Lifelongbender

Going to be a long spring...

The looming question is this: what effect, if any, will COV19 and the related travel and assembly advisories and bans have on organizational tryouts, many of which are scheduled in the next 6-8 weeks? I think this is going to blow over before my kids have tryouts, but how the heck can we know? And how can we predict the effects of fear on attendance?

Right. Exactly right. The teams that get talked about most on here - the travel teams and "AAA" teams - are vastly more expensive to play on than just the organizational fees. I think there are lots of parents who aren't entirely clear that this is true, or just by how much it is true.

All of this doesn't even touch on the disastrous effects Pens Elite hockey has had on girls' hockey in the region.

It's hard to imagine happening. Right now they're driving to Harmarville for practices and games, aren't they? Can't see how they'll develop NCAA D1 class talent with having to travel that far for daily practices. The rinks that true D1 school have on campus are too good in terms of not just ice but amenities for the players. There's nothing like that there, nor will there EVER be anything like that in Oakland, or at the Armory, if that ever happens. D1 players have recreation and study rooms, training tables, film and classroom facilities, weight rooms, and trainer facilities at their fingertips. Nobody truly good enough to play Varsity D1 will be attracted to whatever facility Pitt can offer in anything like the foreseeable future when they can play at Pegula, or Compton at Notre Dame, or the facilities offered by BU. It's just economics.

Here's the article: https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2019/11/18/state-to-fund-500k-rebuilding-of-street-outside.html I work in highway construction. This is a totally insignificant amount of money for a roadway project. My memory must've been rattled by that puck...

I read elsewhere that PennDOT had committed a considerable amount of money to upgrade some roads in the area. I am still skeptical of whether the road system in the area can handle the volume, but that's been said. I'll try to find that article and post it. I still think that the local residents will be VERY unhappy once this project is complete. For my part, though, I'd love to finish a beer league game and hit Noodlehead's for dinner.

One struggles mightily to understand how a discussion about the merits of installing an ice rink - 1) in the City of Pittsburgh and 2) at the Hunt Armory specifically -could devolve into an argument about the relative intelligence or manliness of the forum participants. It's hard to get any value out of the any of the more serious discussions here with this sort of reduction to the absurd going on. This was actually one of the more healthy discussions on the forum until about ten messages ago. Put them away, boys. And, as someone said elsewhere, stop feeding the animals.

To follow up on this, a few years ago I tried to buy a block of tickets to Pegula Arena for a peewee team after a game we were playing out there, and I was told that the arena was sold out until 2027 or something absurd like that.

There was a reasoned discussion (and I know how unlikely that sounds) on the topic of icing on the PK on the board last January (2019). You can find that discussion by looking for a thread called "PAHL Rule Question". I'm sorry, though. I just don't see how eliminating the delayed offsides makes anything better for the players, or gives them any more chances to "make a play WITH THE PUCK on their stick". I honestly don't get how that improves either the quality of the game or the learning experience for the player. It means that when a player fails to hold the blue line but quickly collects the puck, they have little choice but to skate back towards their own zone under pressure or cause an offsides if the D2D pass is well defended. That's just not how hockey is played, nor would that be an improvement for adults. There's an argument that eliminating free icing for the PK would be a good thing for the game. No such argument exists for eliminating delayed offsides.

This. And this doesn't even mention the effect they have on costs for girls who hope to be able to play somewhat seriously, but who don't want to/can't play co-ed at U14.

Ok, that makes sense. I know that I have played there in various adult league functions. It was hard to imagine a HS game on it.

I am asking this question sincerely - are you saying that there are high school games played on the Stadium Rink at ISC? That's hard to believe for a number of reasons, by far the most significant of which is the fact that it isn't regulation sized. The neutral zone is so short that staying onside is a serious challenge in breakaways when you first start playing on it. Plus when Pittsburgh doesn't really have a winter, like this year, the front corner ice is awful.

This is the edge of what I was referring to about how these organizations have damaged girls' hockey in the region. Well said.

Yes, there are a good number of female players in the Pittsburgh area, especially at the U12 and U10 ages. PAHL, the Penguins, and USAHockey are all pushing to expand girls hockey. Personally I think this is a good thing, but YMMV. So here's the thing about the Pens Elite move. Virtually all the girls play co-ed hockey up through U12. Girls do tend to drop out more than boys do at all ages, but what happens at U14 is body checking. While I think it's a large minority, there are many girls who, either because of their own preference or the preference of their parents (and man, both are common), decide not to play co-ed hockey at the U14 (bantam) level and above due to body checking. Remember that body checking - as opposed to body contact - is not permitted in girls' or womens' hockey AT ANY LEVEL, INCLUDING PROFESSIONAL. A number of PAHL organizations are making efforts to develop more robust girls-only programs to give these girls a place to play if they choose to stop playing at U14. But in order to accomplish this in an effective way, it's important to have solid programs for the U10 and U12 levels as well. Some girls look forward to the competition and excitement of full-on body checking hockey (although the truth is that introducing delayed offsides makes a bigger difference than body checking at the bantam level - for the love of Pete why not introduce delayed offsides earlier?), but at least a large minority do not want to play against boys in full-on body checking. Now the Pens Elite are offering full-time teams for girls at all ages. They have the resources, like ice time and coaching staff, and the roster of players, to do so. Most PAHL organizations are not going to be able to field full-time girls' teams at levels below U14 because their girls are playing and want to play co-ed at this age level, and even at the U14 level there are plenty of girls who continue to play co-ed, which makes offering a full-time team even at that level tenuous for most organizations. But the Pens can do it, and for the reasons above it's in their perceived interests to do so. Regarding the statements @The King made about SafeSport, there's probably some truth to this. There are few rinks in the area that are equipped to handle more than two or three girls in a girls' locker room at a time. Any U14 or above game that features just one girl on each of the two teams is going to have trouble finding separate facilities for their female players to get ready in, because most of our local rinks have girls' locker rooms so small that two bantam or midget-aged players can't get dressed in them together. This is certainly true of all of the former Bladerunners facilities. This situation does come up, by the way. Obviously there is a huge difference between a Pens Elite-type program and the typical PAHL organization program, but these underlying justifications for these moves are still largely the same. Regarding money as a motive for this, I don't see it, though I am certain that there are going to be a number of responses that use a bunch of dollar signs to make that allegation. For a host of reasons, it would be a much less risky way to make money at the U14 level to offer more teams for male players. It strikes me as a gambit in their drive to increase girls participation in hockey at every level. I predict that some of the PAHL organizations in the region will try to follow suit if the Pens Elite programs work out and offer full-time girls teams for PAHL play, instead of the current model that is for part-time girls teams pretty much everywhere. I could continue to write here about how the Pens Elite and other similar organizations have also damaged girls' hockey in the region, but that's a topic for another time. This move was inevitable, really. Hopefully the Pens Elite doing this will entice girls to keep playing at older ages, and enable the local organizations to build complete teams for them.

LOL. I remember that discussion. Good times.

Yes. I agree wholeheartedly. That feels like a recipe to waste half an hour of expensive ice.

Never had any issues there myself, but I've never been there late at night.

This is a fair question, @The King. I was speculating about why a kid would come so far, to a place where they speak a different language, when opportunities much closer to home exist in abundance (and there are very good opportunities for development in Europe). This might have been somewhat uncharitable, but that wasn't my intent. Frankly, I don't have the issues with PPE that many folks who regularly post here seem to have. As for the rest of your post, I generally agree with what you said.

@nemesis8679 while I agree with you regarding your second paragraph, if we have learned anything from this message board, it has to include the realization that there are a very large number of people who are irrationally concerned with their player "getting the best opportunities" and playing a the highest possible level, rather than simply letting their player enjoy playing. Now, regarding the question posed there, I assume that you move here from Kazakhstan because you haven't been given a better shot with anything really advanced over there - I haven't the foggiest notion what PPE-level opportunities exist in Kazakhstan, though obviously there's lots of high level hockey in Europe - and the PPE can offer you financial help courtesy of all the lower level players they accept solely to generate revenue for this specific purpose. My guess is that there is a certain type of person who views such an opportunity in the US as superior to one in say, Sweden, for obvious (if somewhat fantastical for the simple reason of the very long odds) reasons. It may be that in Boston they're not looking for recruits in Kazakhstan because their hockey culture is so much more advanced than that of Pittsburgh. Lord knows. Seems like a serious ordeal to go through for such a small chance of the huge paycheck to me.

Wow, you were being serious? I'll bite - so what? Predicting that the Penguins might be involved in construction of a new rink is not exactly earth shattering. Of course they will.

Umm, fellas, I think the CC reference was a joke. You know, something that rarely occurs here because too many folks have no sense of humor whatever. At least I hope it was. I certainly took it as a joke. If it wasn't intended as a joke, it is simply another kind of joke.

Yeah, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking. Rough morning!

Yeah, I'm afraid that @HereWithPopcorn is right on this one. The floor there is a permanent wood floor. There isn't going to be any ice hockey there in our lifetime.

Don't underestimate a few things regarding the rink itself, too. You'll be going there quite frequently for six or seven months in the year, so the distance and convenience is a factor. Also, you'll actually be INSIDE the facility quite a bit; if it matters to you, for instance, Pittsburgh Ice Arena (NP) has a gym in it, a decent snack bar, and is convenient to the turnpike. Lots of parents take their kids to practice and hit the gym for a workout while their kids are practicing. For me, the convenience of the rink to my home trumps all of these, since I am typically on the bench or on the ice with my kids anyway, and not standing in the lobby waiting. But I hear comments about these things from parents all the time (because our home rink does not have some of these amenities). At any rate, because you'll be going there all the time, these are things to think about. @RegDunlop7 and @fafa fohi made good points that don't need to be repeated. (Though I have to agree that when an organization messes around with schedules instead of having a set schedule for a season, it is pure misery.)