First off, let's realize that anytime anyone isn't picked for a team, the
easiest cheap shot to take is to claim that "it was all just politics."  I've
seen the parents of players that from my point of view weren't even close to
making a team cry politics.  It's a more soothing rationalization than "he
wasn't good enough."
 
OTOH, there have been years when it seemed like the composition of a Select
team followed the geography of the coaches *very* closely.  I don't have any
rosters to back this up unfortunately.
 
I know one top-notch kid who is a defenseman who *one time* felt that as soon
as he started playing better than "the coach's favorites" his defensive pairing
changed and he got a miserable partner with whom it was virtually impossible
to look good.  And this is a kid who doesn't make excuses for himself.  He's
brutally honest (and quite accurate) about his play, so it wasn't as though
he was concocting this as a rationalization.
 
Note that one would expect most of the finalists for these teams to eventually
play at Div 1 (or juniors).  Being able to show that the eventual team had a
high Div 1 percentage isn't conclusive; what would be conclusive is to compare
the eventual team with the last 15-20 cuts.  Of course, some kids plateau and
others continue to progress so even that is tough.
 
So...  IMO politics doesn't happen nearly as often as some people claim (which
is all the time) but I do believe it does occasionally occur.
 
DaveH
 
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