The City of Rocky River Recreation Department provides an opportunity for all young hockey players to participate and develop in the game of hockey. 

The program shall emphasize the teaching of fundamental hockey skills, discipline, sportsmanship and a commitment to develop each player to his or her maximum level of ability. 

Rocky River Youth Hockey is a member of Cleveland Suburban Hockey League (CSHL) which governs all Cleveland youth hockey programs. 

The Rocky River Youth Hockey program prides itself and strives to place all registered players who participated the previous season on a team to play competitively in the Cleveland Suburban Hockey League (CSHL). 

In a survey to the programs in the CSHL, more than 80% of the participating programs are private clubs or independent organizations.  Most of these programs host an open registration and tryout format, forming teams of the strongest, most skilled players that tryout to participate in the CSHL.  Those players not placed on teams after tryouts are often left looking for a team to play on in September. 

In order for the Rocky River Youth Hockey program to remain competitive with the teams described above it must also choose from its registered players the most skilled to play together.  Often times a group of players will remain together on the same team for several seasons because of the nature of the sport (similar to travel soccer teams) only adding and deleting players because of age, number of players on a team or the change in a players ability.