Spear and Magic Helmet

Connor Chi, NA, forward COLBY BILSKI, TJ, forward Trey Gallo, NA, defense Ed Nowicki, Baldwin, goal William Tomko, Peters, forward Chase Williams, FR, forward Looks like no one from the B division made it, though honestly I'm not sure if any of them are better than these 6.

It's been years since I was around this, but way back in the day, the "recruiting" was really more so the colleges could tell the kids about their programs. The benefit was really more for the ACHA programs than to the kids in that the kids often didn't really even know much about the ACHA teams. That being said, the kids also would have had to have applied to the schools by now and I think in some cases, financial aid stuff was due around Feb 1. I imagine it's somewhat true today too. I think basically the ACHA programs want to show the kids that the hockey is serious and worth doing, maybe give them some information on how the teams work and whatnot. I think Pitt and maybe Duquesne have locker rooms at Alpha, so maybe they want to show that off too.

You forgot Rostraver. Location is terrible, facility is not great, but they got a lot of seats!!! At least that was the excuse back in the 90s when they had a bunch of playoff games there.

You're not wrong about the taxpayers paying for this building. I would argue it's more than 45 Penguins games though. There are a number of concerts and other events at PPG every year. Certainly the Penguins are the main tenant, but they are far from the only user of the facility - just last weekend we had NCAA basketball there. I stand by my point that someone has to pay to turn on the lights. You might start by asking who sponsored your City Game on Ice. I'm sure there is a reason it's not a yearly event at PPG. We also paid for the Wells Fargo arena or whatever it's called out east, and they never have the state championships there either. I am sure money is not the only reason we don't have high school hockey events at PPG, but money an easy out for PPG if they want to say no. To your point, back in the 1970s, there were many, many regular season games at the Civic Arena.

I guess it depends on what the ticket costs, but 6000 tickets really sounds very, very optimistic to me. I would think the major obstacle is cost in any case. I'm sure it costs way more to get the ice at PPG. Someone would have to foot the bill for that, and I'm not sure if the Penguins are interested in doing that after a couple of years of revenues being battered. I do agree with the points about the kids wanting to play at PPG. I am sure most of them would want to play there even if the entire arena were empty.

Well, as others have said, it's great to see you took this step and improved the rink. The "B" division is a perfectly fine way to grow your program and I am glad to see you had some success.

Sorry, I'm a little out of the loop. What rink is this?? I didn't realize we had a rink where you couldn't play above Pee Wee.

Still got 650 left to sell. Taking up a lot of room in his trunk.

Pretty amazing to me that McDowell isn't just dominant in single A. They were a good AAA team for years and have an enrollment over 2000. Now I know the size of the school is really not that closely related to how good the team is, but this is definitely a surprise to me.

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You can read the link below, but basically it's all under one umbrella, so yes, same organization if not same owner. NA3HL is pay-to-play, but as mentioned, it is almost certainly the case that some of those fees help fund the top level. That isn't just true of the NAHL/NA3HL, I'm sure you can find many local amateur organizations that work that way as well (i.e. the lower teams help fund the top teams). That being said, some players do get exposure in the NA3HL and do move up. However, I kind of think that is just common enough to give people hope that it could happen to them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_3_Hockey_League

WHL, OHL, and QMJHL are Major Junior A. Those players are generally not eligible for NCAA with only a few exceptions. Canada has numerous Jr A leagues that are a step below Major Jr A but are comparable to the USHL. BCHL and OJHL (or whatever the former OPJHL is called) are some examples. If you look at NCAA rosters, you'll see plenty of players from the Canadian Jr A ranks.

Looks like the kid is banned for life. And to reiterate my point before, not sure he would have been banned for life if there hadn't been social media. https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/usphl-junior-hockey-player-banned-for-life-after-ref-punch/

Personally I think this type of behavior isn't new. I saw my share of kids acting like jerks in my time. It's a bit of a double edged sword. Yes the kids get famous, but now there's concrete evidence they are jerks and not just rumors.

That is terrible. Not a good look for that kid at all.

With JCU winning, do they get the nationals bid or does it go to Pitt for winning the regular season? In years past, it was the regular season winner and not who won the conference playoffs.

Where else are they going to go?? There's still only about 60 NCAA D1 teams. Looking around at rosters, how many of them are more than half foreign players? Not a lot of options for American players.

How many JV teams do have cuts?? I imagine not many.

ha. I do have to say that Karen Hill is very much NOT a Karen by today's definition. You don't wanna end up like her ex-boyfriend.

I imagine some of it is inertia. They have had Silver Sticks since the 1980s, maybe even earlier. There is probably a lot of "we never had to do that before, so why do we have to do it now?"

They do, plus NA, Bethel, Peters, Mt. Lebanon, and a handful of others. Then you have teams at the other end who are barely able to fill out a scoresheet for their 20 PIHL games. It just seems kind of excessive I guess and definitely is something that the PIAA won't like. I suppose it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, because there are many reasons hockey won't become a sanctioned sport and this is probably a smaller issue. Also Meadville had to take a break from the PIHL for a few years because they couldn't field a team. They did end up in the B division where co-ops were allowed. I believe they have two high schools in their district and something changed where they were considered a co-op if they used players from Cochranton HS.

Kind of crazy if you think about how some HS teams around here play as many non-PIHL games as PIHL games, if not more. Definitely would be a huge problem if hockey wanted to be a recognized sport. I just dont' see how the PIAA would allow some teams to play 50-60 games.

Sam was a very good guy. Sad that we lost him way too early.

You are right. I was being overly general. As @Danner27 mentioned Pitt, RMU and IUP are stronger than the rest of CHMA, The lower teams in there are not great. A #14 ranking for Pitt is pretty impressive actually. I hadn't noticed that before and there are some good teams below them in the rankings. Cal is perfectly happy to the the big fish in a small pond. I think that helps their recruiting as well. Cal has kids who go to school just to play hockey. I haven't seen them play in years, but they would have won the CHMA in their heyday and then probably gotten crushed at M1 nationals.