zam

30 minutes ago, LGP13 said:

I'm more intrigued by the company. 

The website is pretty basic and underwhelming, but they claim to be some giant conglomerate. I've never heard of Esmark steel, aviation or anything else other than the hockey club, and I have worked in the steel industry. They are "formerly" traded on Nasdaq, that checks out because they aren't listed on there. They have 1 picture of a semi-truck from different angles with an Esmark tarp on it on their steel business site... I've never seen an Esmark truck on the roads. The aviation site is even worse with 2 pictures, one of a plane on the runway and another of a plane's cockpit. Their owner claimed they had enough money in the bank to buy US steel with cash a few months ago (7.8 B). I've looked on LinkedIn, Indeed and a few other job sites, and the best I can come up with is they have or have had at MOST 20 employees across their businesses and no job openings posted publicly. The manufacturing and fabrication site looks the most legit, but even it has text over pictures that make it difficult to read and again, no job postings or anyone on job sites that claim they work there.

Are they just investors that invest in all these different industries and slap their name on them? Even if they are, the businesses they are claiming to invest in don't really seem to exist or be successful. I'm genuinely confused...can anyone help me out on this?

Maybe someone should go knock on some doors at their fancy new building in Sewickley and see what's going on in there. Perhaps it's just a big Ponzi scheme that you finally cracked. Or maybe they just need a new social media, website, linkedIn, coordinator.

15 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Was there some reason they went from Pittsburgh Stars to Steel City Stars back in the 90s??

What other names have they had? I think they were the Viper Stars for a while too.

The North Hills Vipers were a pretty successful organization until the late 80s if I remember right, I had friends that played for them.  I think they had money problems or leadership problems and declined, maybe tried moving rinks.  They ultimately merged with Steel City Stars and played a few years as the Viper Stars.

As far as Esmark money, I'm sure they were still getting sponsor money from them. But the Esmark owner/CEO jut retired and sold the Tomahawks and is probably just winding down his hockey philanthropy. 

27 minutes ago, Hockey22 said:

Nope. But nice try to jump to that common response. So elementary.

Would never drive out to that rink, nor would my kid have wanted to play there. But it certainly happened to a lot of his friends due to their  delusional parents. 

But what about the NHL drafted but never signed goalie that is featured on their website?  He played there one year and has spent the last 5 on the front page of their website. The Hurricanes jersey looks more impressive than his actual ECHL jersey.  The other guy is more of an esmark success story, be nice if they could spell his name correctly tho

As for the actual topic of this thread, LOL. No USHL players are being developed during a 1 week camp.  Maybe just Maybe you get put on some scout's radar, but those scouts already have 100s of players on their radar and they watch those kids many many times live and on film before they render an opinion on them. 

On 5/7/2024 at 10:25 PM, Ihearthockey said:

Knowing families in that district it's not a scandal.  I think theres disappointment that they improved substantially year over year in the regular season but still got nowhere in the playoffs.  That tells me that coaches got out coached.  

Well look at them being proactive. It's been a full decade of futility for us down river. Multiple Division winners but no hardware to show for it, even after being dropped back to A. Most of these current players were in kindergarten!  Erie McDowell anyone??? Believe me I know this is an unpopular opinion but some might use the term outcoached. 

#HaveYouEverSeenTheQuakersWinTheCup

On 5/8/2024 at 2:01 PM, hockeyisgreat said:

Don't know the Pens Coaches but I would have to say that Yuri & Kosick at Esmark have to be doing something right as their 16 & 18U teams are consistently competitive and beat the Pens sometimes.  The coach of the 06 independent SHAHA AAA team might have been the best of the bunch.  Not sure of his name but b put together really good teams up to last year.

 

I think the 18U Esmark team has 8 or 9 kids tendered to Junior teams!

He is doing something right, plucking hockey players off the front lines in Kharkiv and bring them to New Kensington!

Yes those tenders are great for those guys, but their t1 league is tied to the Nahl, so teams have to invite a number of players. I'd be curious how many make a team, I don't know the answer.

Either patience has wore thin at Avonworth after playing 2 years in the A league with no championships, or maybe there was some scandal??? but the Varsity and JV coaches were supposedly just axed.

1 hour ago, Deke715 said:

You watch the video close enough, there is a player that's not even dressed, helmet on but wearing shorts out in the middle of all of this!!! 

CJ sending his Stella Sh*ts off the bench to join in. WTF   

For reasons unknown to me, they continue to let this guy lead our youth.

What a disgrace!

Wow, this seems a bit personal to you. Did your kid not make the cut for his spring team? 

And no I don't condone coaches sending players out on the ice to seek retribution, if that's what happened.

8 minutes ago, sadday4hockey said:

What's the plan for the 12U team whose roster is posted with 7 skaters and 2 goalies?

 

Short shifts

8 minutes ago, Hockeydad11 said:

Lots of teams advertising themselves AA that wont be AA.  

I'm shocked!

2 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

I think it's a little more nuanced than that.  I would give pens credit for a players development if they played both 14u and 16u years there.  These are the most important.  I wouldn't give them credit for a 12 year old who leaves for prep school. That seems a little silly.  I also don't give them credit for someone they import for the 16u team for a year who then immediately leaves to play juniors.  The hard fact is there are very very few pens players who start young and stay in the program through 16u and are successful.  As a matter of fact, and speaking to their own development model, not a lot of kids develop to even make the 16u team (or maybe they are leaving due to all the extra requirements/money like excel north catholic etc.).  

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. 

7 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

He's right, and the family knows how to hype the kid.

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. 

6 minutes ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

To anybody that thinks a kid moving up from AA to AAA in the later stages of their youth careen can’t be as good as their little Johnny who has  always played AAA, go pound salt. I know a kid who didn’t play AAA until U18. Was the best Dman on his AAA team. Went on to NAHL, and then Division 1. His teammates have not have the same success. 

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?

21 minutes ago, HappyHockeyPucks said:

Vengeance 2009 - Why are they having so much trouble filling out the roster? The 2009 renegades team had several really good AA players that could fill out a roster. 

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.

39 minutes ago, No Politics said:

And blindly.

But... "That only happens to other people.  We'll be different."

44 minutes ago, sadday4hockey said:

I simply can't fathom how far people will go to chase something that's not happening in 99.5% of the cases.

 

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"

35 minutes ago, YardSale said:

I think he is asking in the context of the low numbers at other tryouts.  Are there Pens cuts coming to the rescue?

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?

12 hours ago, sadday4hockey said:

Fafa, there's a reason they took the Cardinal Wuerhl name off the school.

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.

17 hours ago, Nepotisim_anyone said:

Does this include dad coaches 🤯

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.