forbin

Wait, Vengeance only practices twice a week?

Well, this thread has certainly taken its fair share of twists and turns.... For the record, we have decided against the ice kings program simply for logistical reasons.

Wouldn't surprise me at all. They might as well field a '11 and '12 team too. Just eliminate the viper stars all together

My 2013 has done skates with TK, NE, and Tyler at IC. Enjoyed them all. They all have their benefits for sure. We may end up doing the TK/NE thing as the practices will be at Mt. Lebo which is closer than PICE. Not to completely derail this thread but my very reliable source at printscape has told me that the deal for a second sheet is 95% done. Printscape's sponsorship is up in a couple of months and they hope to have a second sheet up and running by October 2021. We will see. That would be a game changer though for the rink rats/canon mac/ peters etc. Not to mention its always good to have more ice in WPA!

I have a 2009 and a 2013. My 2009 isn’t interested in doing summer hockey as he plays travel baseball and enjoys that much more. My 2013 is completely addicted to hockey and would be on the ice every single day if we could. We have tried so many other sports with him and he could care less. Yes, I realize it’s pretty ridiculous to be doing all of this for a soon to be 8 year old but trust me when I say it’s him driving the train here, I just pay for it. A lot of his teammates are doing the TK/NE thing. We also live very close to Southpointe but are not with the RinkRats. That might change soon though with the strong rumor of a second ice sheet coming there.

I am 99% sure the ones you can hear clearly are players in the box or, yapping at each other from the benches. Just judging on their tone of voice and choice of words. Sounds like a 17 year old hockey player to me haha

https://www.firstlineevents.com/ Yes, they did. They aren’t playing tournaments though, only playing against each other. That’s one of the reasons I was leaning towards the ice kings.

Per a contact a Center Ice - "All PAHL and PIHL games will take place as normal, including 8U jams. Just this HockeyTime Tournament was cancelled. Expect to be required to submit roster and guardian list prior to game time and to have ID's and temperatures checked at entry."

Thanks for the input guys. Just trying to find something to do on top of a few camps and some lessons this summer. A few of my sons teammates are doing the TK/NE thing, so we are weighing our options.

Fight happens with 2:15 left in the third if anyone wants to get right to it. Gotta love the group of squirts in the corner waiting to take the ice watching this unfold. Preds player takes a run at Huskies player with a 5-2 lead in the 3rd. Classy stuff right there. I don't have a dog in this fight (pun intended) but after watching this, then watching the 2nd period to solidify my thoughts, the officiating during this game was unbelievably terrible. Not to defend the parent/coach/player that you can clearly hear berating the ref for allowing this to go on, but holy hell the ref had ZERO control over this game. He was just out there getting his laps in.

What’s the consensus on the Ice Kings spring program?

That clearly says there are no plans to lift the restrictions PRIOR to Jan 4th and that they are meeting to discuss what will happen on and after the 4th.

Aren't the majority of our area rinks privately owned? Can you imagine the future landscape of WPA youth hockey if even just a few of those rinks go under? You'd have to think that those organizations would be absorbed into others, which would limit the amount of kids they could place on teams due to available ice, etc.... Yikes.

I am trying to be extremely optimistic about Jan 4th, but I can't help but feel like our kids wont play until middle of February at the earliest. Sure the cases may go down from now until the 4th, but you can bet on them rising again around the 10th of January (approx 2 weeks after Christmas) when people really start noticing symptoms. My pessimism for this has resulted in me purchasing synthetic ice for my basement. Not a very big area, but at least it keeps my kid skating a bit and shooting. I can't take another 3-4 months of him being depressed about not playing.

I mean every thread on here turns into a PPE thread, so you might as well finish your sales pitch.

PPE is more expensive than esmark especially when you factor in the cost of the excel program, because lets be honest here if you don't do excel, you don't make the team.

Not defended the Preds because I have zero affiliation with them whatsoever, BUT the direction from the PAHL is only that league games and jamborees are suspended. Says nothing about practices and team events.

RMU will add kids to their lower in-house levels around this time of year. Usually, those kids are graduates from the fall session of their learn to play hockey program, but I have also seen some outside kids be evaluated by one of the directors and allowed to join at a discounted price. That being said, with roster restrictions this year because of covid, I am not sure they will be doing that. Would your child be in the intermediate or advanced level at UPMC? If not, I would look at the winter session of learn to play hockey at RMU. It starts in January. I would suggest using the rest of this season to develop skills, then play a summer league (all three rinks you mentioned offer one), and then start fresh with whichever program you choose for the fall season. Hopefully this global state is a bit better by then and a more "normal" season commences. If you plan on joining a PAHL mite travel team, be advised that the majority of them do their placements in early spring. Based on your location, I am assuming you live in the Cranberry/Mars/Wexford area? There is also the Pittsburgh Yetis at Frozen Pond down route 8. I have no experience with them other than my coworkers son is currently playing on their red team and that team is doing very well. He says good things about their mite director, Levi.

The mite in-house program at RMU is the largest in the area and Blaine and Bob do a fantastic job running it. They offer four teams at each level from Tier 6 to Tier 1 (which are the travel Red and White teams). My son started at 5 years old there and progressed from tier 6 to 3 to 1 (red), then finally his last year of mites was with the Lil 66ers at UPMC. I regret leaving for UPMC during his final year of mites as I preferred the practices and power skating at RMU much more, and we obviously weren’t with the “in crowd” at UPMC. My son ended up missing playing with his buddies at RMU. My only complaint about the in-house program at RMU is that there isn’t practices during the week at the tier 6-tier 2 levels, so you end up practicing on Saturdays and playing games on Sundays. We ended up filling in the weekday gaps with lessons and public skating. If you have any questions please feel free to ask here or DM me. I grew up playing for NP at Baierl and enjoyed it very much. I don’t believe any of the people involved when I played there are still involved, so I can’t speak for program now, but they are always competitive at the older levels. I know my sons AA squirt team always struggled against theirs. UPMC offers a good in house program and the lil 66ers Red level teams. I just wasn’t a big fan of the BS and koolaid drinking that goes on there. Too many parents worried about the extra “A”. Different strokes for different folks. You have to understand that an extremely small percentage of players make it past the youth level, yet pretty much everyone of those mite parents think their lil 66er is going to be drafted first overall. Some of the conversations we overheard were nauseating. Its a very long journey and many others on this site have had experience with youth hockey for longer than I have been alive, so I’m sure you will get a lot of interesting responses and help. My biggest advice to you is go somewhere that you feel comfortable with and your daughter has fun with. If that means going where some of her classmates play, then maybe go that route for now. Hope this helps!

@hockeyisgreat Where were you? Because all PAHL ADM jams this season only have 4 teams. Look at the website. I am naively optimistic that we can get through this coming weekend and hopefully thanksgiving tournament weekend. I could see PAHL halting play until after Christmas. Hopefully the rinks can still stay open for practices during that time.

ADM games can only have 2 games at once this season. 4 teams total and only parent per player. Around 80 total people on the ice and in the stands. I gave my kid the choice of wearing a mask while playing or not play at all. He chose the mask. Everything will be shut down again soon anyway. Just trying to get ice time while we still can.

I think most everyone in WPA is under the mentality of get it while you can and keep things as "normal" as possible. My sons team has games scheduled in OH and a tournament in NY.

I don't think PPE "requires" NC and excel at the 14U,15O,16U levels but I am positive it helps your chances out tremendously for making the roster. As does daddy's pockets... I think the new "prep" team is the only one that you have to attend NC for. Someone please correct me if I am wrong

1 on Penn State played for PPE. 2 on Mercyhurst both played for PPE. 1 on Bowling Green played for PPE. There is definitely a trend here...

He's saying with the NHL aiming for a January 2021 start, the UPMC complex will likely be closed starting in December for training camp. Meaning, PPE will not have a home rink.