Frequently asked questions

The Centre Line is an independent, verified review platform for hockey tournaments, leagues, and clubs in Canada, the USA, and Europe. Every reviewer must verify their email, declare their standing (parent, player, coach, volunteer, or board), and answer structured questions across seven dimensions before posting.

The Centre Line is operated by Train 2.0 Hockey Coaching Inc., based at 55 East 5th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada. It is independent and not owned by, sponsored by, or affiliated with any hockey league, tournament, governing body, or program.

We suppress aggregate scores until a program has at least 5 verified reviews on file. Below that threshold, one strong opinion (positive or negative) skews the entire picture. We'd rather show "not enough reviews yet" than mislead a parent looking at a single-review average.

Yes — anonymous to the program, anonymous to other families. Every published review shows your standing (parent / player / coach / volunteer / board), your division and tier (e.g. U13 AAA), the season(s) you were involved, and whether you're currently in the program. It NEVER shows your name, email, child's name, or any other identifier. The avatar on each review is a two-letter standing tag (PA / PL / CO / VO / BD), not your initials. The display name is "Verified parent" or "Verified coach" — not your actual name. Honest caveat: our internal admin team can see who submitted a review (for moderation — catching fakes and conflict-of-interest reviews). We never share that with the program, the public, or anyone else.

We email-verify every reviewer at sign-in (magic link, no password). That proves you're a real person with a real inbox. We use that link internally for moderation — confirmed fakes get removed, repeat-offender accounts get flagged. But the verified email never appears in the published review. The link from your email to the published review only exists inside our admin layer and never leaks out.

Don't. Standing is required, and "board member or staff of the program" disqualifies you — your review will be removed in moderation. If we catch you systematically posting under fake parent standing, your account is banned. This is also why programs can't pay to be ranked higher: the entire system breaks if conflict-of-interest reviews are allowed.

Organization, Development, Playing-time fairness, Cost vs. value, Culture & sportsmanship, Pathway, and Parent & family scene. Each is anchored — reviewers see a written description of what a 1, 3, or 5 looks like before they pick a number, so the same number means roughly the same thing across reviewers.

Yes. Every review must include a "what this program does well" answer AND a "what to warn another family about" answer. Reviews missing either side are rejected at submit time. The goal is calibration, not catharsis.

We surface a balanced pair of public quotes — one positive and one critical where possible — from Reddit, HFBoards, press coverage, blogs, and forums. Every quote is a verbatim copy with a direct, live URL to its source, captured at a specific date. We don't paraphrase. If we can't find a real, sourced quote, the section stays empty.

Anyone signed in can submit a claim from a program's profile page with their role and a proof link (a page on the official website that names them). The system flags whether the proof URL matches the program's website. An admin approves or rejects. Approved claims mark the listing as "Claimed" but do not allow the operator to remove negative reviews — they can only post a single right-of-reply (rolling out in v1.1).

No. Rankings are computed from verified reviews only. We do not accept payment for placement, scoring weight, or visibility. Ever. If we add monetization later (e.g., a featured-listing tier), it will be visually distinct and clearly labelled, and it will never affect the underlying aggregate score.

Programs are added continuously by an admin team and by a monthly discovery cron that scans 13 governing-body and league directories for new entries. Aggregate scores recompute on every review write. The sitemap regenerates hourly. External quotes are reviewed quarterly for link freshness.

Every review has a "Report" button next to "Helpful." Reports go into a moderation queue. We also accept reports via the feedback form. Fake-review reports require a brief explanation — we investigate, contact the reviewer if needed, and remove confirmed fakes.

No. Standing matters. If you've never been a parent, player, coach, volunteer, or board member in a program, you cannot submit a review for it. Reviews missing standing are rejected.

The BCHL broke from Hockey Canada and the CJHL in 2023 to operate independently. We use "rogue" as a neutral term meaning "not under a National Governing Body sanctioning umbrella." It's a fact-of-status descriptor, not a judgment of quality.

Not yet. The public site is the only interface today. If you have a research or journalism use case, contact us via the feedback form and we'll see what we can do.

Google reviews are unverified, unstructured, and unweighted. The Centre Line requires email verification + standing + answers on seven anchored dimensions + both sides. Each Centre Line review is roughly equivalent to a structured interview, not a star rating.