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I love everything about this thread. It has so many of the themes we generally see in this forum wrapped up into one. Crazy over involved parents, "Daddy Hockey" All roads lead to beer league. Cronyism vs meritocracy And not only that!! The typical "keyboard warrior" attacks have escalated to calling people out by name and even added in some mafioso style intimidation and threats. " Better not show up at the rink, and you are making enemies!" We even got a taste of the usual PPE complaint, "PPE was set up to give local kids a place to play" in this case IUP let outsider kids from Slippery Rock come and play for them. LOL If only PAHockey could increase the font size on his red text and maybe throw in some charts and excessive formatting, That would be glorious! Who would have thought IUP club hockey could be so interesting!?!?

Mike Lange's voice and game/goal calls for the Pittsburgh Penguins have spanned decades in the Pittsburgh area. Listening to him call all those games over the years was instrumental in growing hockey in Pittsburgh. I know it is one of the reasons I fell in love with the game, and I'm sure a lot of the people on this forum as well. Rest in Peace Legend.

-if you're spending extra time and money outside of the team on anything, spend it on skating lessons with a good skating coach that does private and/or small groups. This will help your kid more than anything else. A kid who has 6 months to a year of skating lessons will stand out from most kids that have been playing years longer and have only done whatever skating came from team practices. Stick handling and shooting lessons are great, too. But I would at least do 3 skating lessons to 1 skills lesson. Skating is the whole thing. -find a good coach (this can be different for different kids) and good parents. If you find these, you'll find the good kids, too. Teammates that bring the least-skilled players up and don't put their teammates down. -stay away from teams that have coaches doing lessons on the side. -unless literally your kid has no other interests than being on the ice, (and if that's the case you should try to introduce other interests), take a break from hockey over the off-season. I don't mean not to step foot in a rink for four months, but your schedule shouldn't look like hockey season. It's a good time to get some skating lessons in once every week or two. Make sure they're doing other things, too. -remember it's supposed to be fun time for your kid. Make sure that's what it is. It's a big time and money commitment to not be enjoying it. If your kid thinks fun looks like 10 tryouts and picking the highest team they make every year and practices 5 nights a week between school and club, okay. If they think fun looks like playing on a B club team and not playing school, okay. Let them decide. -if you do this right, your child will come out of this around 17-18 years old with lifelong friends from other school districts they never would've met if not for this sport. You will, too, as a parent. They'll learn lessons about hard work, exercise and eating right, navigating different personalities, competition, winning and losing, and a long list of other things that will serve them well the rest of their lives.

No offense, but if you are this way being critical of coaches and decisions made on special teams, ice time, etc with your kid only being nine years old, I can only imagine how YOU will be in a couple of years. You are concerned over the coaches putting lesser skilled kids on defense? Hell most kids at that age are still figuring out how to pee let alone being set on a position. If the coaches kid getting all of the ice time is a ten year old, don’t worry about it as he will move up to PW next year. My advice? Don’t be “that dad.”

A few things I would add, especially for new parents with young players: -The best players at 10 are very rarely the best players at 16. Remember that all players develop at their own pace. -Find some veteran parents that you can trust and ask questions. Organizations tend to do a poor job of educating new families and having others that are willing to share their experiences can be more helpful than any 45 minute informational meeting an organization is going to hold in late August. -Take some time during the season and watch games at different levels (A, AA, AAA) so you and your player recognize the difference in skill levels as well as the intensity of the games. This is very helpful when it comes to being realistic about what teams and what level to try out for each season. -Your player DOES NOT need the newest, most expensive, coolest looking piece of equipment every season. Buy equipment in the off season when stores have sales and buy a model year removed from what was just released. The technology and changes in equipment from year to year rarely, if ever, justify the difference in cost. Also, your player that is just learning how to skate and shoot will not be able to tell the difference between high end skates and sticks and the less costly equipment anyway.

They do factor enrollment into the formula, but it probably doesn't play a big enough role. The problem with enrollment when it comes to hockey is that it's less about enrollment and more about wealthy enrollment. In the case of Canon Mac, despite having plenty of capable players their club is a mess. Coaching and management of that club has put them in a free fall from AAA to A in just a few years. But in no way should a school of CMs size and wealth ever be close to being a single A school. Essentially they have been rewarded for mismanagement. What I can't understand is. why can't they use the amount of USA hockey members each school has? That would give the better figure than just using enrollment alone.

Cherry picking / stealing implies that the high schools developed these kids and the Pens team suddenly comes along senior year and grabed all the best players. These players were all great for a long time, and got their development somewhere other than their high school team. Maybe they decided they didn't want to look back with regret in 10 years that the didn't try and pursue playing at a higher level. Maybe playing Pens Elite has been their dream for years, but couldn't quite crack the lineup. Maybe they got bored of playing in a PIHL league they dominate because 85% of the players are prepping for the Adult D leagues. It's hard for me to take seriously anyone that says "if you are good they will find you." Especially in the context of playing in PIHL OR PAHL. Sorry.. The PIHL ALL STAR GAMES are held annually at the home of RMU, a D-1 program. Anybody know how many times it has been attended / scouted by Head Coach DS, who lives 10 minutes away?? Or even any RMU D1 scouts? Here is a mediocre D1 program that calls the rink home, and they aren't even interested in giving a look at the best local high school players!!! Yet you act like Boston College is sending scouts to come watch Armstrong play Baldwin on a Monday night.

Hello all- It has been a while since I dropped an update but being that it's been a beautiful week, I felt it was time to update the community. #1. @Pa Hockey I have had productive discussions with @Pa Hockey and as a result I have decided to welcome him back. Due to a few events in my personal life I have re-evaluated things and decided that I am ok with @Pa Hockey posting tournaments. After taking time to digest this all, I extended an olive branch to @Pa Hockey and invited him back as I think his informative posts/rankings/and his own "takes" are more valuable than not having him on board. At the end of the day, I am for as many kids participating in hockey as possible. Our dispute about advertising tourneys now falls into the "don't sweat the small stuff" category and I am moving on from that. I will continue to maintain vigilance on the forum as far as ads go, but at this point I likely will be more lenient than before. For the most part I try to stay out of the way of users and let them run with the ball in terms of what is posted here and I will continue to be mostly behind the scenes. If you feel up to it, please welcome @Pa Hockey back to the forum. #2. About me After a LONG time of running this forum, I think it is time to clarify that I am not the "hockey player" Paul Baxter. My favorite hockey player was #4 Paul Baxter and that's why I use that as an alias. I would attend Pens games in the late 70's (think Ron Stackhouse, Greg Malone, Rick Kehoe) with my Uncle when there were 4,000 people there. We'd park "for free" on the street below the closed St. Francis Central Hospital and walk through the old parking garage to the CA. By God's grace I was able to be at Mario Lemieux's first ever home game, Sid's first ever home game, I was also at the famous "five goals 5 ways game" on New Years Eve 12/31/88. I was at the very first Pittsburgh Gladiators arena league game when the roof opened. My parents took me to see Billy Jean King play men between 1974-1976. I watched the Pens defeat the Blackhawks in the miracle 5-4 win in Game 1 of the SCF 5/18/92. I saw probably 50 concerts. Truck and Tractor pulls. High School hockey games. Pitt-Duquesne, and I attended many Pittsburgh Spirit games. I worked at the Civic Arena for Choice Seat as one of their 2 computer techs on their old Unix mainframe in-house ticketing system in the early 90's. I literally have explored every single inch of the old Civic Arena building, as it was pretty much me, a security guard, and a refrigeration technician in the entire building when there was no event in progress evenings and weekends. In real life, I'm Western PA resident that owns an IT business, and who was highly involved in youth hockey while my kids were active. Nobody who I interacted with in PIHL, PAHL and local hockey orgs ever knew that I ran this forum, and that is fine with me. I kept this on the down-low on purpose. My kids aged out of youth hockey years ago but I enjoy providing this forum to the community on my own dollar. I have covered the hosting, domain, maintenance and licensing costs of the forum software fully with zero donations. Free information exchange is a valuable community service that I will provide via this forum as long as I am able to. #3. Open to ideas & Feedback. Thank you all for participating and giving your time to this forum. If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, feel free to reply. It's a great day for hockey! PB

I had a really long response to this post, but I'll sum it up with this - Your son is a 1st year Squirt. Let him have fun playing hockey with his friends. That is what matters most at this age. You will have the rest of his youth career to track shift length and be critical of coaches, d-pairs, line combinations, special teams, etc.

I think your first sentence proves my point. Are you saying that "club" hockey are "2nd" teams to school hockey? While I wish you were correct in that statement, and I wish hockey was big enough in Pittsburgh to have the same model as Minnesota hockey, it just isn't. The fact that you are totally oblivious to any hockey outside of scholastic teams and label club teams as "2nd teams" kind of contradicts your whole "if hockey would collaborate instead of compete against each other" statement. Try to embrace all hockey instead of just the hockey you want to promote if you really want to grow hockey. That being said, your list is a (opinionated) list of the top 30 kids that play scholastic hockey. A list of the "top" kids in western and eastern pa would require you to actually look into all the kids that play hockey anywhere in the state and make a list from that. Most of the really good kids either have no interest in playing school hockey or gain nothing but risk of injury.

If there's a 10u team with 2 committed goalies, and they're not getting equal time at that age, I'd find a different org.

From the accounts that I have followed on here, it seems like the officials were in the process of breaking up a series of altercations near the end of a lopsided game. As one player from the losing team was being escorted off the ice, a teammate attempted to intervene and while the official was attempting to keep him from becoming involved he reacted by striking the official, let me know if that is incorrect. I have officiated in the past and have had to breakup a number of fights all the way from 8U up to adult league games. It is impossible to breakup an altercation at any age without physically engaging the players that are involved, regardless of age. It gets exponentially more difficult to do as the both the physical size and intensity level both ramp up. For anyone to think that officials in a high school hockey game would not have a level of physical contact with the players involved has obviously NEVER officiated a game. If an official is doing his or her job correctly, there will be physical contact, so if a player reacts to that contact by striking or making contact with an official in an aggressive way the issue is with the player and not the official.

That is why they buy so many rinks in the same area. They like to price set. Then they make teams play in their leagues, use their streaming,.... They like the monopoly model! Horrible for youth sports

My thoughts, although I'm not a grizzled veteran like some on here: 1.) This is your kid's journey, not yours. 2.) You need to recognize the difference between guiding your child to be the best they can be and forcing them to do something. Their motivation and desire is the driving factor at the end of the day. Do you think Sidney Crosby needed to be dragged to the basement to shoot pucks at his dryer? 3.) Don't rush development. Always seek out the level of competition that is best for your child, not the extra A. 4.) Be fully conscious that, as the parent, you have blinders on. You have to take them off sometimes. We all love our kids and want what's best for them, but that doesn't mean they are the best at what they do. Be realistic in your assessments of your child's abilities, motivation, desire, etc. 5.) It sucks to say, but hockey development is a business. There are absolutely people that are in this for the love of the game and the development of your child. There are also just as many, if not more, people that are out there to make money off of you and your child. That may sound like cynicism, but there is a reason you stop seeing advertisements for all of these extra clinics and programs once kids hit Bantam age. Preying on the hopes and dreams of parents of young children, at the point in time where the future is very much an unknown and you feel like every missed push of a skate is setting your kid back developmentally, is an easy way to fill ice slots. Most parents have a much clearer picture of where things are headed once the teenage years kick in. In the same vein, that's why 90% of all the posts in Facebook groups are about kids that are Peewee or younger. 6.) Elite, as a word, has lost all meaning. This ties into the above. It is mostly a marketing tool to make you feel like you are a part of a select group that is superior to everyone else, and it's thrown around like candy. Elite mites, elite clinics, etc. No, I'm not just talking about PPE, but at least actual hockey organizations don't use it with team names as often. Out of the top 100 at 16U, there are only two teams that have the word "elite" in their name, and one of them is local. Elite is a word that other people can give to you, and shouldn't ever really be self proclaimed. 7.) Most importantly, you, as the parent, are uniquely capable of supporting your child's well being. Be their sounding board. Ask them how they are feeling. Help them deal with their emotions. Guide them through adversity. They need your cheering and support more than they need you to yell "SKATE!" at them from the stands. They need you to help process their feelings more than they need you to critique their toe drags. You are literally paying people to help develop your child, but they can never be their parent. That doesn't mean you can't offer technical advice or pointers, particularly if you have a lot of experience playing hockey. However, I guarantee your kid wants you to be their parent more than they want you to be their coach or advisor.

Get a camera. Stand by yourself near the boards and take pictures. Preferably with your headphones in so you can listen to music. Enjoy the memories when they’re done playing.

You have been pimping your plan for some time now. I assume your motive or intention is to add into the PIHL a couple dozen players that don't currently play because of Amateur team obligations. And you think this will improve the quality of the league and allow these kids to play with their classmates. I think the unintended consequence would actually be a more unbalanced and less competitive league. If I'm a high end AAA player and I go to some school with 2 wins in the last 2 years, do I really want to play for them? And even I'd I do, what's that get you 4 wins? On the flip side if I go to SV, QV, Peters, etc sure I might want to play for them and win a championship, So the good teams just get better. I will also argue, putting a couple AAA on a team also means a couple A players end up being cut, or sitting on a bench? So kids that have no chance of playing competitive hockey after high school suddenly miss out on that High school hockey experience that you keep promoting.

My understanding is that players that received a match weren’t just swearing, instead used phrases such as s*** my d*** and you’re r******d. Use your imagination. If that’s true than a match is absolutely warranted for that type of conduct.

It’s always the refs fault, right? Couldn’t be parents or kids who don’t know how to act, probably learned from their parents. Looking forward to seeing you out there in the stripes next season. I have coached travel for a number of years and the officiating in other towns seems way worse than what we have around here, generally speaking. There’s always exceptions, but for the most part our Pittsburgh area officials do a nice job compared to other cities.

The answer to your first question is this - SHIT HAPPENS. The kid is 9-10 years old. Is he / she having fun, or are you too busy yelling at everyone because of the poor placement and not really paying attention? Seems you have the qualifications to be on a hockey board or better yet, run for Hockey Director role at your kids org. As for not knowing what I am talking about, well, that depends. Raising four kids from LTP to HS level and one playing D1 club, I can speak from experience and say I have a good sense of youth hockey. All I can remember from those Squirt days was my kids had fun, they looked forward to the post-game snack and got better with time. Hell, at that age they are still learning how to pee straight. As for misery, you are bringing it on to yourself bro. You seem quite angry and being this wound up at the Squirt age, I can only imagine how you will be when your kid is at the age level with checking.

Any coaches treating players like that, ESPECIALLY college or high school kids, are jerks that have no business coaching. They have enough stress with school, relationships, working, etc. They don't need something that is supposed to be fun to be miserable. No kid or young person deserves to be treated like that- even at the highest level. IUP is far from the highest level. That's no way to grow a program or the sport in general and those coaches should be embarrassed.

Now we added the angry hockey mom. We have really hit some kind of zen in this forum.

You guys miss the point. Parents do not want to drive to Erie for a game on Tuesday night. They don't want to drive to a game in Wheeling either. Ask any parent (or coach or player) and they would gladly vote to remove both from PIHL. Cathedral Prep won it last year. They were so bad the year before they had to be moved down. PIHL would still exist without them and there would still be a Penguin Cup Champion.

Looks like they are up to 9 teams for this season. I believe this began with 4 teams under the guidance of the late John Mucha and it's great to see that his vision of growing the game continues as part of his legacy.

Dowiak and DiMarsico for PSU out of PPE lighting it up tonight in NCAA tournament. Nice to see the PGH influence.

With one adjustment, the number of puck touches per player in practice is significantly higher than a game. That is why the practice to game ratio is so important.

So... ...is there any place worth playing hockey in Pittsburgh? This place is so depressing. Reading the posts here, everything is either a money grab or inept.

Here are some thoughts from a guy who has been involved in hockey for a long time. My sons played at Pens Elite. I can tell you at the squirt age they never worked on the power play or pk. They would go over it a little in film or off ice. 99% of the time at squirt they just ran their lines through. It was all about skill development but would work on concepts off ice. I don't believe any team should be spending ice time working on a power play at the squirt level and the high level teams typically don't unless things have changed. As for parent coaches it can go either way but you need them. There are not enough good paid coaches out there for high level and Varsity teams in my opinion much less all the travel/ other school teams. If you have a very qualified parent coach it may be a much better option than a lot of paid depending on experience and motives. If the parent coach is an issue the organization needs to let them go. I will say years ago my one son's team had a great parent coach (no it wasn't me) and because so many parents are anti parent coaches the organization went to a paid none parent coach. Myself and another player moved on from that team as when I talked to the "new none parent coach" I was very concerned with how he would run the team. That team went from 40 wins to only ten the next season. The season after the whole team pretty much fell apart. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING AT SQUIRT IS THAT THE PLAYER IS HAVING FUN, SKILL DEVELOPMENT, AND A POSITIVE COACHING ENVIRONMENT

See the earlier announcement! I'm afraid you don't have ol' Pa Hockey to kick around anymore! I am concerned about how will we find out who the thirty best local players are now? (Excluding those playing Junior, NDTP, Pens Elite, or moved away for other AAA teams, or Prep School, or playing for a Laurel Mountain team, or a Co-op PIHL team or those that just chose not to play for their high school team)

Hockey already has your Elan Musk! It's Murry Gunty and Blackbear. They get rid of all the "wasteful spending" like community programs, reduce competition, limit options, and then have their corporate friends run it "efficiently" (profitable)

Larry Koch passed away on Thursday 1/23/25 at the age of 92. Some of you will remember him from coaching high school hockey for Bishop Canevin, South Park and North Catholic. You may also know his sons, Jim and Bob, who are also involved in western PA hockey. Larry was a great promoter of the sport and one of the first in the area to start learn to play programs. He used to run them at the South Park ice rink back in the late 1970's. I know a lot of people that got introduced to hockey because of his learn to play. My sympathies to the Koch family. Larry was truly a special person. May he rest in peace.

Let's put the blame squarely where it belongs; the kids that drank! They knew the rules, they knew the consequences and they still did it and then put it on social media so let's lump stupidity into the equation. Quit trying to find someone else to be a scapegoat. Sorry, this is just my opinion.

Any unbiased person who watched that embarrassing display and comes out of it thinking the refs are the problem needs their head examined.

I’m starting a chain so we can post tryout postings for the teams in the area. We have done this in the past and it has been really helpful.

Pens Elite has a great program. My only complaint is the expense of the program. Hockey is in a sad state where a lot of people way over pay chasing a dream. It sometimes ruins families lives while people are making profits off of them and their child chasing a dream. It is nice when there are other options but those do tend to be limited and not consistent. Kudos to teams that make them available from time to time

It’s worth it if it means my kid can play club hockey at IUP.

The only way it changes is if families start saying no. PAHL could be one of the strongest leagues in the country if the PLAYERS of the AAA teams ranked below 50 (usual suspects) decided to return to PAHL AA elevating the local play significantly. Organizations and coaches will continue to take your money. The change has to come from those paying the bills.

I have so many jokes to make considering it's "Dicks" that I will keep my mouth shut so I don't get banned from the forum.

It is insane that they asked each family to pay between $1,200 and $1,500 after the season ended for their teams. Can not believe that people are willing to fundraise and pay more money after the season ends but some people will continue to drink the kool aid and believe that their kid will be one of NAHL tenders that rarely ever actually make a NAHL team. If your kid can't make the top Pens Elite team stop chasing the AAA dream and let them play for the closest PAHL organization. If they are still "too good" for their local organization at that point then look at going AAA. The Pittsburgh area has at most two teams full of AAA players at any age group. Quit chasing the dream and let your kids enjoy the sport. Most of these kids will not play any higher level than D1 or D3 ACHA and that is fine.

Don’t you know already? (I’m being semi-facetious when I say this…) Youth hockey development ‘can’ be a waste of time, money, energy, and resources if you take it too seriously. Some people would say that you’d be better served if you spent most of your money on a game that yields more of a tangible return. Having been involved on all sides of the hockey landscape over the years…It’s now easy to see how the financial benefactors can separate themselves and collect the endowments of the less informed. I’ll also add this, don’t let your child’s hockey development ever become a burden to you (or your family). Let them have fun while you (and your family) cultivate lifelong friendships. Hockey has no parallels with other sports when it comes to this bond.

Trying not to be too repetitive, but I think you need to adjust your expectations a bit. I see AAA kids at 10u who don't grasp PK and PP concepts. I usually have started to see some of the better AA and AAA teams execute good PP and PK at the 12u levels, but that varies with coaching and the overall ability of the kids on the ice. I can tell you coaching at the 10u level can be pretty difficult. You'll have kids who can barely skate or catch a pass and others who may be capable of more. Designing practice plans that can benefit the entire team is tough, so I'd just let the folks volunteering do their thing. This challenge occurs at other levels as well, but 10u you'll have a lot more kids who still need the basics. Other things you mention, like being able to pass the puck and make good changes - all of these are things the kids will continue to get better at. Be patient and adjust your expectations. It's amazing how quickly kids improve on things like this, but it won't happen overnight. I will also say in regards to the Dad on the door - I am not a fan of a Dad running a door their kid is on. I've always preferred they run the door opposite of what their kid is on. That's a simple fix in my opinion. At 10u/12u kids should be getting relatively equal playing time. It's always going to vary some depending on penalties and maybe having uneven lines due to kids being out. However, you'll run into stuff like this wherever you go and there are a lot worse things that can happen. My experience is that when you leave a club because of 3-4 complaints you have you're likely trading those things in for 3-4 other things that are also not ideal. I hear so many dysfunctional stories from clubs in this area that if my kid is with his buddies and having fun, with a group of Dad's that care about them then that's all I can ask for.

Yes, I am a coach. I am trying to understand exactly what advice you are searching for. Your original post asked the question if your player should move on. That's a fair question, but the reasons are confusing. You want a coach that will provide equal ice time and opportunity. At this age and skill level, that is important. And if that's truly an issue like you describe, then the team should meet with the coaching staff, civilly, and work it out. Especially if the one assistant coach is putting his own kid out twice as much like you said. However, at the same time, you were being critical of personnel on defense, specific d-pairs, who goes out on the PK, not practicing special teams, and suggested hiding weaker players on the wings. So it sounds like you WANT to shorten the bench in order to achieve better results since your team is "underachieving", because the "coach can't get them through". Is that why you want to leave? The great thing about amateur hockey is that you are free to go wherever you like. If you want to hop from association to association every year, you are free to do that. But understand while the team colors may be different, the team problems may be the same.

Only requires a $75 subscription per day to black bear TV come on now don't be cheap!

This is why hockey sucks.

Find a coach that will be okay with him skating out when not playing goal. At that age it shouldn't be a problem, and should be encouraged.

I’m sorry. I thought we were talking about sending a clear message about substance abuse. Not, we’re sending a clear message about substance abuse except when it inconveniences others.

The lesson is........ kids make mistakes. Their flaw is social media and the need to preserve said mistakes. Sometimes the urban legend is better than a video.

@PAhockey is always at the forefront of pushing the envelope with genius takes like this - “Drinking alcohol and doing drugs do not belong in the game and will be punished if caught.” What would we do without him?

Why does playing high level youth hockey always come down to discussions about D1 college scholarships and a cost/benefit analysis?? Can't kids play hockey for fun, teamwork, exercise, camaraderie, or any other number of reasons? And if you play, why not play at the highest level you can achieve? My kid was in the band, never did I think he was getting a college scholarship or becoming a professional musician. Never did I say I wouldn't pay for private lessons because it's unlikely it will result in a record deal.