Spear and Magic Helmet

Agree HS is worse, but that's often due to the fact that many of these teams are barely hanging on. Most of them don't cut anyone, they just take whoever they can get. In the ACHA, the M1/M3 designation is really more about how organized the club is than anything. The local M1 teams are, at best, middle of the pack in M1. They often get blown out when they send a team to nationals. The M3 teams, at least the good ones, are among the best M3 teams in the ACHA and have decent showings at nationals. Now, if these teams played each other, they are probably about the same quality, though Cal had some teams around 2005-2010 that would have blown out the local M1 teams.

Anyway to read this where it doesn't look like it was copy/pasted from Excel? Very hard to read this.

Who is Trax?? I assume not Eric Trax? I remember him playing for the Forge, and I'm not sure Kevin Constantine would give him a night off to go play high school hockey. The Trax family is not a small family and they have a lot of money from their farm (and selling parts of their farm to developers), so I guess there might be another Trax I'm forgetting. https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/81360/eric-trax

I forgot to say, the guys from QV are Furman South and his brother Colin South. Both played at RMU. Furman is now an NHL official. Also, to further your point, neither was a defenseman.

Those Peters teams from the early 2000s were loaded... depending on the day. I think Christian Hanson played with those guys too. Not sure. But if you played them on a Friday, they'd be down like half of their roster. It was ridiculous how many Friday night games those guys had. It's gotten way harder to play tier I and high school more recently for sure, but you also have to consider that a lot of the guys who end up in D1 are playing Jr while they are in high school.

All great points Danner. I do not know of any more recent teams with NCAA D1 capable D1 in recent memory. What is the NCDC? I had not heard of it before you mentioned it, but it is interesting that it's a "tuition free" junior league. I'm way out of the loop, last I remember was everything got tossed into tiers and other than the USHL (Tier 1) and NAHL (Tier 2), everything else was Tier 3 with A, B, and C designations. I'm not sure where the NCDC fits in with all of that. https://www.usphl.com/ncdc

I just checked the Twitter. Not a good look in some of the tweets. Probably a better way to address it than using Twitter. https://twitter.com/cshell371/status/1474214207398760450?t=6fCvSl_zdzjQOW_AQVOPHQ&s=19

Previous Montour coach sounds like a class act

Just saw in the Post Gazette that RMU hockey will be back in 2023: https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/rmu/2021/12/17/Robert-Morris-reinstates-hockey-programs-for-2023-24-season/stories/202112170125

I did see your post about the Cal U tragedy and I do hope you get something to them. That is really nice of you to do. I think the transition to ACHA "M" was gradual. I think I'm just old too and can't learn new things!

I have heard stories about those Airport tournaments! It's been years since I was involved, and you are technically right about ACHA M1...However, way back before there were women's teams in the ACHA, they were officially referred to as divisions and therefore D1, D2, and D3. This is years ago since I was involved, so yes, I'm sure you're right the names changed, but there are probably other older people like me still saying D1. This link is to the ACHA website from 2005 - notice they say D1: http://www.itsportsnet.com/league.php?scriptName=HOME&leagueID=7700

Is schenley park a full sized rink now?

It's one of Culver's lower teams that plays in tournaments like this. They have 4 teams, and the high school teams are the lower two teams of the 4 they have. That being said, they are still sending very good teams. Culver definitely recruits and have had quite a few alumni play in the NHL as well as NCAA. No idea how SSA compares to Culver these days. In looking at SSA's schedule, they have a lot of open dates and seem to have games scheduled only against lower-level prep teams. I have heard that program has struggled lately, but even at their height, they were not a powerhouse. https://culverathletics.com/sports/2019/7/12/culver-in-the-nhl.aspx

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/high-school-football/2021/11/26/WPIAL-football-championship-notes-factoids-2021/stories/202111240007 According to Mike White, they usually sell tickets that are good for all of the games, but this was the first time they had games on separate days and had separate tickets, i.e. a ticket for Friday's games and a ticket for Saturday's games. I can't find a figure for the sales on either day, but I imagine 12,000 for the two days is on the low side. A lot of these high school teams fill stadiums seating 2500 or so people. With 10 teams worth of people, you could imagine there might have been 20,000 tickets sold for the 2 days.

I think they only plan to have ice until March.

That's six As, must be twice as good as aaa.

I agree Eddie. Pitt will have an on-campus football stadium before they have an on-campus ice arena. There were rumors that Lemieux approached Pitt about adding ice making equipment when they were building the Peterson Events Center. There response supposedly was no and the reasoning was they wanted the Penguins to leave town so there would less competition for the basketball team. Given the state that the basketball team is now, I am sure they aren't interested in spending the money now to retrofit the building with ice.

People have been trying to get hockey recognized as a sport for probably 50 years. The fact that lacrosse and field hockey are sanctioned despite coming along much later is not encouraging. Even niche sports like rifle, bowling, and water polo are PIAA sanctioned. The schools could do more on their own, but most schools do not, even at the schools where participation is (relatively) high. They are definitely not banging on the PIAA's door demanding hockey be added. I have a feeling they are discussing adding e-sports though. I just don't feel like many people outside of hockey really want to add hockey. Plus I don't know if hockey wants it anyhow. You'd have to have the season run from November to February. That's half as long as the season is now, and the length of the high school season around here is a huge reason why split season amateur hockey will not work. I don't know, it just seems like there are a lot of issues that have never been resolved and aren't likely to change.

I agree. I might add that it would be a much better use of the Penguins' money to get a USHL or NAHL team here.

I have seen pictures of the rink on Facebook. I think it actually is on schedule to open at the end of the month.

All great points here. To be honest, I think the person who mentioned the Jr Flyers and PPE has the right idea. Most high schools on this side of the state have barely enough kids to have a team, if they have one at all. Amateur hockey doesn't have the problem of school boundaries. In my time, I've seen lacrosse go from a niche, club sport, to fully sanctioned. So it's possible to see, but unlikely given that there are so few kids playing HS hockey. It's a lot of resources to invest in a small number of people.

What schools are playing?

I feel like enrollment is should not be the only criteria for divisions. Certainly, it can matter. I mean QV vs Mt Lebanon, sure, Lebo has an advantage. On the other hand, Ringgold is a huge school, but there are not many hockey players there.

Here are mine for D2: Carrick Bishop Canevin Ringgold Burrell Avonworth

Really cool!