Competitive selection among age-class ice-hockey players.

The "little-league" is an important feature of the North American scene, young boys vying vigorously with one another for places on age-categorized icehockey, "football", and baseball teams that compete in municipal, regional and even provincial leagues. The system has been criticized on a number of counts, including the possible psychological risks of premature exposure to intensive competition, the limited knowledge of many of the "coaches", and the too frequent insistence upon winning at all costs. The present note examines a further likely hazard of age-class sport competition and even physical collision between small pre-pubertal children and young people of the same chronological age who have reached almost adults' proportions.