forbin

If PAHL offered a "AAA" division for major birth years starting at 12U it would be well received. Call it PAHL Premier or something. Make it a 30 game schedule and the orgs must have a non parent coach and offer 2 weeknight practice slots. Essentially making AA what it should be. They can still play their tournaments and independent games to get up to the 50-60 game mark that so many parents want and everyone is happy.

Awesome to see! Crazy to think that there is junior hockey in Louisiana. I wonder what their turnout for games is like.

Plain and simple. Yes. I grew up playing PAHL hockey in the late 90's and was cut from second squirt and peewee teams. These big organizations don't cut anyone nowadays. But that's the world we live in now and it wont change. So let them pay their season fees and go 5-9 in the B division as long as they are having fun right? Not sure about your kids, but mine hate to lose and I am totally okay with that.

@hockeyisgreat you are 100% right about nobody telling you what's going on. The majority of the PAHL association websites are not very helpful either. Hockey in general isnt a very "easy" sport to get into so they could do a much better job explaining the process in my opinion.

I know I talk crap about dad coaches a bit here and honestly its because of the experience my kids have had. We have only have one really good dad coach. A guy who motivated the kids to get better and would take the time to fix the problems. He also made it fun. No surprise either, he played AAA/D3 hockey. I am positive there are a tons of guys just like him out there. I would like to think I would be myself If I was able to coach but after a bad car accident in 2011 that left me nearly paralyzed I am unable to skate anymore, therefore I feel it wouldn't be beneficial for me to coach. I am not trying to downplay the importance of volunteer parents. Both my wife and I are involved in our organization and we do everything we can to help out, but strictly from a developmental standpoint the dad coaches need to be better prepared be it by USA Hockey or their organization. I have seen WAY too many wasted ice slots simply because the coaches didn't really have a practice plan so they are just making stuff up as they go. That is disheartening to see for everyone involved. I think at the younger 8U/10U levels, the majority of the kids have the potential to be good hockey players and in my opinion the biggest hurdle is the lack of ice time. Nearly every mite program in PAHL has one 50 minute practice a week and then one jamboree on the weekend. I'm sorry, but that is not even close to enough ice time for these kids to develop. Think of it like playing piano. If you only practiced for 50 minutes a week it would take you years to learn anything useful. I'm not saying these 8-10 year old kids need to be on the ice everyday, but 2-3 weeknight practices with good drills would really be beneficial. Then again, there are kids and parents who only want to play hockey once a week and that's fine, but they shouldn't be lumped in with the kids who want to play everyday. It's not fair to either child. That's the reason I am not totally against the separation between the top teams and the other teams. You can watch the practices and games and see who is out there practicing on their own time and who isn't. 9 times out of 10 the kids on the top teams are the ones shooting pucks in their garage everyday. There are SO MANY parents who have zero idea what is involved in travel hockey and honestly should probably just play in house but the model we have developed in WPA is PAHL heavy so they stick the inhouse kids in the B or A Minor 3 division and take their money. Why was there ELEVEN 12U B teams in PAHL last season?!?!? That seems insane to me. Talk about throwing your money away. Those parents are still paying 2-3 thousand a year....

This is a pretty crappy mentality to have in my opinion. This would be ideal if all the local organizations had coaches who knew what they were doing and not just some kid's dads who never played hockey growing up. Not to mention the lack of ice time because they have 5 squirt teams and 4 peewee etc etc... I personally would rather drive 45 minutes to my kids practice where the coaches are challenging them and putting them in situations to develop and get a full 50 minute skate in rather than have a program in my backyard where Bill the insurance salesman that played baseball in high school who only got into hockey in 2009 when the Pens won the cup is running practice and the drills are terrible and the kids aren't developing and half the practice is the coaches setting up the drills. But hey, that style may be what some parents and kids want. Will be pretty hard to recruit a kid to a higher level who has had years and years of that type of "development".

@bb2j3z Ironically enough the mite logo is the one I don’t like at all haha. I wish they would have decided to go with the same flag logo for the mites personally. You did a really nice job with the jerseys and I think it’s exactly what SP needed. I am optimistic that a fresh look and some fresh faces on the board will help this program out. We live close but don’t play there for the simple fact that the guy I reached out to initially for my oldest son about playing with them was a complete a$$hole and now it seems that every time my boys teams play the rink rats they outwork them and the players and coaches don’t seem to have a clue what was going on.

I hope so! If there's anything that western PA youth hockey needs more of, its faux AAA teams! We need something to talk about on here.

Tomb Raider?

I only know that because I went there haha. There’s a big plaque that talks about it. Back when I was there our mascot was a kid in traditional Native American attire and would run around the field/court banging a hand drum and chanting.....A LOT has changed since then. I wonder which direction they will take with the logo. My guess is just dropping the NA head altogether and going with the SV.

Makes about as much sense as checking allowed in PAHL at 14U but not in MS PIHL play.... let's just keep adding more confusing elements for these players to keep track of.

Because the school is literally built on land gifted to them by the Seneca tribe.

So their solution is to have kids learn this facet of the game only IF they make it to Juniors/College/Pro. Um....what? Also, can someone clarify the icing on the PK rule for me, does the shorthanded team have to gain the red line to dump the puck? Or is it this subjective "they have to make a play to get it out of the zone" rule?

I think he was referring to pittsburgh ice arena being a dump, which it is.

Yeah wouldn’t be surprised at all, but where in the south hills? Definitely wouldn’t be Ice Castle because there’s no way the Preds would allow that. Bethel? Would they want to play out of a YMCA? Mt. Lebo is community owned so I’d be surprised if they end up there, doesn’t make sense to me. Where else is there except south pointe? Which I could see happening but I wouldn’t consider that the “south hills”

Esmark is moving?

Hey I don't hate it at all. I just hope the socks match the jerseys now. That always bugged the sh*t out of me about the rink rats haha. I see a lot of board member changes too, which I can only imagine is going to be a good thing. I live 8 minutes from the rink and choose to play elsewhere based on the experiences I have had in the past.

www.southpittsburghhockey,org Somebody must be a big fan of the Carolina Hurricanes...

Rink Rats are now the South Pittsburgh Hockey Club Rebellion.... Looks like BBS is changing things up, I also heard the second sheet at Printscape is a sure thing for the winter this year.

I'm okay with off topic posts because let's be honest, this forum isn't nearly as active as it has been in the past, but you posted this in the youth hockey section and not the "Open Forum" section which is what that is for.... Regardless, I'm sorry your boys lost and yes PPE does still suck.

Organization bashing is 99% of this site, of course its okay. They all play favorites. Shouldn't be like that though. And if a certain player is noticeably much worse than the rest as mentioned in the pervious posts, he absolutely shouldn't make a roster spot simply because of his mom.

Totally agree, those posts should probably be looked at by @Paul Baxter, but it does a raise a valid point about favoritism and the extra curricular stuff that goes on when fielding teams. Players shouldn't be picked simply because of their parents involvement in the organization.

Does he get a lot of playing time too?

Okay yeah I totally see your point now. Looking at the rankings they either marginally beat or got beaten by teams ranked 80 or lower. Didn't even play a top 40 ranked team.

Looking at their myhockey rankings page it looks like they only lost to two AA teams and they were close games. The rest of their schedule was against legit AAA teams. Not trying to defend them at all as I have no affiliation, but just pointing that out. Maybe their myhockey page doesn't tell the whole story?