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I think I found 1 player that fits your criteria! From Western PA Played,PPE 14U,15U,16U, Invited to NTDP tryout Drafted USHL Boston University Commit Drafted 3rd round NHL Who gets the credit?

Maybe we could give a little credit to the kids themselves for taking some natural talent and adding in a bunch of hard work and dedication. And the team or organization where they played or trained only played a small part. I'm pretty sure if Mooney adopted any of our kids years ago and sprinkled his magic training on them, they still wouldn't be representing the USA at world championships.

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with all the many wisdoms this forum provides. So far it's generally understood that, Good players leave PPE but we should credit the players' success to the team they left for. Good players come from elsewhere to PPE but credit should go to the organization they came from. The new one I got to wrap my head around, Good players start at PPE and stay there but we should credit the father's training and hype. Any others I'm missing?

The best kids don't stick around anywhere for 18u. The best kids are playing USHL, OHL, NTDP at 16u and certainly by 17u. And i'd guess a good number of the "next best" kids are playing some other Junior League by 18u as well.

I wasn't saying AA players aren't capable or deserving of moving up to AAA teams at that age. I was being more critical of the organizations. They treat AAA as a club, you either belong or you don't, it's hard to break in. So they keep bringing in "AAA" kids that peaked when they were 11 years old. Reminds me of NHL coaches, same 30 dudes keep switching teams. How often does a new up and coming coach get a chance?

It's possible those kids aren't interested in a more rigorous AAA practice/travel schedule. But it's more likely, AAA players (parents) don't want to play with half a team of AA players. It's all perception. Unfortunately you don't see many PAHL AA players making the jump to a AAA team at these ages no matter how good they are. Instead you see these "Has-been AAA players" move around from other "AAA" organizations. Sounds better saying we brought these kids in from the Barons than the Lawrence County Lightning.

One need not look any further than the Great Walt Disney who said "All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." But if, in fact, you do want to look past the great Walt Disney, perhaps The Office's Michael Scott said it best "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. Wayne Gretzky"

Other than the birthyear when the Pens drop the black team and only field one team, is there ever a large enough cut of players to "Come to the rescue??" At least historically maybe 2 or 3 players get cut from a team, they either go to prep school, Barons, or Esmark. Has that changed?

Believe me I'm not trying to defend Catholics and their dirty little secrets, but you make it sound like Cardi W roamed the halls of North Catholic assaulting students.

I just watched a few minutes of that YouTube game, there are guys wearing white practice jerseys with numbers taped on the back, a couple of them could barely skate! It's impressive that even 100 people would come to watch that. I did see a fight though, so that could explain it.

Is it safe to assume with the additional number of games and travel involved that paid coaches for Club hockey is an even higher amount? Or maybe pay is higher in PIHL because of club sponsors and fundraising. A few years ago a friend on a local AAA club team said each family had to pay 1000 cash to start the season and they put it in a bag and gave it to the coach as his salary. Not sure if he got paid additionally from the organization.

I assumed Dad coaches get paid a warm up jacket and kid plays for free.

Can we just get a permanent thread pinned at the top called "Pens Elite Problems"?? It's the most amazing thing about this message board! There are roughly six or seven "current" threads, they all have different headings, but every one of them has turned to something related to Penns Elite. And nearly every one of the posts starts with "I think" or "I heard". With so many contradicting theories from one thread to the other. One thread says they only let locals play the younger ages and it's a fundraiser for the program and they replace all the local kids by the older ages, but another says they don't care about 18U so they let locals play without going to North Catholic. One thread says all the best kids leave town to go play elsewhere. Another thread says all the best kids are out of towners. One thread says Excel and North Catholic aren't "required" for the good players that it's typically the 15,16 and 17, 18th best players have to do Excel. So what I gather it's a Fundraiser thru Middle School. Strict North Catholic requirement for freshmen and sophomores, money grab with a bunch of schmo's playing Junior and Senior year.

Still in the hunt to play adult league???

The best player in PIHL could just as easily be on a D2 team or a single A team than on a PIHL AA or AAA team. If the co-op schools are in their own division, shouldn't Private/Catholic schools also be in their own division?

There's the suggested retail price, and then there's the price that the Insiders and the top players pay. It's all negotiated depending on how much leverage you have.

It's a combination of some players "claiming" assists from the refs after a goal, some refs not caring or unable to determine goal scorers, and some coaches/organizations sending in stat corrections to the league. If you see a team that consistently has 2 assists credited for every goal, you can be pretty sure either the coach called them in after the game, or the players followed the ref to the score keeper. Most of the time it's inconsequential, my kid has had missed assists at times and assists he didn't deserve credited to him other times.

I don't want to make a case for the D2 kids because I haven't seen them in person, but it appears the Stellar 6 Player from the A Blue division also got nearly half of his points against some really awful bottom 5 teams. And quite honestly the other half of his points came against the playoff teams in that blue division. And if the playoffs showed us anything it's that other that CV, the rest of that division was also pretty bad. Is he a good player? Maybe. But he probably only gets a fraction of those stats if he played against the likes of QV, Shaler, Indiana, GB, Meadville, NC all season. Not taking anything away from the young man, he led the team to the Pens Cup, Undefeated Season, Freshman and all that, but it's the same situation.

Oh Man! You aren't disputing this guys legal troubles, just disputing his job title? An ankle bracelet sounds like more than an unpaid parking ticket... Was he even able to travel with the team?

Each birth year is slightly different depending on who is coaching and which organization the strongest players gravitate toward. I'm assuming you are asking about the younger ages based on your question. Generally speaking Pens Elite is always going to field the strongest team in the area. You can look at all the birth years for the last number of years at My Hockey Ratings.com and see they are typically in the top 12 teams in the country. Historically Esmark was their closest rival, and they take most of the Pens cast offs and add some foreigners. They are typically strong only at 16u and 18u. They only started having younger teams a couple years ago, one of them was ridiculously bad last season. A couple years ago Vengeance put together a successful 2008 team that was equal to Pens for a few years, but since then fell apart and most of their best players went to pens or left town. They never really got traction on any other birth year besides that one. Any of the other "AAA" teams your results will vary. This is the first I heard the Aviators fielding a "AAA" team. A couple years ago their organization consistent of like 2 A minor teams and didn't have home ice anywhere. So better watch out, You are definitely playing the role of guinea pig on that one. My suggestion for any team you are considering, find out who the coach is, find out what their reputation is and how long they've been coaching. Look up how successful they were last year. If they have an open skate or a tune-up go to that. If your kid is the best kid there, go somewhere else. If your kid is the worst one there play single A Pahl hockey.

Some may say the life experiences of living with a host family in a new city, and traveling the US and Canada while developing relationships with that family, coaches, and players all while pushing oneself to succeed at the highest level of their sport might be more beneficial than attending a dance at the Burgettstown Days Inn.

What is likely to happen with the 09s is pretty predictable. 1 or 2 Strong pens kids will leave for opportunities elsewhere, 2 or 3 weak players will be cut. They will pick up a couple out of towners, and maybe 1 or 2 local 09s will make the team The Preds, Vengeance, Shaha and Icemen will each swap a couple players amongst themselves. These are players seeking greener pastures or players cut and looking for another option. Esmark will grab some Russians, a couple cut pens, and a dozen local players and end up the 2nd or 3rd best team locally. And before you get all excited about the Iceman, what did they do this season? Beat a few 50, 60,70 ranked teams. Now if they can prove they can do that consistently through the course of next season what does that make them.... Pretty much A 50-70th ranked team. But as JoePa used to say, "if you aren't getting better you're getting worse." And historically the best kids are going to leave Icemen, and they're unlikely to attract any relevant players to the frozen pond. And all the other teams are consolidating talent and getting better, so icemen are more likely to decline next season. Not taking anything away from this past season, but I doubt they can take a step forward. Let's reconnect after tryouts and see if this is what happened.

This whole 15U argument reminds me of Miracle. "If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them." Except the underdog still lost this game. And you can all thank My Hockey Ratings for this argument. Winning isn't good enough anymore, if you don't exceed the "expected goal differential" Even a 2-0 SHUT OUT in a championship game wasn't good enough because they "should" have won by 5. If you don't key into one single game but look at the course of the season, PPE beat Esmark back to back at MidAms 9-4, and 2-0. Beat them In two regular season games, 7-0, 8-0. That's a 26-4 aggregate score, +22 spread over those 4 games. Almost exactly the " average expected goal differential" Plus, that expected spread is based on an entire season of data. Knowing Esmark, their roster for the first month of the season probably differed from their roster the last month of the season. It doesn't take that into account. It doesn't take into account injured players in the game, or long term injuries, doesn't take into account starting goalies. It's simply a number that compares past results and theoretically tells you what to expect a match up to look like. And over the course of the season it does a pretty remarkable job. One nice thing about PIHL games is nobody talks about these theoretical spreads. "Sure you beat BP, but you should have done it by 3 more goals." Sounds laughable right??? And going back to what I said about At large bids to nationals being good for instances where a deserving team is upset in a playoff game. Look at PIHL AA we could have a PT 7-9 team going to the state final, instead of a 17-1 SF team. And I'm not knocking PT, awesome for them, I'm rooting for them! But which team would likely give us a better chance against Philly? At the end of the day Kansas City is the super bowl champion. Nobody cares that they needed overtime to do it or if they beat the spread or not. They won, the other team lost.

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting PPE was the team deserving of an at large bid. I was just saying it makes sense to have the at large bid option for exceptional teams that are upset. Or two elite teams in the same district. The 18u AAA division was very balanced. Atleast half the teams had a legitimate chance to win it. But perhaps it was just balanced mediocrity compared to the rest of the country.

The 6th seeds at the 15u and 16u divisions both made it to the finals on the backs of heroic goaltending. Both of these teams faced 50 shots against per game but their goalies were nearly perfect and they mustered up enough offense to get to the final. It's nearly impossible to rely on that over the course of a season especially with a 2 goalie rotation, but in a 3 game round robin, an elite goaltender can make all the difference. It's only fair that USA hockey awards a few at large bids to account for these sorts of situations. You could have a wagon of a team get knocked off in a district playoff game and miss out on nationals and a 50 or 60th ranked team be the lone representative of the district. The 18u division was won by a goalie that only gave up a total of 3 goals over the course of 4 games. Several teams had legitimate chances to win that division but were on the wrong side of close 1 goal games. 13u and 14u were each won by the superior team and faced very little adversity.