Player evaluation and placement
Replace your eval vendor.
Own the process.
Most youth hockey organizations pay an external eval service $2,000 or more per year for paper score sheets with no defined scale and zero analysis. RosterForge gives your board a rigorous, defensible evaluation system it owns and controls -- at a fraction of that cost.
The eval process most organizations are still running
Evaluators know the players by name. Blind scoring is illusory.
Players are identified by pinnie color and number only. Evaluators never see a name during scoring.
No scoring scale defined on the form. Every evaluator has a different number in their head.
A universal 1-10 absolute scale applies to every category. Every question answered the same way resolves to the same score.
The vendor hands over a paper sheet and leaves. No analysis.
Scores are automatically aggregated, weighted by source, normalized by division, and ranked. Export to CSV for board review.
One volunteer spends hours reconciling evaluator sheets in Excel.
Multi-source score aggregation is automatic. Weighting is coordinator-controlled and applied in real time.
VLOOKUP formulas on player names. Any name mismatch silently returns nothing.
Players are database records. Scores are attached to IDs, not text strings. No silent data loss.
The board argues about the same bubble players every year.
Every score has a decision path behind it. Every placement is reproducible. Arguments have answers.
The methodology
Three things your current process doesn't do
These aren't features. They're the structural differences between a measurement and an impression.
01
Pre-assigned rotations, not a clipboard
Every evaluator is pre-assigned a specific set of players for each drill. Coverage is guaranteed before the session starts. No live coordination, no gaps, no evaluator watching their own kid.
02
Questions, not numbers
Evaluators never pick a number from 1 to 10. They answer plain-language questions about what they just watched. The system resolves those answers to a score. Removes holistic judgment, enforces calibration, eliminates the 'what does a 6 mean?' problem.
03
A scale that means something
Scores are on a universal absolute scale that means the same thing regardless of age, division, or group. A 7 is a 7 for a Squirt and a Bantam. Cross-division comparison is solved at the point of scoring, not with post-hoc math.
This is what the evaluator actually sees. One question. Two buttons. No numbers.
What this replaces
- ✕A paper form with "Rate skating 1-10" and no defined scale
- ✕Evaluators improvising what "a 6" means while watching 30 players
- ✕Scores that can't be explained or reproduced
What you get instead
- ✓Observable yes/no questions about what the evaluator just watched
- ✓A score resolved from the answer path, not from a number in someone's head
- ✓Every score is reproducible: re-run the same tree with the same answers, get the same number
The suite
Built around the full season cycle
Six tools that run in sequence and loop back. In-season scores flow forward from Combine into placement. Post-season Evaluate feeds that data back into next year's Combine -- so each season starts with better information than the last.
Check-In
Mark players and evaluators present as they arrive. Coverage indicators flag which groups are missing an evaluator before the session opens -- so you catch the gap on the ice, not in the data after the fact.
Combine
Structured on-ice evaluation with pre-assigned rotations and decision-tree scoring. Evaluators answer questions on their phone; the system resolves the score. Multi-source aggregation and divisional normalization happen automatically.
Draft Board
A live room event where coaches take turns picking players in snake order. Your ranked pool is pre-loaded -- coaches see scores and pick from it in real time. Replaces the whiteboard. Enforces turn order, prevents disputed picks, and keeps a permanent record of every selection.
Team Builder
Skip the draft and let the system balance teams from ranked scores. Drag and drop to adjust. Score totals update live as you move players. Use this when you want equitable teams without a live draft event -- the algorithm does the horse-trading.
Line Builder
Assign players to forward lines, defensive pairings, and goalie slots. Each player's composite score is visible while you build, so you can balance lines by strength without doing the math in your head. Save, print, or share when done.
Evaluate
Every Combine score, coach observation, and post-season eval stacks into a per-player longitudinal record. Post-season coach evals are collected asynchronously -- coaches score on their own time, no event required. Combine scores flow in automatically. After two or three seasons you have a genuine development picture: skill by skill, year over year, every source included. The only tool at the youth sports level that shows a player's full development arc across seasons.
Ranker
Not running a Combine? Ranker is a standalone tool for orgs that collect paper evals or use outside scouts. Upload evaluator sheets as CSV or Excel files. Ranker merges and averages across sources, deduplicates by player, and produces the same ranked output -- without any of the on-ice infrastructure. Start here, move to Combine later.
The product
See it in action
Evaluators score on their phone. Coordinators run the event from a browser. Everything feeds forward automatically.
Evaluator — phone, offline. Pinnie identity only. No login.
Results — ranked output with source weighting controls, divisional normalization toggle, and CSV export.
The coordinator workflow
01
Build the event: sessions, groups, drills, and player roster with pinnie assignments.
02
Monitor evaluator coverage in real time. Counts only — no scores visible until session closes.
03
Generate tokenized evaluator links. No accounts. Copy and send. Revoke anytime.
Dashboard — all six tools in one place. Each feeds the next.
Built for board accountability
Every score has a paper trail. Every argument has an answer.
When a parent calls the board about a placement decision, you need more than "our evaluators made the call." RosterForge records the exact decision path behind every score -- every question answered, every observation submitted. Aggregation and weighting are transparent and reproducible.
Players are identified by pinnie color and number during scoring. Evaluators never see a name. Your process is defensible because bias was structurally removed, not just asked nicely to leave.
Pricing
A replacement, not an addition
If your organization is already paying an external eval service, RosterForge likely costs less -- and delivers more. Starter at $799/year covers a single division. Club at $1,499/year covers your full multi-division program. Flat annual pricing, no per-player fees.
Your board owns the process. Start today.
Run your first combine event, draft, or team build in under an hour. No vendor. No spreadsheets. No arguing.
Get started