Prep Schools or Prep Teams?

This whole thing about prep schools in Toronto is misleading. Are these groups truly prep schools or are they just prep teams?

How many of these prep teams are there? REDA? Next Level? Phase 1 Academy? Downsview Prep?

When the first talk of a prep team appeared on this board many of you accused Father Henry Carr of recruiting to boost their high school team. Why are we not hearing the same accusations now? Certainly each of the teams I have listed have recruited several players from the high schools havent they?

And correct me if I am wrong, but wasnt the premise of a prep team to provide more development and less games? If these teams are playing games in September, they wont play less games, they will play more. And at what cost? Where is the academic support? How much are these teams charging? I have heard some ridiculous info about Phase 1 that it costs several hundred dollars a month.

Someone please shed some light.

Mr bean if this is true that parents are paying money to go to these prep teams then that is unbelievable. why would you pay when you could just send your son to eastern, mt, vaughan etc? plain and simple this is ruining the high school game

From what I understand about these programs, is that the students are attending classes for 2/3s of the day and training the other 1/3 of the school day. They are also being provided with private tutoring sessions to prepare them for post-secondary education and for writing their SATs and are receiving guidance in proper course selection to qualify for the NCAA.

These teams are not high school teams, they will not be competing against local high schools in regular league play, maybe in exhibition games or in tournaments, but that is all. They have their own prep league and will be competing against each other and entering Prep tournaments in the US as well.

As far as costs go, I am not sure. I can only imagine the cost of running such a program, as I know how much it costs just to run a regular high school program or even an OBA/AAU team. I am sure these teams have gone out and secured private sponsorship, but I am also going to assuming that some costs will fall on the players.

How all of this will turn out, no one really knows for now. The one benefit is that it is keeping Canadian talent close to home and giving our ahtletes another option rather than heading down to the states. I hope all of these programs are successful and that we can keep growing.