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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.

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.”

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

For all those people that complain about any rink, if there is playable ice, keep quiet. There was a time when there were very few rinks around, and all the kids that play now wouldn’t have had the chance to play without all the rinks we have now. Ice is ice. It gives kids a chance to play. If a rink is too dirty or not nice enough for you, go play golf.

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.

This gets to the core of what I was saying. WAY too much focus is put on parents chasing the extra A, parents being delusional, what teams aren't legitimate AAA teams, the chances of playing D1 college hockey are so tiny, etc. I rarely see much talk, through my time lurking here, of the actual kids and what they want. Sure, as a parent, you have to not have blinders on and realistically guide your child's expectations. However, if your kid comes up to you and says they want more challenge, they want to play against better competition, they want to personally get better, then why pass up the opportunity to grow their character if you can afford it? That's what it's about at the end of the day. I want my kid to work as hard as he can and experience the success and failure that comes with that to make him a better human. If his team loses 2/3 of their games, but he grew as a person and overcame adversity when being given the opportunity to do so, what more can we ask for as parents?

There’s a great point that you make here and I’d like to further…which is found in every competitive athlete. That is, the opportunity to play at the most competitive level possible. This point has been glossed over; or marginalized to almost the point of insignificance. There’s an obvious Mendoza line of legitimate AAA squads in WPA. I’m not arguing that. If there’s any doubt about who’s not “varsity material” at the 18U point in their hockey careers …well, we all get hit with the proverbial “wake-up call” to continue with our life’s work at some point in our competitive athletic lives. Some receive the news earlier than others. My whole contention is: Why nip the hockey player’s personal growth, achievements and core competitiveness in the bud at such a young age? Hockey is an absurdly expensive sport to begin with. If this isn’t acutely made aware from the start; then there is outside criminal deception involved. This ain’t soccer or basketball…hockey is expensive. All I’m saying is that there is a high percentage of people that strive to find that definitive feeling of what it’s like to reach their highest level of competitive success. It’s a fleeting moment in a young person’s life that can’t be replicated. Why censor that in an absolute fashion? Life is full of experiences. It’s the one’s that are achieved through hard work that always stand out the most. The one absolute that I have always contended with is…when that pure athletic competition is over; you can’t ever replicate it. Not in the same capacity as we had at this age. When it’s gone…it’s gone.

Murry Gunty Doing his damnedest to be more destructive to Pittsburgh Hockey than David Morehouse was. He's definitely killed things in Jersey, Hershey/Harrisburg and I'm sure a few other places. People should be reaching out to their local state reps and ask questions about possible violations of anti-trust laws regarding monopolizing. I've already reached out to one who is a lifetime hockey person and they are having staff do some digging.

If you are a competitive player and play hockey long enough its fairly likely you will get a misconduct penalty. Whether it be from your arm coming up while making hit on a smaller player, an opponent turns late in a corner and you hit him from behind, or an official thinks he saw something and makes a strict call. But if you have 5 of those in a season, or you find yourself on a team of players that takes one of those every other game, then i am afraid you really aren't playing hockey. At that point, you really should either play in a non-checking league until you learn to play, or perhaps hockey isn't for you. I would almost go as far as to say a typical player should be able to play an entire season without getting 5 Minor penalties, let alone 5 Misconduct Penalties!

Not telling you how to run your forum but I would delete the offending ad as well. Also as stated above it hurts my eyes.

@Pa Hockey Consider yourself on probation. That is one of the most absurd replies to a forum owner that you could give. I don't OWE you anything. YOU ARE ADVERTISING and MAKING MONEY from my FREE FORUM that I have self funded for years. How does you making money by selling stuff on my forum help me? Further advertising posts without PAYING ME will result in your ban. I WAS VERY CLEAR IN MY POST ABOVE, and it seems YOU are the only one who doesn't abide by it. DO NOT EVER TELL ME HOW TO OPERATE MY FORUM!!!!!

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.

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.

The PIHL formula should come with the disclaimer "past performance is not indicative of future results" For example, McDowell had 5 wins last year but were originally slated to be moved to AA this year, they are currently mid in A. More often than not the teams getting moved up just completed a multi year run of success. Graduated a number of those successful players, then are punished by being moved up a division. Then suffer a year or two of being a bottom feeder, before getting moved back down. The formula should be used as part of the decision making, but so should the roster, and the success of their JV and MS teams. Hypothetically, maybe an undefeated team returning most of their players who adds a 9th grader that led MS in scoring would be a better candidate to move up than a team that graduates it's top players and a successful goalie being replaced by a goalie that had a 70% save percentage at JV. Add a "common sense" component to that formula.

I want to add a counterpoint, although it is likely less applicable by the time you hit 18U. A lot of focus is being put on parents for chasing the extra "A," but what do you tell the kid that doesn't feel AA is challenging enough for them? I feel like if we chopped things down at the AAA level to the point where there is only one game in town, we know which game that will be and we all have our opinions on that organization. I feel like there has to be viable alternatives at that level where talent can centralize. I do agree with the notion that Pittsburgh isn't big enough to support 3+ AAA teams per se, but I don't think eliminating AAA teams is going to make AA that much better for the same reason. Being on a bottom AAA team and struggling is bad for a player's development, but so is being a superstar at a lower league where they aren't challenged. Has to be something in the middle there. There are plenty of bubble players out there, but not every one of them pops. Have to have a place where they can test the waters and find their place through hard work. Pittsburgh is a "smaller" big city, so it's in a weird spot. I'm grateful for the amount of resources we have here, but at the same time it's not quite enough.

First post here. I have been involved for a while at all levels and my son is done and gone and playing in the ACHA. The whole thing is ridiculous and people who know better should fix it. Teams with the extra A that have zero chance to make mid ams along with the top AA teams should form a league between WPA and Ohio. So that travel is minimized and we are elevating our talent by playing more competitive and meaningful games on a regular basis. We all know that there are guys making a living selling the dream so this crap continues along with the extra As. The same garbage happens every year. Teams seasons are basically over in November and there are no meaningful games after Jan1. And the canceling to protect rankings hurts everyone and needs to stop. Until this district gets its head out of it backside it’s going to continue and keep hurting the whole district. PAHL lets garbage orgs field AA teams that have no chance to compete. So it pulls all the other teams down with it and has given rise to these independent teams and is allowing BBSG In the door. There are talented players that deserve better hockey. Under the current structure it destroys any chance for advancement after the top talent leaves after 16u. When we send the 105th ranked AAA team to get blown out by Any team in the elite league it makes us all look bad and stops any advancement in its tracks. There are solutions and it may be at the expense of a couple peoples current bz model. It will take a few years to take hold but it will make all of our teams better.

Cliff Notes version: There are a lot of players trying to play division 1 college hockey. There are not that many D1 hockey teams. Within the next couple of years it is possible that the NCAA will grant college eligibility to former Canadian Hockey League players. Those players may or may not be interested in playing American College hockey. If they are interested, there will be even more players trying to play D1 hockey. Therefore it will be even more difficult to get a D1 college scholarship, because Math. Also: If you are playing low level juniors, especially if you are paying for it, you are just wasting your time and money. On the plus side D3 hockey should improve. And possibly a couple more schools might add D1 programs. Did I miss anything?

Have no fear, the Russians are coming!!

If your team can't go HALF the season with a 2 & 10 then you should get rid of your coach because he isn't doing his job. Stop blaming the refs for sh*tty hockey being played. The reason PIHL is not good and a lot of AAA teams don't want their kids playing it is because of the garbage hockey from the PAHL teams players that don't know how to play right. You should have a hearing after 2 or 3 2&10's not 5. Stop blaming the refs because your organization/coach/kid and even parents have a reputation for being dirty. There is a reason for that. I've seen multiple AAA teams play 60+ games in a season and not come close to 10 2&10's (none over 5) and you guys are mad at 10 over 20 games. 🤦‍♂️

As part of the probation, force him to figure out how to format his posts in a readable format.

@Pa Hockey just to clarify, while you're CHARGING $750 PER TEAM for a deposit, you think $50 for an ad to promote that is too much money? Please do state your response here. I am so eager to read it. PB

I do not but I would guess that you could find serial killers across pretty much any demographic if you chose to. My actual surprise is how quickly you could rattle off former military serial killers. Hopefully, you're some sort FBI profiler or investigator.