Lifelongbender

It's a great site, Mitch, and I think one that hockey people in Pittsburgh really appreciate.

It's generally best to invest in skating, all other things being equal. That's my view, anyway. Unless he has major deficiencies elsewhere, everyone can always profit from skating work.

Solid coverage of hockey from varsity on up. I wish they had time to cover JV, too.

My goal has always been that my kids love hockey enough to still be playing when they are my age. Division 3 or club in college would be a wonderful bonus.

Saucey, I have been worried myself for some time about the effect that all the layers of paperwork and the absurd parenting will have on coaching in the future. I know of more than one team that didn't have a coach at the time of placements, forcing players to accept placements to a team on faith that the team would actually still exist at the start of the season. Regarding parents in the stands being covered by SafeSport, at least where my kids play (both PIHL and PAHL) coaches, players, and parents are all required to sign a code of conduct. At least one of the Codes of Conduct we signed explicitly cites SafeSport. Sadly you see far too few organizations actually expecting their people to actually comply with their code of conduct, and I suspect most are only requiring parents and players to sign it to cover a legal need.

Just suggesting that posting the scoresheet would at least make it easier to understand what had happened. I tend to agree with you that the scoresheet isn't going to satisfy anyone, just make it clearer. Having been a scorekeeper MANY times for amateur games, and having stood in the penalty box and helped count shots for various PIHL scorekeepers, I understand it's a difficult situation. Personally I don't care about statistics on a piece of paper at all - I know if my own kids played well because I was watching - but it shouldn't be an issue to show the scoresheet to everyone if it at least makes the process more transparent. At any rate you can see the shot counts on the PIHL website for every game. I guess I don't understand why most people would want to see them, but I also don't understand why it is an issue to let people see them. I get copies of them from the business managers on the teams I coach on, anyway, as Ynot02 suggested.

Paul is 100% right. PAHL games use parents to keep score, and in that case (that is, with volunteers) a bit of error is expected. In the case of PIHL games, however, they have paid scorekeepers and those games should be correctly scored. It's true that they record what the refs say regarding goals and assists, and if they correctly record an incorrect attribution there, that isn't the fault of the scorekeeper. But one would think that the point of paying scorekeepers is to ensure accuracy and fairness. If that's the case, it shouldn't be an issue to post a scan of the scoresheet, in the interests of full transparency. (I get that this is an extra step in the process, but it's a pretty small one, and it would enable parents and coaches to review the statistics as entered into the computer. God knows there are plenty of both who think the game is rigged against their player(s).)

Probably everyone here is aware of this already, but: http://burghhockey.com/belmont-ice-issues-force-changes-pihl-teams/ On Belmont's web page they're saying six weeks until ice at this point.

I see a load of complaining from a bunch of guys who sure can officiate just fine from the stands. I am not an official, and I wouldn't even attempt it. But here are my thoughts: Do officials make bad calls? Yes. Are there area rinks that seem to always have lower quality officiating? I think the answer to this is yes. I can think of one in particular that always seems to have questionable officiating. Are games sometimes decided by a bad call at a bad moment? Yes, sometimes, and that's a shame. But I say that if you put yourself in a position for a ref to take a game from you that's really your fault. I don't think that's nearly as frequent as anecdotal stories seem to suggest. Are there rinks who have frequent officials who are particularly friendly to the home teams? Well, I think that I can think of one (that might be my own biases creeping in). And that's also a shame. But to hear the hockey community talk, it sounds like every official is a 'homer' ref and you can't get a good ref anywhere. That is not true, in my view. Officiating is really in a crisis right now. The statistics regarding young officials who drop out of it before they even finish their training are depressing. I'm sure sometimes it's that they just decided that officiating isn't for them, but we all know that a big reason why there are few of them (and getting fewer) is that they are constantly under attack. You can read more about this in the most recent issue of USA Hockey Magazine. Officials are part of the game whether you're happy with them or not. And we can all hope that officiating in the southwestern PA area improves over time, but honestly I go to a large number of amateur and high school games, and the way parents behave makes me wonder why anyone would ever want to do that job. I wouldn't do it - I've heard plenty of stories about parents waiting to accost officials after games. Nobody here will ever start a thread about how stupid and boorish that behavior is. To be clear, I'm not defending poor officiating. Just amused by the whining.

This is the explanation I've been giving to the parents who ask about it, yes.

My kids have played two placement games each. One's a U16 and one's a PeeWee. The officiating at both midget games was pretty good, and the PeeWee games were not so good. It is what it is.

Hey, for what it's worth I heard this morning that Rostraver has ice again. Good news for the local hockey scene.

It's amazing to me in this day and age that we can't get updates on games in some reasonably quick manner. I could understand a short delay for a sort of quality assurance review, but it seems that, especially where there are official league scorekeepers (as there are in PIHL games, at least in the regular season) there shouldn't be any barrier to very quick website updates. I don't need in-progress updates of games, but for tournaments you want to know these things. I have never been able to understand why amateur tournaments don't provide these updates, either. It would make it much easier for teams to know when and where to be for consolation/championship games and the like.

I know that Mon Valley teams are actively pursuing scrimmages and are definitely planning to play this season. So that's very good news.

Off-season? What's that? Seriously, though, Kirk Nevin and Belmont were both renovated nicely. Hess was in desperate need of an upgrade and I have heard it's moving in the right direction. I was just at the Frozen Pond over the weekend, and while the boards and front areas are much improved, the locker rooms are still the same, as is the insulation in the roof (which is pockmarked with pucks of old and might be a feature of the decor now and not an issue in and of itself), and I wonder myself about the ice making machinery. As for Rostraver, Kraft spent a good deal of money on lighting there. Regarding the owners of ice rinks raking in money - it seems that owning an ice rink is likely not a high profit enterprise. If it were, there'd probably be much more ice in the region, given the explosive growth youth hockey experienced in the early years of the 2000s. Instead, several of the 'second generation' rinks (when I was a kid we had Mt. Lebo and Rostraver, and South Park when it was winter, in the South Hills, and played much of our hockey on Canonsburg Lake) in the area have changed hands at least once recently, and Bladerunners in Bethel Park became a YMCA, of all things, with only one sheet of ice. I'd speculate, like sadday did above, that rinks are not high margin operations, for the most part.

Holy cow that sounds like a serious couple of games to watch.

I heard this, too. Recent word is that Belmont hopes to be back up in October, but they're not 100% sure they'll be able to have a season at all. Same goes with Rostraver, if what I heard is correct. This is a tough situation for those organizations, and for hockey in SW Pennsylvania in general. The area already doesn't have enough ice to go around.

As usual.

Exactly. These rules are intended to reduce the number of whistles most of the time. For old guys.

Ditto about the roughing call. I haven't seen any action at all on the banging to boards issue, but they're definitely calling the roughing thing, at least in my area.

I mostly agree with this. There are plenty of parents who shop around looking for the 'highest' team for their kids. It's often based upon misperceptions about the skill of their player, but not always. In any case, the proliferation of AAA and independent teams is largely due to this phenomenon. It doesn't help that there are some high-end organizations that will take anyone willing to pay, especially at the younger ages, in order to partially fund their top teams. Lots of Pittsburgh area parents have been suckered by this practice, and it's really hurting girls hockey in particular around here right now.

I don't either. I think it's very uncommon. Most kids at this age would want the additional ice in preparation for JV or varsity.

I'd come and watch those games, too. No matter who won, they'd be barn burners.

I'm guessing that the Predators have parents who read this board, too! Have to say that going the the trouble of closing practice - especially closing practices to parents - at a rink like the Ice Castle is a bit fishy.

Sigh. Neither of my kids play for the Predators. But I know some of the ones who are on this list. I coached one when he was a squirt. For the record, it's not obvious to me that it's a AAA level talent pool. It's just that the kids I know on there are good players.