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Gotta love the post-tryout/pre-season my d$ck is bigger than yours enthusiasm. Everyone is so excited about their new teams and the expectations are so high I'm getting a contact buzz. Good luck to all the greener pasture dwellers, may all of your expectations be met. One thing I do know for 100% certainty is that the higher the expectations, the harder that pre-Thanksgiving crash into reality hits.

Not only are you correct but if the Preds, SHAHA, and Vengeance would play Tier 2 where they belong, and Icemen would play PAHL, this would be an epic conference.

Youth sports is big business, and the lengths people will go to in parting families from their money is disgusting. They don't care. I belong to a discussion group and a parent posted asking if a mass email they received for a camp was a money grab, and of course it was. The amount of justification that the guys making money from these camps gave, and the offense they took over it being called a money grab, was mind boggling. All the parent wanted to know was whether it was a mass email or if they should believe what the email said. Then advertise it only as a camp. Don't couch it in all that language designed to make that parent believe that a scout somehow saw their kid play. You know what kids and parents are thinking when you pepper the email with 'personal invite' and mention 'get noticed' and whatever. If someone is savvy enough to ask, they deserve an answer. They aren't targeting that email to the kids who already have an invite to the main camp. Not everyone has the money to spend on 'getting the experience'. You want to make money off other people's dreams and mislead them into parting with their money, too bad if someone lets the air out of the balloon. All this hand wringing over the bad behavior of parents in the stands.....they are responsible for their behavior. But the sport should take a look at their own part in helping to create this monster. People weren't always trying to live off youth sports. What those guys were really upset about was... don't kill my cash cow by confirming that their main interest in sending you that email was your checkbook, not your kid.

100% PAHL would be just as good as the CSDHL. Top 25 or so teams are AAA, the rest are high level AA teams with a few AAA players.

My guess: tier 1: 1. Pens 2. vengeance 3. preds 4. shaha tier 2: 1. Allegheny 2. Icemen 3. Mustangs 4. Rebellion 5. SCIR 6. North Pitt 7. preds 8. Lebo 9. shaha 10. Foxes

Sadly there are PLENTY of players who will do it, though.