Spear and Magic Helmet

https://triblive.com/sports/penguins-3rd-round-pick-charlie-tretheweys-journey-brings-him-back-to-pittsburgh/ FYI on Trethewey.

They did and to be honest, when that locker room was built, the rink itself did get some upgrades. Maybe I'm biased, but I remember being there when they didn't have walls or running water in the closet sized locker rooms. It may not have been a palace, but it isn't bad. Certainly better than places like Golden Mile and Neville (South Side).

In the past, the NCAA was so desperate to add new teams that they didn't care about the size of the rink, i.e. late 90s when they added schools like Wayne State, who played in a suburban rink. Some of the NCAA D3 schools were in outdoor rinks back then too. They might care about rink size and location today though. I don't really know if WVU is interested in adding sports or not, but I imagine if they are, the rink will be on campus. https://wajr.com/2025/03/02/regional-hockey-teams-eye-the-opening-of-a-new-morgantown-facility-this-fall/

Where did you hear this?

Great post and that is quite a history of the Civic Arena. Glad to have you around!

I think you have made the case to leave. It sounds like the coach is not a good fit for your expectations. Leave on good terms, but you might as well see if the grass is greener elsewhere.

I'm sure the tournament is fine, but the guy who runs the site has specifically asked you not to do this, and you're doing it anyhow...

In the event of split season midget hockey, I guarantee there will be alternatives available immediately. Kind of like full ice mite hockey. You can't build a big enough mousetrap.

There are a whole lot of reasons WPa isn't Minnesota in terms of hockey, but probably the biggest thing is rink availability. Not far behind is participation numbers. It's certainly possible for club sports to make it to fully sponsored status - like lacrosse - but a lot has to change for that to happen. Lacrosse had the advantage that most areas already have fields that are available in the spring. Minnesota has a somewhat unique history with the sport as well. Back when I was coaching a lot, we had a lot of contact with Buffalo area teams, who had fully sponsored high school hockey. I believe it was called "Federation"? Not sure about that. But anyhow, at that time, the local midget teams only offered split season options, and rather than play free high school hockey, a lot of families chose to start Junior programs, which weren't bound by the split-season rules. I know there were some other problems too - some schools didn't have teams at all, so you have to give something to the kids who don't have the option of school hockey. I think we'd have similar issues here. I don't know what the solution is or if we really should change anything.

I don't disagree with this notion, but there are many, many barriers to high school hockey in Western PA coming anywhere close to Minnesota. Just the sheer number of rink in Minnesota vs PA is a huge difference. Club sports around here do have a chance of becoming full varsity sports, like lacrosse, but You may be right. It wasn't clear to me whether it was free or not.

Since they're in college, can you name the kids? I'm not trying to start a fight -I'm just curious who they are.

With apologies to WDVE, how do you not include the "three guys I admire most...Stan and Guy and Myron Cope"?

Yeah I agree with you. It would be a hardship for the program, both number of players and presumably financially (do the suspended guys pay? If so, is it going to be hard to get money from them?). However, the message should be clear too.

I think the issue with cross ice is that they never implemented the ADM fully. They are supposed to be playing half-ice in squirt, but most areas never adopted that idea. You can say similar things about the recommended practice-to-games ratio vs. what actually happens. I agree that it's a huge mess to go from cross ice to full ice, but I also think that it's much better for mite-aged kids to be around the puck rather than having 9 kids spending the whole game chasing the one kid who can skate.

Yeah I agree. I think this hurts the BCHL and similar Jr A (i.e. non-Major Jr) in Canada the most. I don't know that many more Canadian players will end up in NCAA hockey. I think they're just going to play CHL instead of BCHL (or whatever), then continue to NCAA hockey. I also don't share the optimism that this will mean more NCAA hockey schools. It's a lot to take on. Penn State needed a major donation to get their program going. There are already plenty of NCAA D1 quality players to chose from. I think Penn State has done things really well, but I don't know of many other places that are going to commit the money to adding hockey. The schools that have the most cash to burn are probably in the Big 10 and SEC. A lot of the Big 10 already has hockey, and I'm not sure if the SEC schools want to add hockey.

Do you know what kind of lineup Peters had? it's long been a "tradition" there that the best players will play just enough regular season games to be eligible for the playoffs and then they all play in the playoffs.

Very good article. There is one thing that the article doesn't mention. Back in the 2000s, there were movements to ban non-high school hockey during the high school season - this covered mostly 16U and 18U. The natural response was for the amateur clubs to create Junior teams that weren't bound by the same rules as Midget hockey. I believe there are still some places where there is no midget hockey when it's high school hockey season. There are plenty of people who cannot or do not want to play high school hockey, so I would think that the demand for pay-to-play Jr hockey will still exist for people like that as well.

Yes, I was about to say the same thing. Cleveland used to have a ton of community-owned rinks as well. Not sure if that's still true.

In a lot of sports, the Keystone State Games allows teams to enter. It seems to me that this would be an easy fix, would increase participation, and increase the level of play.

Totally agree. One of the great characters in local hockey. He coached so many kids and made them all better men.

Yep, that's pretty much what they said back then too. No reward for the team that got caught breaking the rules and just generally, USA Hockey prefers making skillful plays rather than just shooting the puck off the glass. That said, this presentation was more than 10 years prior to USA Hockey actually adding the rule!

Looks like there will be a team in Connellsville

Not being permitted to ice the puck while shorthanded has been a USA Hockey thing for years. I remember talking about it at coaching clinics around 2008-09. I doubt its going anywhere, and in fact I would not be surprised to see it at higher levels soon.

Was there some reason they went from Pittsburgh Stars to Steel City Stars back in the 90s?? What other names have they had? I think they were the Viper Stars for a while too.

Not only that, but the players from the River Monsters largely played youth hockey in the area. We talk about college hockey as well.