Lifelongbender

I agree with @Saucey on this subject. PAHL does a pretty good job of placing teams, which is a complex process and must be a maddeningly enormous undertaking. As several other posters have stated here, it's not perfect, and coaching of the teams and practice time become huge factors as the season progresses. There are organizations notorious for sandbagging during placements, and to be sure some placements are obviously wrong every season. It's hard to see how it could be perfect, especially this season where placement games were reduced (and totally eliminated at some levels, where the PAHL database is more complete for the players due to their experience). It's more challenging at Squirts especially, since those players don't have much historical data in the PAHL database, and at that age players can improve dramatically based on talent, ice time, and coaching. Sometimes just a month's worth of practicing can take what looked to be a B team all the way to A major at that level, because the kids can learn so quickly.

@dazedandconfused, I feel like a jerk. If that's what you meant, I generally agree with your assessment. I jumped to a conclusion, and I hereby withdraw my reaction. Sorry about that.

Come on, all of those schools are, academically speaking, at least on par with Slippery Rock. And right now they all have hockey, so they're from a hockey standpoint superior. The only one of the group I would even consider going to from an academic standpoint is Pitt, but then I am an engineer. Your definition of merit and mine definitely don't align.

@BeaverFalls, there's no question that you're right there. But I don't think that's the intention of this idea. It seems like they're just trying to give the girls a showcase.

Well, yes. I believe the idea is to generate excitement for girls hockey, as far as possible, and give the girls a little exposure while having fun doing it. There's nothing wrong with that. Nobody is fooling themselves here. Hell, boys HS hockey isn't being crowded with scouts here, so it's hard to see how the girls program is anything but a fun idea for the girls. For my part I support it, even though my daughter is only Middle School age. Too many people in this region don't take girls' hockey seriously, including a good number of folks on this board.

Finally a post that everyon here can agree upon!!!! Well done, @dropthepuck!!!

@Wes Exactly the second paragraph. The intent was a joint teams set up. Players were going to wear a regional jersey, and as I remember their HS logo would be added to their regional team jersey. It's a good idea. I'm all for it.

I honestly don't understand who the hell cares about whether any particular team s top 10, top 5, #1. If you're top 25 you're probably the best team in the Pittsburgh region. This conversation is nothing more than a bunch of alleged grownups bragging at each other. The Vengeance are obviously a very very good team. Hell, they could probably beat the Penguins. Grow up, the lot of you. None of you are even ON the team yourself.

I probably could have just looked for that myself. Thanks for the link.

@GrumpyOldPucker That certainly wasn't the intent of the exercise. They just wanted to run a little mini season - really more of a showcase - where regionally-based teams made up of girls from several different schools would be formed and would play in an all-girls format. I hear you about the stuff the boys do on the ice, though. Shouldn't be tolerated by coaches, but it's out there anyway. I don't think parents have any idea how boorish boys are out there from time to time.

Has anyone heard if PIHL intends to try to have the girls' hockey event that they wanted to run last year, but ended up having to cancel due to COVID? Honestly I thought that it was a good idea, and it would have been fun for the girls and fun to watch.

Yeah, that sure seems like what the original poster was saying happened.

I have to admit being a little happy when the COVID situation was limiting spectators. As much as I love watching the games myself, it's best for players, coaches, and especially officials when there aren't any.

Are you saying that the parents called the police to report the referee for something? Because a player fell over? Obviously I didn't see the situation, so I'm taking the description you gave at face value. I'm just trying to understand it. One thing you said is indisputable - it's a no-win world for referees anymore. I can't imagine why anyone agrees to do it nowadays.

For the record, this is a discussion board. EVERYTHING on here is just banter.

It's funny that, though I watched the video of that moment a few times, I didn't notice that the camera was looking at the stands. I just heard the yapping and my mind went the other way.

My God, you're right. I guess I heard that guy repeatedly yell "Shut the F up, b!" enough times to assume it was the parents we were hearing. Now that's a classy coaching staff.

There's a constant discussion, only slightly serious, about eliminating face masks in the NFL in the interest of reducing the severity of impacts. You want to talk about a bad idea - that's it. But the concept has some merit, at least, in terms of fostering discussion. Listening to the parents yell at each other in that video, I can't help but think that I'm not surprised at the behavior of the players.

IT was short, at least. Got to love the mouth on whoever that was in the stands. LOL. Doesn't look like it was a particularly good game, either, from the bit I watched.

I don't know how many people have opened this and read it, but it was actually quite interesting in a sort of numerically intensive kid of way. I think it more or less confirmed what I already believed - PA has a number of very good Varsity hockey teams, but the top tier of MN teams is just a different animal. Thanks for posting.

Unless things have changed since I last looked into this, rapid tests are considered reliable if they are positive, but a negative on a rapid test is not considered reliable. This information may be out of date. And, of course, there are probably PLENTY of people who don't care about the distinction, and will just say they got tested and it was negative. I had to be tested a few weeks ago and it literally took 8 days to get a result. I had it done at a UPMC. They didn't offer anything faster than that to me, and believe me, I asked.

If this is true, what isn't necessarily obvious to everyone about this is hoe much that fact will screw up rescheduling games for non-National bound teams. Because they didn't change the date, all of the National Bound teams will have to get their games in before the same date, which means that organizations will have to give them priority on rescheduling slots (as though they wouldn't do that anyway, I know but...) and that means that the "lower" teams will have to reschedule games piled up late in March somehow. Fortunately, at least in the divisions my kids play in, there weren't that many games affected, but it's still a huge issue.

Games are being rescheduled in March already by some teams.

Games start up again next weekend. There's going to be a mad rush to reschedule games that were missed. Fun times!

They've been experimenting with it at some juniors tournaments for quite a while, too, from what I understand. That particular rule irritates me MUCH less than the concept of eliminating touch up offsides. It already distorts the flow of the game where it has been eliminated. Such a bad idea.