having a single contact per team tends to avoid confusion.   If you'd like the schedule to go to more than 1 person, please provide us with an e-mail address for each coach, as well as the manager.  Parents should address their concerns to one of these contacts.
Tournament Fees
Game fees and referee fees will now be paid separately and are listed on the tournament applications and on each on line entry page. If you choose to pay the game fee by credit card you must still pay the referee fees by U.S. Money Order. The referee fee is payable at the time of application in U.S. funds only and should be made to "Referees".
Air Travel
Please provide a team itinerary as soon as it is available. Our tournament coordinators will work closely with your team contact to ensure that your games are scheduled with your arrival and departure dates and times in mind.
Team Placement
The biggest challenge in bring together teams from all over North America lies in the reality that very few USA Hockey affiliates or Canadian Hockey programs use the same guidelines. Our goal is to determine, as best we can, where each team actually belongs for the best competition. We rely a great deal on your input to bring this about. No one want to travel great distances to either win or lose a game by 10 goals. While it is extremely difficult to always create the perfect match-ups, we do pledge to each Big Bear participant that we will never knowingly put teams of different skill levels in a division just to fill a slot. When you've decided to attend one of our tournaments, you will be asked several questions to help us with the process. We thank you for your cooperation.
Some of the Hurdles
Michigan is still the only place in the universe, to our knowledge, where the A & AA classification are age groups and not skill levels.

Ohio is growing their hockey programs rapidly, but there are not the concentrations of players you'll find in Michigan or Illinois and therefore the talent is also spread out. Each season we see additional ice arenas being built, added to, or renovated in Ohio. With the addition of the Blue Jackets in Columbus, it's only a matter of time.

Indiana like Ohio, suffers from a lack of ice arenas. Again there are several programs across the state and new arenas are being built each season.

Ontario has many more skill classification, per calendar year age grouping, than any USA Hockey affiliate. These include AAA, AA, A, BB, B, AE (additional entry) and House. Many governing bodies within Ontario also permits Select or All-Star teams to form for the sole purpose of competing in events.

New York has areas that use both the two year USA Hockey age window and the single calendar year to determine the make-up of their teams. There are also teams that travel from New York who are rostered as B/travel. Please don't let the terminology get in the way of your tournament experience. While some parents are overly concerned about the labeling of teams, please remember almost ever designation in 2 different affiliate that is identical in its symbol, is different in its meaning.

Illinois has many levels of travel hockey depending on the size, strength and affiliation of the club. This could include a Central States team, as well as, Gold, Silver, and Bronze teams at both the A & AA levels. It is our policy in most circumstances to group Illinois teams competing in NIHL in the following manner: CSDHL teams with Little Caesars ranked division teams, Gold teams with AA teams, Silver teams with A teams and Bronze teams with B teams. While Bronze teams are not drafted in the same manner as most Michigan teams these teams provide a fair match up for most Michigan B teams.
It should be noted that Bronze teams are established in the following manner. A number of players in a single USA Hockey age group go to an evaluation. This includes players from both years of that 2 year age window (i.e. minor & major). Instead of the serpentine system used to draft most Michigan teams, Illinois teams are chosen a team at a time. For example if there are 60 players on the ice to be evaluated the first 15 players picked would be placed on the CSDHL team. The next 15 players would be placed on the clubs Gold team with the next 15 being placed on the Silver team. The last 15 players remaining are placed on the Bronze team. These players are chosen based on skill level only so it is possible that players from both the 1st and 2nd year USA Hockey age window could be on any of these teams. Finally, once these teams are chosen they must play in a seeding round to further ensure that they belong at the level specified by the process just described. If they either overwhelm their opponents or failed to do well they are then moved to the appropriate spot for the start of league play.  If Michigan B teams are concerned with playing teams chosen by this process, they should make us aware of those concerns prior to entering any of our events.

High School J.V. teams in Illinois are not always chosen by the same criteria as Michigan teams either. Frequently these teams are made up of all players wishing to play hockey for their school who did not make the varsity team. Because of this difference, J.V. teams from Illinois may have both seniors and juniors on the team.  Please also note that players in most USA Hockey affiliates are able to double roster during the fall season.  Michigan does not permit this practice.
Levels of Competition
Predicting results of opposing teams and therefore establishing competitive groups of teams from various areas requires a great deal of communication and a general understanding of how different USA Hockey affiliates manage their hockey programs. We can assure you that there are not 2 identical systems that we have found to date. This is more than likely the result of the density of a hockey population in a given affiliate and their precise method of creating programs that effectively meet the needs of their players.

While our methods are not full proof, we give you our pledge that we take our jobs very seriously. By choice, we have created an atmosphere where children athletes can participate and experience the joy of this sport. We will never intentionally place teams together that don't belong.

At the same time, we like you to think of the best team in your area in any given classification and imagine the result of that team playing the least skilled team in the same identical classification in your area and what the result of that game might be. We don't offer this example as a prelude to an excuse, but you should keep in mind that even within an affiliate where the rules and criteria for establishing teams is identical there is a wide range of talent from top to bottom.

We do have an anecdote that I'd like to share pertaining to this subject of placing teams together for competition. Several years ago 2 teams entered an 87 AAA division, 1 from Wisconsin and the other from New York. The coach from Wisconsin called one evening to enquire about the competition. "How do you think we'll do against the New York team?", he asked.
This was our reply. Depending on who arrives first, I'd pick the team who has had the opportunity to spend as much time out of their cars to win the first game, I'd pick the team that goes to bed the earliest in the 2nd, and the one that doesn't play in the hotel swimming pool for 3 straight hours in the 3rd. At some point you just need to get on the ice and play.
Frankly folks, we love great competition as much as anyone and of course there's a time to take the years experience and skills developed and put all the marbles on the table. I'm just not so sure it's at every game all year long. Winning is fun but please don't make it the only fun.
Tournament Policies
We urge everyone to thoroughly read our tournament policies prior to entering our events. It will help define many of the procedures we employ and answer many of your questions.