Spear and Magic Helmet

On 4/25/2025 at 7:15 PM, aaaahockey said:

They had a dedicated locker room in the old dump too.

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/
 

2 hours ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

WVU is building a new ice rink which is awesome for their programs. I thought maybe that it was an indication that they may move to have an NCAA team, but from what I can see it isn’t going to be any more than 800 seats. Clearly not big enough for a D1 NCAA program. Why would they spend all that money and not make it large enough for an NCAA team? 

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. 

2 hours ago, Pa Hockey said:

dont care ................it promotes the sport and great competition

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

12 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

Unless something was deleted (may have been) I think he was offering a free entry.

You may be right. It wasn't clear to me whether it was free or not.

32 minutes ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

There are two local kids playing D1 hockey right now, neither of them played for Pens. One didn’t play AAA (Esmark) until U18 and he played PIHL varsity for four years. The other kid played for other (faux) AAA teams until U18 Esmark. Also played four years of varsity in PIHl……even played a few games at the JV level because they needed players to have a team. He volunteered to play JV because he wanted to help his friends have enough kids for a team, and he wanted to be on the ice every second of his life. 

Point is, there are more than one way (I.e. Pens locally) to make it to D1. And kids can play PIHL and AAA club hockey and advance to D1. Hopefully it will happen more and more. 

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.  

4 hours ago, zam said:

Just a Preview, still some work to do. Collaborators welcome!

2025 TOP 25 DIVINE BEINGS, VARSITY COACHES, AND MEDIA MEMBERS

3. Celina Pompeani

4. Muhammad 

7. Mark Madden 

9. Clay

12. Mort

13. Buddha

14. Keith Barnes

18.  Quinner

21.  Zeiler

 

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

8 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

4 to 7 games really doesn't sound like a very big, groundbreaking message for breaking an underage drinking law at a school event. Curious if any were planning to drive after? Or did?

Maybe it's just me? But done for the season would seem like an even clearer message.

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.

19 hours ago, zam said:

There will definitely be CHL players that move on to play US collegiate hockey. But not 1200 players.  If there are 1200 total players in the CHL, id guess 300 are aging out or in a position to leave the league after playing a couple years. 

The top hundred are still likely to go into a pro league, NHL, AHL, Europe.  The bottom hundred players are probably not desirable collegiate players.  So that leaves the hundred in the middle. 

So you have a 100 players that haven't had any schooling for a couple years, have been treated like rockstars, playing 70 game seasons in arenas with thousands of fans.

How desirable is going to say Robert Morris, for example, to play a 25 game season in front of a hundred fans?  When they already have a CHL scholarship that would allow them to choose a school in Canada and play USports hockey.

Change is coming, but I don't think we need to build a border wall to keep the Canadians from rushing in.

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.

18 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

Peters sinking fast.  Lost to South Fayette tonight.  

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.

On 8/12/2024 at 12:41 PM, nemesis8679 said:

They're probably playing in an area with more community-owned rinks.

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.

On 7/29/2024 at 8:50 AM, Wes said:

Agreed on the regions.  It's usually so stacked in the Philly area that it's unfair.  My son's team was one of the last from Western PA to win the 18 age group.  He always had fun playing in the Keystone games with a bunch of his hockey friends.

But one big issue is that Allegheny and Westmoreland counties (and Butler for that matter) are in different regions.  My son had friends that lived in both counties and thus both regions and they all wanted to play together but couldn't due to the dumb way the regions are setup.

 

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.

43 minutes ago, Denis Lemiuex said:

Just heard the news Ron Steedle "Flame" died of a massive heart attack. He was involved in WPA Hockey for over 40 years. Totally underrated as a coach. And a man more passionate about WPA hockey than anyone I know. He falls under so many categories - Legend, Builder but the one he would appreciate the most is character. 

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!

1 hour ago, James Gatz said:

USA Hockey added this rule in 2020-2021 rule changes.  The original goal was to adopt the same rules for high school and adult leagues, but that has not happened yet.  Not trying to weigh in on the merits of USA Hockey rule, but for anyone not familiar with the philosophy behind it, USA Hockey explains it at Frequently Asked Questions About New Rules For 2021-22 Season (usahockey.com)

In a nutshell, USA Hockey wants to keep the focus on player/skill development and views icing a puck on the PK as a lesser skill than a deliberate break-out with passing and skating.  They want to keep the motivation to make deliberate hockey plays over simply icing.  They recognize the NHL rules add to the viewing experience and minimize stoppages and give some relief to the PK unit.  For amateur hockey, which has less than 2 minute penalties for some age groups, they don't want to give the advantage of suspending icing to the PK unit.  

 

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.

On 5/15/2024 at 10:23 AM, IceMom said:

https://www.esmarkstars.com/news 

 

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.

52 minutes ago, Saucey said:

He has a kid who plays and he coaches. It's not a bad thing to alert the general community regarding what is going on so no organization gives him access to a bank account. 

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

1 hour ago, Goalsanddreams74 said:

The coach was causing 10 players to want to quit especially after the last game he coached. We wouldn’t have had a team if he stayed regardless.

This came down to it being a terrible schedule. And the league never listened to any of the players. We had concerns that nobody ever addressed. 

Was this the coach from the beginning of the season or the guy who was an assistant, became head coach, then got fired after he brought in a bunch of new players?