Lifelongbender

18 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

Crazy how the parents called him a creep and a pedophile, and the inappropriateness was well-known. But yet, still had their kids playing there.

Ah, the allure of an nhl team logo on your uniform.

@nemesis8679 this is a common thread in all the cases you hear about. They often involve well-known coaches or organizations who parents think can help their kids go somewhere.

This is not only horrifying but also unbelievable. You'd think that with all that has gone on in recent years in hockey across the country - and the media visibility of the big cases - at least the pro organizations would insist on proper responses to these things. I mean you'd think they'd do the right thing in these cases for human reasons, but certainly they have substantial incentives to do the right things for business reasons.

You have to remember that part of the cost of being in those leagues is that you have to travel E, to Philadelphia, Delaware, and New Jersey, in order to play league games. It's not just the cost of the league itself.

1 hour ago, Saucey said:

I just don't get the sense that the people who are looking at making this actually knows what it is to be female and try to play around here or sufficiently care. What is new?

I think this is absolutely true. You can see from the discussions on this forum that girls hockey is unimportant to many. And it's obvious to anyone who pays attention at any organization that, even at the orgs that really care to try to make girls hockey work, the girls are less than a second thought. It was only a year or two ago that basically every organization was giving their girls only one practice a week - at some orgs, every other week - and often they were on Sunday nights. Or late Friday night.

The reason for allowing girls to roster on an extra team is simple - to promote girls hockey in the region. And for many orgs the only way to make girls teams happen is to dual roster the maximum number of girls. The proposed rule justification says that it "could cost us a small number of girls teams". It surely will do that. What's hard to understand is why PAHL thinks that's not a big deal as implied by that wording. Of the 25-or-so organizations listed on PAHL's website, only 11 have even one girls team. And every season some teams fold while others arise, so that it's never possible to predict who will have a team or how many teams will be in a division. Because of the small number of teams, almost all girls divisions play reduced schedules - that is, the girls teams don't get the same 20 game seasons the boys teams do. The 19U division this season, for instance, had 12 game seasons. A girl who dual rosters on two girls teams won't end up playing 40 girls games on top of whatever coed schedule they have because girls teams normally don't get that many games and also because they probably won't get to every game for both girls teams either.

As for girls missing coed games, I've coached both girls teams and coed teams that had girls who missed games for their other team. As long as everyone is up front about it, that situation is what it is. Normally you are either prioritizing one of the teams over the other all the time, or you make a case-by-case call depending on the opponents and/or the importance of the game. It's not ideal, but it's something teams have been working with for a long time.

I'm not going to get into arguments about whether girls can or should play coed hockey at any level. I've long believed that girls should play coed at least through 12U because they get exposed to more players and more teams and there are more games in PAHL for coed teams as well as more tournament opportunities. I've known plenty of girls who handled 18U coed just fine. My experience is that as the players get older teams expect more and more from their players and I cannot imagine that most 16U/18U coed teams would tolerate players missing games because of their "other" team, whether the "other" team is a girls team or another coed team. So honestly I don't think that allowing girls to roster on both girls teams and boys teams is a big deal, because at the 16U and 18U levels girls tend to play for only one or the other anyway.

PAHL has to make a choice between parents complaining that their male player is getting discriminated against on the one hand and the viability of girls hockey as a thing on the other hand. Personally I think this whole argument is a waste of air because nobody is really hurt by the current rule. Regarding the Tier 1 rule, it's really not that significant. I agree with it in principle, but in practice I understand that the primary Tier 1 organization in our area generally tries to keep players from also playing on PAHL teams anyway.

14 hours ago, Icebucket said:

It's my understanding that RMU isn't packing the barn. I haven't been to a game this year but I've heard this from multiple people so I'm assuming it's the case.

Is the "seating capacity is holding us back" just something they thought sounded good to help get the grant?

If I am not mistaken, one of the things that RMU doesn't like about the Island facility is that it is off campus, and therefore not as easy for resident students to attend games at. This was one of the stated advantages that the on campus basketball arena had over the hockey arena. So I assume they hope they'll get more spectators at an on campus arena.

12 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

Hands-down the best.

And her reports on this subject, in particular, are outstanding.

16 hours ago, Rewster said:

Id like to piggyback a question if anyone knows; why doesn’t the PAHL provide their league with individual statistics in aggregate compilation on their website? The PIHL does, and it’s essentially the same format of SportsEngine as PAHL. For instance, say I wanted to look up and compare the goalies in PIHL. It’s easy to find each division and compare: Games Played, Minutes Played, SOG, SVs, Goals Against Average, Save %…you can even see their PIMs and Assists under the separate “skater” category in PIHL. You can separate it by each division, or do the whole overall Varsity or JV league-wide comparison. Same thing with skaters statistics.

But the only statistics that you can find on PAHL for goalies is the number of Games Played. That’s it. No Goals Against Average, no Save Percentage, no W-L-T record. In this day and age, it seems weird to not provide the running statistical total…especially for the top-end AA teams. 

I might be crazy, but I think I can remember a time when you could actually see the gamesheets - or at least all of the game sheet data - on there. That changed many years ago, but I'm pretty sure all of that data was in fact available a while back.

10 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

 

I know there's pros and cons to having outside evaluators, but I believe the pros far outweigh the cons. 

I wonder if any orgs still do it that way, and which ones? 

The pros definitely outweigh the cons.

I know that Westmoreland uses both internal and outside evaluators.

1 hour ago, nemesis8679 said:

Nobody wants to drive out there. 

It's no further than Alpha, or Baierl, or Delmont, or Printscape, from the city. Much less Kitanning or Armstrong or Hess. And it would be less irritating to drive to than Rostraver.

If I have learned anything in my many years of involvement with ice hockey in the region, it's that people drive for ice.

Having said that, I haven't been able to find anything about this in any of the construction industry sources I use for work either.

On 11/1/2023 at 9:52 AM, ANKLEBENDER said:

Most officials, especially the better ones in the area, skate at many rinks for multiple schedulars and do not give a sh*t who is home/away. So are you infering that there is a large portion of officials that are subconsciously and/or intentionally influenced to make calls by parents, coaches, and fans?

If you look at @Wes's original list, one which with I happen to largely agree, you can see that the rinks he says have issues are the ones further out. I have always felt that the refs got worse the further I was from Pittsburgh, and if you think about it, there's a logic to it. After all, how many refs can there be living in Indiana? They have to take the ones that are willing to go there, don't they? In my heart I have always sort of assumed that the refs at Indiana (and the others, especially Belmont, where local teams can get away with almost anything at times) were locals and that's just how it is because nobody else wanted to drive that far.

The MHR rankings are meaningless at this time, as everyone knows. It's silly to be discussing them. But just as a nod to how this board slants towards girls hockey, the Steel City Selects 16U team is #1 right now in Tier 2 Tournament Bound. Pens Elite Girls 19U is #14 in Tier 1 Tournament Bound,  Pens Elite Girls 16U is #3 in Tier 1, Pens Elite 14U are #11 in Tier 1, 

Again, these rankings are meaningless at this time. I specifically doubt that the Steel City Selects will be anywhere near that high in three weeks. Having said that, as long as we are talking about local teams in the rankings, it seems only fair to mention the local girls teams, too.

I remember a time when gamesheets for PAHL were available online - at least for a short while.

Looks like they're almost ready to make ice at Printscape's second sheet. The concrete is wet here - there's no ice - but the boards are complete. You can see a scoreboard up there at the end, too.

The new sheet at Printscape is nearly ready. The boards have been set in place and the concrete appears to be ready. I was just there on Saturday. I'll post the pics I took in the other feed about Printscape.

23 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe on a tournament weekend, there would be games over here, but mostly it would just be for practices.

Is the new sheet a full 200x85? I know it is probably hard to tell by looking, but many of the rinks that claim to be full sized around here are not. 

At a glance it looks full-size, yes. I've heard that it will be full size, too.

Boards are being laid out now. Looks like the rink will be ready on schedule unless something unexpected happens. 
 

It doesn’t look like there will be much room for spectators although someone told me there might be some stands at the end by the stairs, and there’s the overlook. 

11 hours ago, RJUSHL said:

And try to shield your kid as long as possible from the poisonous negativity that so many parents lug around their entire lives.

I don't have any experience with MidAms, but this sentence is worth repeating.

3 hours ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Wow, what's this message board for?  I guess we don't need to share information!  We will find out when the Pahl season officially starts!  Have a great day!

Is it possible that @aaaahockey was making a joking reference to another conversation going on elsewhere on this message board?

I have always wondered how they can get away with those steps. They're a pain in the neck and from an accessibility perspective entirely bizarre. I guess there area few parking spots around the side for accessibility but that rink just doesn't even feel legally compliant from that standpoint.

The biggest issue I have ever had with the Frozen Pond is actually the low ceiling, of all things. Can't really do an old-fashioned Murphy dump there.

33 minutes ago, No Politics said:

In my opinion, closed tryouts are freaking stupid to the Nth degree.  If you are who you say you are, what do you have to hide?

I follow your argument, but I disagree entirely. It's been my experience that closed tryouts are far better for both the organization and the players. I do not agree with the implication that most organizations are holding closed tryouts to hide the actual potential playing level of the resulting teams from parents. From an org's perspective, you don't have parents yelling at their kids during tryouts, or accosting evaluators during or after tryouts about their kids. From a player's perspective, observing closed tryouts both as a parent and as a coach/evaluator for years has convinced me that most kids play better at tryouts when their parents aren't watching and preparing their withering car coaching speech the whole time. Most parents have no idea how to evaluate their player relative to their peers. That's just a sad fact.

There are many things about how organizations run tryouts that I have issues with, but I am absolutely convinced that the benefits of closed tryouts far outweigh any costs.

7 hours ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

We all know why there is no combining, one or both teams coach or coaches want to be in charge. 

This is absolutely true. Also, the orgs want the players, because players pay to play. You'd never see an org agreeing to combine teams with another org unless it would be under their own label.

36 minutes ago, No Politics said:

And every time you hear of multiple supplementals in the same area, do you ever think "why don't they just combine teams?", or is that just me?  Ha ha.

It's not just you.

Just now, YardSale said:

I can’t imagine making the choice to pay the higher price tag on a team everyone knows will be worse than AA counterparts and traveling all over the place every weekend getting your but kicked just to say you play AAA.

Sadly there are PLENTY of players who will do it, though.

22 minutes ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Who was the coach of that team? Was that Taibi's team?

Yes. Unbelievable that there are players who think they'll find better coaching than Taibi. And also it's hard to believe that anyone would want to leave such a successful team. Someone above referred to the "grass is greener" phenomenon. I think that's the case. Hockey is somehow continuing to become more and more mercenary over the years.

14 minutes ago, Lifelongbender said:

Esmark refunds commitment fees for players who later make Pens Elite NB teams, so there is no risk for players to tryout at Esmark. It's right on their registration page.

Nope, that's Steel City Selects that refunds the fees. Sorry for the confusion!

11 hours ago, TigerMom said:

Unless they’re the same age and skill level (which it sounds they are not) and you are hoping that they make the exact same team, there isn’t much of an advantage of having them at the same org assuming Org 1 isn’t the only rink in your area and Org 2 is an hour away. The likelihood of their schedules aligning and their practices or games being back2back is very very low. I have kids playing at different age and skill levels and they’ve played in the same org and different orgs. When playing in different orgs it wasn’t a big deal because it didn’t matter to us if we were driving 20min east to one rink on Monday and then 20min west on Tuesday to another rink for the other kids practice, I’m still driving 20min to a rink for a practice on that specific day. 
 

If your child who made org 1 is excited about their placement, I say let them be and allow your other child to have their own experience at a different org that is more open to their skill level. 

This comment is reasonable, but it misses one thing. Many organizations give a discount for siblings, which is a huge advantage for having both players at the same org.