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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.

I heard your number 1 ranked Mars team fell to an underwhelming, unranked Moon team from a lesser division last night. Can anybody confirm?

I'd imagine the "negotiated merger" between "Alpha/Vengeance" and Steel City Renegades went something like this.... Hey we have been paying SCIR to roster our teams for several years now, we tried to get the Aviators to do it but they wouldn't. And you might notice they are no longer here. So we can either rename your organization Vengeance, allow your board to "run things" and renew your ice contract OR you can go over to SSA and see if they will sell you a few hours of ice. If you don't like that deal I'm sure one of the other displaced organizations like the North Hills Vipers would.

Vengeance isn't really a legit organization it's just a team name. They don't have the ability to submit USA Hockey rosters on their own so they paid renegades to roster their teams. Rumour is renegades are rebranding as vengeance for all their teams A, AA,AAA.

I got the feeling that PIHL is making the transition to 4 divisions. This Blue A division being the bottom. AAA, AA, A Gold will compete for penguins cup, A Blue will just have a year end tournament like the (Open division, B, D2, co-op) West Virginia teams are in that division, so that solves that problem. Last year A Gold played A Blue in the All Star game, this year they are separate games, so there must be a reason for that. The movement between divisions will continue the same. Win enough games at A minor, you move up to A major the next year. It's an attempt to keep regular season games more competitive the #1 Single A team doesn't have to play the #24 Single A team. I don't follow the Philly side, maybe they will follow suit. Just a hunch, I don't have any inside info FYI.

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. And if by chance you were having a stroke while typing that post then I apologize for my insensitivity.

Seneca Valley Fox Chapel North Catholic

Well I think you got your answers there. You can figure out who your first line center is going to be. Not a bad idea, throw some shady business money into buying a team. Suddenly you go from beer league hero to team owner and professional player. A modern day Mario. That's one way to impress the ladies and lil Johnny wildcat.

I never understood "Semi Pro" ? Does this mean the players are paid? And who are the perspective players? I assume it can't be junior age players or potential college players. So it must be aged out players with no other options besides Beer League? And who are the perspective fans? I know beer league is lucky to have 1 or 2 mostly disinterested girlfriends per night. Maybe I'm wrong but is it a high level of play that would attract area fans?

In the Pittsburgh area there are at MOST about 10 good hockey players per birth year. I mean players that have even the SLIGHTEST chance of playing for free in college/juniors let alone earning a professional pay check. Everybody else is just playing for fun. If you have fun playing AAA, AA, A, school, rec, then so be it. It makes very little difference what team or organization you play for. As long as you put in the work the cream is generally going to rise to the top.

Uh oh. "One Guy" it looks like you have been silenced! Let us know you are alright. I hope you didn't get cement shoes and taken down to the Allegheny, courtesy of the Ven boys. 😬

Can these organizations continue to exist indefinitely? The ones that are a shell of their former selves, fielding just one or two teams per year, moving from rink to rink. When does USA hockey shut them down?

The story I heard is those Vengeance families somehow did the Renegades organization dirty. And since the Veng is basically a subsidiary of the Renegades, (they aren't a USA hockey sanctioned organization themselves) they rely on them to roster their teams. The Renegades were going to put an end to that deal and cut the families out. They tried to move their teams to several other organizations but nobody took them. In the end the "Five families" abandoned ship and did what they could to try and sink the ship as they left.

I think you say that like it's a bad thing, that they should still be deliberating on who to select. If after 2 or 3 days of tryouts you don't have the results by the time you hit the driveway, you can assume something is amiss. The coach and evaluators know who they want before the players even leave the ice. If it takes several days for them to give you results then you can assume you were their second or third choice. Think of it as getting a wedding invitation the week before a wedding. They did everything they could to find someone better but in the end settled for you. And shame on these organizations for keeping families wondering for several days while other tryout opportunities pass the kids by. Personally I think they should do away with the charade of "tryouts." Have a couple open skates maybe, but let the kids be free agents. Have a 2 week signing period. The coaches offer spots to the kids they want until the roster is filled. The best kids still get multiple offers and make their choice. The weaker kids fill in what's left.

You got two kinds of weather in Pittsburgh, hockey weather and boat weather.

I guess it means there is a new Sheriff in town.

Yes he also mentioned middle school, so I assume atleast one of his evaluations was based on a middle school game. So AAA players are generally soft? And worse at checking than who? A players?

So in a non-checking middle school game you saw a A/AA player perform better than a AAA player? And from that experience you decided that AAA player wasn't worthy of attending Mid Am camp?

Saying the whole process is a sham and a total waste of time sounds like a bit of an exaggeration. I'm sure if they invited 160 players, that potentially the 125th best kid didn't get an invite and the 180th best kid did. And of the final selected 68 kids the 60th best kid got left off and the 80th best kid got selected instead. There is always going to be some errors, biases, and differing of option. But what really matters is that the top 20 or 30 kids made it. And quite honestly for USA hockeys purposes, they probably only care about the top 10. So are you saying that looking at that list there are top 10 or 20 MidAm kids that didn't make the camp? (Unless they chose not to try out) And does it really matter who is evaluating? I'd imagine every Tom, Dick, and Harry could pick out the top 20 kids from 160.

I heard from a reliable source that only children born in a UPMC hospital will be considered for the Pens Elite Learn to Skate Academy.

A lot of people on here like to bash the "extra A", "faux AAA" teams, and parents just wanting to call their kids AAA. And there is plenty of reason to criticize this phenomena. But I think what MANY of these players and parents are really seeking is just a higher level of training and competition that these teams bring. What I think you get on a typical "A" team, and even some "AA" teams is an inexperienced coach, a couple shared ice practices, no dryland or video and a couple moderately competitive local games a week. The roster is likely to have a few kids that truly want to put in the work to get better, a few kids that are happy with their current level of play, and a few kids that would be just as happy skipping practices to play basketball or video games. So you aren't getting that same competitiveness of 18 AAA players all pushing each other because they all think they are on a path to The Show. So if you're one of those kids/parents that wants something "more" then you're going to be attracted to these mediocre AAA teams. And if you're a kid that played a couple years of top level hockey and then was cut, it's probably difficult to get excited to play and train with Mikey's Dad who just started coaching hockey. I think if you had a few local organizations that practiced and trained like AAA programs but didn't fly to Chicago to get their butts kicked every weekend there wouldn't be problems filling rosters.

Very very few players/families are loyal to a particular organization long term. Players and organizations look out for their own interests. The best kids are generally always going to leave for better opportunities (and you can't blame them). And the weakest kids get cut. (unless there's some nepotism or cronyism) This is true for House League all the way through Juniors and Professional. The players thatv do stay within an organization long term are typically there because their are happy with their placement and don't have better opportunities. Or because of some other self interest, like it's close to their house, they aren't willing to increase the time and financial commitment to the sport and so on.