Lifelongbender

Whether fortunate or not, this was inevitable when they started buying rinks in the area. This board had discussions about this at that time. I can see definite possibilities for improvements in Girls' hockey, specifically, but I'm not sure what to think about coed hockey. Since we have seen how unserious PAHL is about Girls' hockey over the years - even though in recent years things have improved slightly - Black Bear can probably seize upon that as a money making arena and make substantial improvements. For me, there are already so many non-PAHL teams in the City, dividing what is honestly a relatively small talent pool into smaller and smaller buckets. I doubt strongly that PAHL and AHF can both inhabit this space. I'd agree with what's been said above about more choice being better, with the caveat that more choice in this sense means more diluted talent, at least in the short term. I'd also agree that there is much not to like about PAHL. Only time will tell what the effect that Black Bear will have on Pittsburgh hockey in the long term. I do hope they'll at least continue to make improvements in the various rinks they own, some of which were substandard by any measure when they bought them.

And it's early yet, but Mon Valley isn't listed there either.

Whether it is true or not, this perception definitely exists with Pens Elite at least. And they don't need to come from Eastern Europe - Detroit is far enough.

It doesn't hurt that shooting left puts a righty's dominant eye towards the target for most folks, either.

My kids have been out of Little Pens for a ling time now, but back at the beginning at least they were giving everyone a flat bladed stick for that program too.

This is true, to some extent. The primary reason for the differences in the costs for Little Pens at different rinks is the cost of the ice at the rinks. But don't kid yourself, @Pucks11, organizations/rinks are definitely giving reduced ice rates to Little Pens sessions. At least some of them are. It's absolutely true that LTP ice is cheaper on the average than game ice. On the other hand, @fafa fohi is also correct, above. In the end there's plenty of money for the ice in the program costs. I just know that the ice is discounted for LTP sessions at many rinks.

I'm not at all sure what the discussion of left/right shots has to do with Rostraver being sold, but as a coach and a player I do have to comment that, unlike in Europe and Canada, most Pittsburgh players are right handed and shoot right (close to the percentage of right handed people shoot right). You'll have noticed, if you pay attention, that about 65% of NHL players shoot left (it's between 60% and 70% according to NHL.com), despite those players almost certainly being mostly right handed as well. It may be true that what really matters is how the player feels. But the numbers don't lie. It's obvious that most right handed players in the NHL shoot left from the numbers. Over the years I have come to believe that this is baseball-related - most Pittsburgh players do not have parents who played hockey (yet), but I'm betting that most of them have parents who played baseball and/or softball. And righties shoot right in baseball - that is, they stand to the left of the ball so that their bat is on their right side. I think that inexperienced parents assume that right handed and "shoots right" are the same thing, and kids just get swept up in it. (Amusing sidenote is that I am right handed and shoot left, but both of my kids are right handed and shoot right despite my efforts to get them to try shooting left). For any given player the handedness of their shot is entirely personal. It is, however, accepted wisdom supported by statistics that righties "should" shoot left. And by the way, @Icebucket has it right. That's just how I remember stores selling sticks (and by stores, I mean Rupp's) back in my youth.

I had the same thought. Black Bear moves in and runs their own leagues, right? I figure they feel like they have critical mass with rink ownership in the area. Truth be told there is much to be improved about how things are done around here by both PAHL and PIHL (especially with girls hockey in PAHL). I guess we will see how this all pans out. Maybe Black Bear will push a bit and things will improve.

The place was a deathtrap if there were ever a fire because of that stairwell. Anyone in the locker rooms was trapped. As for the comment about fighting, what is arguably the most famous school hockey fight in Pittsburgh history happened there between South Park and someone I can't remember in that very stairwell. If you're a hockey person of a certain age in Pittsburgh you remember that one.

I was thinking of the locker rooms in the basement, myself. Though the rest of what @Spear and Magic Helmet wrote is also true.

LOL. And that wasn't even the worst think about that rink.

To be honest a new Zamboni might cost more than the entire place is actually worth. Well, that may not be literally true, it's probably enough to be a deal breaker on its own.

This is a serious issue in this area for reasons which I don't want to start on, because it would take up a whole page, especially with Girls hockey.

Yes, after all the stuff we all heard that it was a done deal, it turns out that the Devil is in the details. I've heard that some of the repairs required are prohibitively expensive, including a rumor I heard that air quality is an issue.

This seems like a good idea, or at least the kernel of a good idea. It's hard to see how a regional scheme - like they do in little league - would work, since there are so many fewer rinks than baseball fields, and significantly fewer players, too. As far as I know, though, it's never been discussed anywhere but on this board, where a system like this gets talked about once or twice a year. (For all I know little league isn't regional anymore, either. I may have just shown my age. When I was a kid you played little league for your home borough.) In our region team shopping is a really serious issue. Every year there are lots of players who try out for every organization they can reasonably get to for practices and commit to the organization where they make the "highest" team. Which feeds into teams adding those extra As just to attract players to tryouts and teams. It's a ridiculous self-reinforcing cycle that makes it hard for organizations to put up consistent teams and hard for players to make informed decisions about where they want to play. Not to mention that changing organizations can come with substantial (and typically non-transparent) costs for jerseys, warmups, equipment bags, etc. My kids played for the same organization for their whole careers, but my observation is that hopping around team shopping doesn't work out too well for the kids most of the time, either. Turns out that the grass is just about the same shade of green everywhere for most players. And when you change organizations, you don't have friends there already, or connections, or that one coach who knows your kid and wants them again this season. Plus there's the issue of kids getting negative reputations for jumping around. If they're good enough it doesn't much matter, I guess - someone will always take them - but for most kids getting that label is a bad thing. @Saucey made a good point above. It always seems like this sort of hopping around is driven more by the parents than by the players. In the end, it's the decision of the families involved, but it seems like as often as not families make decisions that prioritize "status" over development.

It's hard to see what can be done to improve Rostraver. I have been thinking that maybe they'll build a new facility in that big parking lot and then tear the old one down. Need to stay open during construction to honor existing contracts after all. In theory they could fill in the existing rink and then build a new one at the level of the top of the existing boards. I have always assumed that the boards were built that way because they also act as retaining structures for fill under the stands, so removing and replacing them isn't much of an option. Even if that's not true, you'd still have a concrete slab at the back of the boards for the entire perimeter of the rink, except the Zamboni entrance and the two stairwells at the entrance end. I will say that I was there a couple days ago and it sure seemed like the dehumidifiers were not running. The glass was more or less completely opaque due to water condensation on it, and the players were complaining about the ice, too.

I talked to someone I consider absolutely reliable tonight. Apparently Rostraver management met with Black Bear representatives last week out at Delmont and signed the papers. As far as I can tell this is a done deal at this point, quite literally.

Well, that's entirely true. But the teams that play there can request that the LiveBarn cameras be shut off during their practices, and often do. Many high school varsity teams in the region have them shut off during their practices, as do several of the independent and "higher" teams. Honestly it's not uncommon at all to log into LiveBarn and find that Alpha, in particular, is still blacked out. Since the LiveBarn timeslots start more or less at the top of the hour, when game slots do not align with the top of the hour the same way, it's not uncommon to find that part of a game is blocked because the previous hour was a practice that had the cameras shut off. I know that I have seen that happen at Alpha, and then parents from the team asked Alpha to turn the cameras on for the game and they did turn them on. That may be the answer to @hockeyisgreat's question above, too. Either the slot is often used by one of these teams, or maybe it's used on off days and the rink just shut the slot off across the board, or possibly you happen to overlap with a practice that was shut off.

Most high school teams are shutting LiveBarn off when they practice nowadays. This is no surprise at all.

Yeah, that's still there, too. Smaller than a standard rink back then, wasn't it?

Wheeling Park had chain link instead of glass until more recently than you'd think, but that's in WV.

This is true, both in my experience and according to the experts. The best players at 10U and 12U are typically not the best players at 16U. It's not universal but it's a well-known phenomenon.

And yell from the stands about playing certain lines over others.

I've seen several and they've been good ones- close games and exciting.

I thought that Black Bear officially announced that they were going to put in that second sheet shortly after they bought the facility. Maybe I imagined that.