forbin

It’s “not” mandatory, but it is. They don’t care about the talented kid that can’t afford it. That kid just ends up at Esmark/Vengeance.

Haven’t tried the Glice brand but have heard good things. We have a 18x24 area in the basement of Snipers Edge tiles and they are great for stickhandling and shooting. Synthetic ice is definitely an investment. Our setup with the panels and shooting tarp cost around $5k. Skating on them (and all synthetic ice) takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it can be a very useful training aid. We purchased during the beginning of Covid lockdown and my boys have skated and/or shot on them pretty much every day so it’s second nature to them now. When teammates come over to use them for the first time is can be a bit of a struggle to adjust. The “cheaper brands” like snipers edge, hockeyshot, skate anytime, poly glide all produce a lot of shavings so be aware of that. Can Ice (the pro series not the new smaller panels) is the only one marketed that says it doesn’t produce shavings. They also dull the blades very quickly (less than 2hrs of use) so investing in a Sparx machine is almost necessary to get the most of out the panels.

Sounds like exact thing that little Jaxton’s mom would make on her cricut machine

This should be a USA hockey rule for Tier 1 National Bound teams in my opinion.

Does anyone know any player that started with PPE in 2012 and has since played exclusively with them until aging out? There has to be a few right?

All it will take is an organization to offer full ice “AAA” mites and the numbers at the 66ers will diminish. I wonder if there’s a company that could facilitate that here. Oh wait…..there is. AHF offers it.

Not according to their website. Its for all divisions. They play a lot more regular season games than PAHL as well, and judging from the schedule it looks like most regular season games are 2 games in one day.

Ironically enough - that seems to be exactly what the AHF does for the mandatory showcase weekends that are included in their season....

@Spear and Magic Helmet I agree that PAHL splits it up too much, however (looking at 14U this year) the top A major team is an 84.92 MHR and the weakest A minor team is a 71.85 MHR. You wouldn't want those two teams ever playing each other. Wouldn't be fun for either group. So therefore splitting it up the way its now does actually make sense. The geographical locations of the teams does come into play though you're right. We have been in a PAHL division with Erie/Altoona/State College. Sucks making those drives for one game. I find it REALLY interesting that both of the organizations that BB has recently acquired (Huskies and Mon Valley) advertise that they are a significantly cheaper option than other clubs. I wonder if that changes now. I'm sure it will, but by how much? We have about 4-6 weeks until most orgs will announce their tryout dates for next season. Will be interesting to see where the BB teams and rinks fall into place within this time frame.

Yes, well said Dean Youngblood.

National team players. The NTDP team in the USHL. Roster is full of kids from MI/MA/MN

VERY interesting. Do we know what organizations the 4 from mid-am were with?

It would definitely change the landscape of the south hills, especially if esmark ventures into the squirt team territory and scoops up the kids from the get go. That being said, it does look like Huskies are aligned to be a “feeder” program to Esmark according to the nice little chart they have on the PIA website

Why exactly is he allowed behind the bench of presumably his child’s team? Doesn’t that seem like a bit of a conflict of interest?

Wonder what their season fees will go up to now. Hopefully not anything crazy as they always promoted themselves as the cheapest in town.

This part of it doesn't seem like a "bad" thing in my opinion. There is a want/need for a legit Tier 1 program in the south and it would help eliminate all the "faux" AAA teams everyone complains about. Make Rebellion the feeder program to it.

So Vipers/Stars will no longer have a home?

A USHL expansion team to Pittsburgh is not MY opinion, nor is it by any means a verified fact right now. I am only sharing what I heard from a long time friend and business partner who is now a very reputable person directly involved in the planning and construction of the new ice surface at UPMC. I don’t come on here to spread MY created rumors. I have no skin in that game so I apologize if I have misrepresented the information provided to me. Do I think it would be awesome to have a USHL team in Pittsburgh? Yes I do. I’d most certainly buy season tickets.

True, however none of those teams have a brand new rink in a highly populated above average income area that is tied to the Pens name. If done properly and branded right, it will be very successful.

This smells a lot like the start of building room for the rumored USHL expansion team….

Alpha makes the most sense for BB to go after. 3 sheets plus they are now partners with the USPHL so having the Vengeance there makes sense (assuming they field a junior team again). I have also heard some very strong and credible rumors about BB actively pursuing a handful of rinks in the Western NY area which coupled with the Pittsburgh area rinks could make up a substantial amount of teams/rinks for an AHF West. Will be interesting to see where it goes from here. I haven’t been yet, but I did hear that Rostraver has gotten some updates including a new Zamboni and new lights

My assumption is that because the scheduler for Allegheny is employed by BB and does the scheduling for both Palmer and PIA that it has something to do with the “Control” part of the “Controlled Club”. I do recall reading on the AHF site before that one of their main benefits is ease of scheduling through a very specific method and having complete control over the ice availability at their rinks.

Haven’t heard that one before from Preds friends. Pretty sure the BY and AAA teams are on the ice 2-3x a week for practices.

I could see AHF and PAHL coexisting just fine. The larger local orgs will likely put their top mixed year teams in both PAHL and a half season AHF (which they offer)to give them some more games and travel across state without the scheduling headache of independent games. The smaller orgs will likely stay PAHL and I could see some birth year teams opting to do an AHF and independent schedule, avoiding PAHL altogether like they do now.

Do me a favor a take a look at handful of local organizations websites and try to find out information about their program details….not saying some don’t have some info on there, but it ain’t pretty.