Spear and Magic Helmet

East Carson St wasn't as bad as it is now, but bad traffic and, in the late 90s, evidence of drug use around the rink. In the last couple of years, there were rumors the rink was being used for raves. The roof collapsed in 2010, and by then it had long since been abandoned. It caught fire later that year and they didn't exactly hurry to extinguish the fire. The end of S 21st Street was surprisingly isolated

Many pihl teams used it in it's heyday. The central location and just available ice made it very attractive to a lot of high schools. Technically it was before the PIHL though. back then the WPIHL and SHIHL still existed. The PAHL team was called Central Pittsburgh. I believe the organization moved to Ice Castle and became the Predators. The Amateur Penguins also used South Side. Some connection between the rink operator (Paul Shuttleworth) and his kids playing Am Pens. I have breathed bad fumes in that small rink in Erie that's now gone. It was called the Igloo at that point but I think had a different name before it closed (ICE something?). I think a family named Legace ran that rink.

I have never heard of such a book and I'm not sure there would be demand for much more than about 400 of them.

You can do that, but I think what he wants is to look at, say, Baierl, and see what's scheduled for that day. Baierl came to mind because they do publish their ice schedule, though I don't know if it would tell you who is playing whom, it might just say who scheduled the ice. https://member.daysmartrecreation.com/#/online/baierl/calendar?location=1&start=2022-10-01&end=2022-10-01

Looking at baseball, it seems to have gotten a bit more "closed" too. Much more of a suburban sport than it once was.

I agree. PIHL AAA isn't terrible hockey, but it's miles from the competition in (non-faux) AAA. I'm sure plenty of even faux AAA players have tried to take this kid's head off.

Sounds like you're talking about #18's dad? https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/301577/john-mooney

Should be good for Jim Murphy too. It seems like he's been trying to get out of the hockey business for longer than he's been in it.

This is going back a ways, but back when Esmark was known as the Pittsburgh Stars, they played at Kittanning. And the Vengeance, then known as the Amateur Penguins, played at the Neville South Side Arena - good location, but awful rink. Around that same time, the Hornets, were playing home games in Detroit. So I think that there is some validity to the idea that some people will go anywhere for AAA. I think that's especially true for Esmark, who has been 2nd best after PPE if you consider the last 15 years as a whole and not individual teams/birth years.

I'm surprised anyone gave a thumbs down to the Klasnick family. Also from USC: Eric Meloche played here until maybe high school. Ryan Malone. Dylan Reese and Grant Lewis. The NAHL Pittsburgh Forge was only here for a couple of years, but a large part of their roster was from PGH and quite a few of them played NCAA hockey. Some who haven't been mentioned are Eric Trax, Mike Handza, Brian Hartman. Matt Bartkowski played "faux AAA" for the predators with Ty Murovich and those two played high school with Shane Ferguson. Also from Mt Lebanon are Jeff Potter (currently coaching Youngstown I think), and the Kuqali brothers, Nicholas and Zander. Hank Horn from Lebo was a 3rd string goalie at Ohio State. Matt Humerich from Bethel Park was a 3rd string goalie at OSU as well and I believe Nick Lordi from Bethel played at Mercyhurst. Keith Stanich played for Wayne State. Joe Pelle from Beaver played at Princeton I think and Brad Fratteroli played at Western Michigan. Mike Betz and JB Bittner played at OSU at roughly the same time around 2002-05 Dee Rizzo played at Michigan State Jim and Bob Black played D3 for some SUNY school I believe That's just off the top of my head and these are mostly older guys. There were quite a few with birth years in the 80s and 90s. I'm sure there are a lot born in the 2000s as well but I am not as familiar with the names.

Yes, that's the same Pete Shaffalo.

I don't agree at all. The team picking process is chaotic and inefficient, team entry events exist, and new sports are changed to team entry every year. Your examples don't show the weakness of a team entry, but rather the weakness of the current system. Things were so bad that the host region couldn't even field a team? That's either an argument for team entry or it's an argument for cutting hockey from the KSG. Either way, the event has fallen significantly from what it was in the early 2000s.

It's part of the Keystone State Games, which is a non-profit that puts on the event. In a lot of other sports, teams are entered rather than having a separate tryout. The real question is, why isn't hockey one of the sports entering teams? That was rumored for years, but hasn't happened. There are plenty of teams practicing over the summer and you could really up the ante with real teams playing.

You can make an argument for both sides of the money grab/outlet for kids to play hockey in the summer (spring) divide for just about any spring/summer event like this one. Seems that usually the positiveness of your experience determines which side you take.

Wait what??

I think you are right about that. I think more and more of these predators are getting caught. At least that's what I hope. I also hope it means that there are fewer of these incidents because people are reporting them and the predators are getting caught.

"Hot water" is a little mild for the trouble he's in. It's disturbing he was around youth hockey players.

You have to admit, we were discussing beer league hockey.

Honestly, I think Danner might have a good point here, with the comment about the local ACHA D1 hockey being "not good enough". Before CHMA formed, the ACHA D1 schools in the area were WVU, Duquesne, W&J, SRU, RMU, Mercyhurst, and maybe one or two others I'm forgetting. Pitt and IUP were in D2. Not sure about Youngstown State. Those schools played in 2 or 3 different conferences. I want to say one was the "ECHL", which was mostly schools on the east coast, another was mostly western/central NY teams, and there might have been a third. Anyhow, this was around 2004 and the thinking then was that these schools got "better" competition by playing all of these teams from far outside the area rather than playing each other locally. Somehow they convinced IUP and Pitt to go to D1 and the CHMA was formed, though if memory serves, RMU and Mercyhurst came onboard later because the CHMA wasn't good enough. I do sort of take issue with the use of the term "beer league" to describe ACHA hockey. Yes, technically USA Hockey registers ACHA teams the same way as any other adult hockey team. However, when I think of beer league, I think of a bunch of guys wearing mismatching jerseys playing non-check hockey at 11 at night with very little speed or defense. ACHA hockey certainly isn't pro-level hockey, but it is much more organized than a beer league. I know back when I was involved, which was around 15 years ago now, there was a sentiment that ACHA hockey should refer to itself as "non-varsity". I kind of hate referring to something as what it is not, but I think the idea was that the word "club" conjured up the whole beer league idea. Don't get me wrong, there are ACHA teams (and other college club teams) that are barely organized and probably are really beer league teams, but I think a lot of them deserve a little more respect than the beer league title suggests.

who are the teams?

Didn't realize it's been that long that Bishop McCort was a co-op team. Good for them for holding it together and finding a coach when the previous guy got a lengthy suspension.

Pretty sure he's just speculating

I agree with the points made here. Also, sometimes there just isn't opportunity to play anything but A hockey.

I imagine baseball is the closest. Has a much more limited number of scholarships than basketball or football, though I think it's still way more than hockey (edit, yes, around 5000 vs 500 for hockey...way, way more in basketball and football). And there aren't nearly the number of fully sponsored youth baseball teams/camps/training facilities as there are football & basketball, so the expenses fall on the parents. I think the other big difference with hockey is that no other sport has so many foreign players. Something like 35% of NCAA players are foreign born and I bet many if not most of them are scholarship players. In my experience, the thing that people really don't seem to get is hockey scholarships are much more rare than baseball, football, or basketball scholarships. The number of available scholarships in hockey is tiny compared to the pool of players eligible for them.

I'm a bit older than you and I can tell you it's been going on a lot more than ten years. I'd say at least 30.