Played for 7 or so years....my HS rallied and started a team my junior year...it was a great experience, although our team wasnt good....for a startup program we did better than most every team in my area when they started...id say about half of our team had never stepped on the ice or at least had no game experience before the start of the first season, but everyone showed great improvement, and we kept up with teams much more skilled than us
btw...im now a freshman in college, so this wasn't long ago
Dave