Rewster

Is it just me, or does it seem like Belmont Complex in Armstrong is a void for FPP…especially for the road teams? I can’t remember the last time I was there for one of my son’s games and his team was awarded all (or maybe any) Fair Play Points. This is over several years and 3-4 different organizations.

So, it looks like we added 2 new rows at the AAA division. Considering that there’s only a 3 point difference between the current #2 through #7 in the standings…it’s basically a bingo ball shuffle each week…just call out each ball as they pop out one at a time. The way that the parity has been; it would probably look the same. It’s been interesting all season, but now is when each game will be amplified. It’s going to make for a really exciting final few weeks. Hope everyone stays healthy and available for their teams. And as the Old 2-9er would say, “buckle up baby”

Around here? It’s going to be a stretch to find that. Ohio University on some nights, Liberty University, Penn State University ACHA before Pegula/NCAA. I’m talking southeast and southwest United States. It seems the further south you go, the bigger the college hockey support is—even for ACHA. Non-traditional hockey markets/schools are having a huge bump in attendance and support. The mid-America/northeast America ACHA schools don’t seem to really care much about supporting their school/club team. But, schools like Arizona, UNLV, Tennessee, North Carolina, NC St, Alabama, Georgia, you’d be surprised how much support they get…they don’t care if their school is ACHA D3, or whatever the new conference name is. It’s all about school support, not “the best hockey.”

One could say the same about local High School PIHL hockey as well. It’s ok to hype up a school’s hockey program. Those in the “know” understand the true difference. Regardless, having incredible media and student-body support for your school’s hockey program is awesome…regardless of the pecking order of competition. It has to be exciting to play in front of a continuous home crowd of 2,000+ people at an ACHA school…compared with a lot of afterthought small schools in NCAA D3, or even NCAA D1. I remember Kent St and University of Findlay having NCAA D1 hockey teams that had less support than their ACHA clubs do.

I think that you’re obviously missing my point. I was generalizing ACHA D1 and comparing the overall level of play to NCAA D1 and NCAA D3. The gap between ACHA D1 and NCAA D3 is small…generally speaking. I gave an example of a local, Pittsburgh area, school-sponsored NCAA D3 hockey team. A school that most locals would at least be familiar with. Would it make you feel better if I swapped, say—Hobart, Trinity, or Norwich in place of Chatham? I’m pretty sure that most of our average hockey fans aren’t familiar with many (if any) NCAA D3 hockey programs. Chatham University was simply the proverbial local example that I used for my broad point of reference. Oh, and by the way…just say ‘NO’ to drugs.

There’s still a pretty big gap between NCAA D1 and ACHA D1…especially when we’re talking top-20 NCAA. Now, the gap between NCAA D3 and ACHA D1 is not significant. I’d like to see Minot St play Chatham University men’s team. That would be a competitive game.

I can attend to this. I remember playing Liberty University at the Roanoke Civic Center (not sure of the exact name) in 2001/2002. It was the same arena that their ECHL team played. One one hand, it was kind of awesome and memorable to play in a 6,000+ (estimated) arena. But on the other hand, it was such a huge and cavernous arena to play in front of less than 100 or so fans/students. Their coaches (Liberty’s) warned us ahead of time that everything echoed and the stands looked so dark because they didn’t turn all of the lights on since nobody would sit in the seats. It’s really awesome to see how much support they get now with their own on-campus arena and ESPN+ coverage. Great work by all involved in building that program.

Ok…it’s Friday, 12/1/2023…The last time the rankings were posted was 11/17/2023. I may not speak for everyone else…but I appreciate the time spent and overall human element of consideration that comes with this one person poll. Admittedly, I’m biased towards really only caring about 3A and 2A. But, I’m also certain that others enjoy these as well. Plus, on the flip side…I always remember that it’s basically a person’s opinion that’s mixed with facts and perceived potential. I mean, anyone can pull up the actual PIHL standings and see how many points each school has; and compare them with games played, W/L/T, etc. But, in reality it’s basically a hodgepodge of incomplete information that only looks at the past. It inevitably fluctuates…at least until the very end of the season when every team has the same amount of games played. Only then, it all comes together completely. With that said; AAA has a 4-way tie for first place…and a 7-team race where one or two games can fluctuate and slide a team’s position from first place to seventh place in a week or so. If you’re even slightly interested in Western PA HS Hockey…this has to be the equivalent of any legitimate crapshoot for a regular season divisional championship.

^^This^^ I’ve been witness to (as a parent) and as a player (in separate occasions) when there our team did not have a qualified USA Hockey-sanctioned coach behind the bench for a game—for whatever unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances—and had to scramble to find a legitimate, pamphlet-holding person to stand behind the bench. I got to tell you, it sucks to be on the short end of the “not-having-a-qualified-coach” stick. Especially when there’s obvious alternatives available. It sometimes comes down to travel hiccups; or parent-coach vs having to choose between multiple children during tournaments in the same city but get shafted in the end because of game times; or, illnesses/family emergencies while away for tournaments; or even automobile breakdowns enroute to/from away games. If you’re around youth hockey long enough, you’ll eventually see every imaginable scenario play out. I can sum up a bunch of long stories made short…it’s simply much better for everyone involved to push any given team(s) roster into the grey area of having too many qualified coaches vs the opposite where you run the risk of not having any coaches and are forced to forfeit. Sobeit, if there’s a common head/assistant coach’s name that is represented on more than a couple of teams. Just as long as they are willing to take their time and energy to act on their “coach” title…I would rather shake their hand than question their motives.

I heard that AAA has a 6-way tie for 2nd place. Crazy how competitive this season is already. It’s early, I know. But, it should be exciting to follow.

It’s not based upon a year-to-year promotion/relegation. It should be (i.e. the spirit of the classification) to take into consideration the overall enrollment, boys high school enrollment, high school hockey enrollment, factored in to the most recent trend of the past 5 to 10 seasons and each school’s regular season and playoff finish. I hate to beat a dead horse…but there has to be special qualifiers based upon if it’s a private, or parochial school that can “recruit” from a greater region. It’s one thing coming from Philadelphia where the private schools have their own classification…Pittsburgh simply does not have that type of population or enrollment to support a small/select number of schools.

Black Bear infiltrated Mt Lebanon Ice Center with a mole:

I believe that it’s team-by-team basis. There’d be too many teams from each division and where they’re playing each of their home games to list it in any definitive format. Plus, there’s the option from the other (away) team that can veto any of the proposed time slots and/or venues. Obviously, all of the available prime slots have been booked for a long time in the region. Say you can get a 7:00am, or a 9:30 pm slot available on a Sunday in Harmarville and your opponent is Wheeling, Westmoreland, or even SHAHA…they should have the option of inquiring with their players and families about their reasonable willingness and availability to adjust their schedules in order to accommodate. I understand that it should be customary to be adaptable to such situations. But, there will be those teams and families who were anticipating/planning for zero modifications of the schedule for PAHL (or independent games) once the schedule came out. If it can’t be universally agreed upon; then what? It’s my understanding that the last minute venue changes should properly be offered and agreed upon by the “away” teams…even though both teams will unfortunately be “away” teams. Those two aforementioned situations are probably why we won’t see anything published definitive about the schedules. Too many teams with too many variables.

It can go both ways now. Giving an early verbal commitment is just what it is…a verbal commitment. It doesn’t seem like that type of commitment is viewed like it used to be. You have coaching changes year-after-year, which is a major pivotal factor for the student athletes. Plus, now the NCAA allows college hopping via the transfer portal. So, the major, top end players have the behind the scenes borderline tampering conversations going on with their “personal consultants,” or “paid for, but amateur agents.” Just by watching the B1G Network and their hockey app, I noticed more than a few players who switched schools this past season. It’s not what it used to be. I mean, nobody knows what will be tried in the next few years with NCAA rules, player agents, transfer eligibility, outside tampering, scholarship eligibility, etc. On one hand it’s interesting to see what’s publicly happening in the major 2 NCAA sports (football/basketball), and then seeing some it even trickle down to the Olympic sports. On the other hand, (IMO) it’s decimating the fan bases by the decreased interest of following yearly player development, school pride, enthusiasm for each new season knowing who’s coming back and the strengths/weaknesses of each program. Frankly, it’s too difficult and time consuming for the layman fan to keep track of the comings and goings with recruiting. But, now you have to essentially do that with the rostered underclassmen, and even graduate students with eligibility remaining. Essentially, every college student athlete is a yearly free agent. Obviously, it’s mostly affecting football and basketball. But, hockey is not immune from the transfer portal and “Name Image and Likeness” (NIL) benefits that can directly influence players. You have to believe that there’s plenty of people out there (probably with law degrees or similar backgrounds) that are interested in taking advantage of the opportunity to earn new money from this new venture. Sorry for the long post, but I am just trying to bring to light the sudden and drastic changes that are starting to occur with NCAA sanctioned sports and how it’s affecting the players/families/coaches. Most student athletes will not be affected (especially in non-money generating athletics). But, there are people out there that are reading the fine print and are looking to financially benefit from their “representative athletes.”

I remember playing roller hockey there for several years. It certainly appeared to be full size in the 90’s and early 2000’s when they put the sport court down. I recall that the original owner, Howard Baldwin, whom owned the Pens and Pittsburgh’s indoor soccer team “The Pittsburgh Stingers.” He initially wanted it to be exactly the same as what was in the old Igloo/Civic Arena. Even the original scoreboard was made with the same graphics and highlights.

This makes sense. I have heard of at least one player that has made a recent move to the next level, and it’s out of this area. Things do seem to mysteriously trickle this time of year with player movement; especially at the U18 level. I know of another player that was getting repeatedly invited to play in summer showcase tournaments for another out of this area organization under the guise of “bubble players on extended tryouts.” I gathered that as, either the team just needed fill-in players to complete their rosters, or they were legitimately interested in late additions for their team. I suppose that doing due diligence on player evaluations is continually ongoing and late additions to rosters is pretty common at the U18 AAA level.

It’s odd. According to the Preds website… they have listings that include the team, coach, level classification, and even have separate tabs for Tier I vs Tier II to help separate all of the organization’s teams from 8U Blue all the way through Tier II U18 AA and Tier I U16 AAA. On the Tier I tab, every team/coach/classification is included except for the Tier I 18U AAA. It’s August 11, and without the automatic showcase tournaments inclusion; there is still nothing listed regarding the U18 AAA team. No roster, coaches, schedule (other than the pre-populated pending tournament dates with TBD times and opponents). There’s no news about anything related to that team. Perhaps there’s still some question marks regarding available roster spots, coaching vacancies, strength of schedule compared with the current situation? We’re approaching a time where scheduling, coaching/staff clearances and training camp dates/times are usually squared away and start to ramp up. Mid August is when the high-end competitive teams start to get the ball rolling. It’s interesting that every other squad is accounted for except for the eldest team.

If the Vengeance are the former Amateur Pens; who would be the new Mt Lebanon/Pittsburgh Hornets AAA Midget Major team that played in Michigan National Hockey League? Would that be the Pens Elite now? It seems to me that I played in the “old days” (in the mid- to late 90s)…so I have about a 15 year gap in my understanding of the hierarchy of the organizations.