Lifelongbender

A couple years ago some officials were enforcing this, at least in the preseason. They were penalizing the third man into a battle. It will be interesting to see if this gets widespread enforcement this season.

Everyone's a comedian!

Well, I was just wondering if we could get updates about the current policies at rinks around the region. I'm not interested in anyone's opinions about masking or vaccines here, or political views. Just wanting to understand the policies of rinks in the area. It's my thinking that we are going to be in the same boat as last season - coaches wearing masks on benches, players not required to wear them on the ice, and possibly restrictions on parents in rinks. I don't see this season evolving any differently than last season. I thought that starting a conversation would give us all a place to note rink restrictions and policies as they are revised and released.

I heard yesterday that Mount Lebanon is requiring masking inside the rink building for everyone starting today. Masks are not required on the ice. They are required in lobby, stands, locker rooms, and bathrooms. I figured this would happen again as the season started up, and it's worth noting that Lebo is a municipality-owned rink, and was probably the most restrictive of all rinks last season. Has anyone heard of similar requirements at other rinks? I'm betting YMCA won't be far behind on this. The Y just released a policy for their summer campers at the Y building requiring masking.

I just went to MHR's 2020-2021 rankings and selected a random team in PAHL for this example. I am not affiliated with the Badgers. In the listing Allegheny Badgers (#757) 16U AA (PA) the three digit number 757 is the team number assigned by PAHL to that team. If that is the question you are asking the answer is yes.

All, if we take a look at the top of the page ay MHR, it includes this note: Lord knows where the data that's up there actually came from, but I'm guessing that it's legacy data for the most part.

@Saucey is right on this. The divisions haven't been set yet at PAHL. That data is, as far as I can tell, entered by volunteers. I do not believe that PAHL does anything with MHR.

Yeah, these two questions are why I think you'd have to be nuts to play there at this point.

All of which is why it seems so likely that closing the D1 hockey program has been on their minds - or officially part of their plan - since the arena was in the planning stage. I still believe that they probably already had an interested buyer for the ice center when they broke ground on the basketball arena.

Will the team they do end up fielding even really be D1? In the end, no matter what happens with the program, there's no real sense in which whatever team takes the ice for them this season will really be a D1 RMU hockey team.

Right. There's two issues. One is that the club they'll field this season will be a shadow of their former club. The second is how they'll recruit anyone ever again.

Aren't they explicitly claiming that the Penguins are paying for all of it?

They're saying it will also be the home of the Middle School Training Program or somesuch. What the heck is that? Also, it's currently only scheduled to be in operation for this winter season. I'm not sure what the heck is going on with this.

Back when a large and well-known local development company was involved in the development plans, I knew one of the managers on that project. They had planned to provide essentially zero parking. The guy told me that they would have parking arrangements with the parking garages across the busway from the rink, which is a terrible idea if you're going to be playing hockey there. Reading the presentation, I see that this is still pretty much the plan. I know that Peduto says that locals have been asking for skating there. I wonder how much the local residents will love the constant hourly inflow and outflow of vehicles as teams arrive and depart for games. I don't see why it couldn't have parking even under the roof. This building is enormous - 56,000 SF, or 1.84 acres. Fun fact - Led Zeppelin played a concert there in 1969.

I'm still wondering how that will all go over in that very congested, narrow-streeted, residential neighborhood.

Still begs the question of why anyone who can play anywhere else wouldn't prefer it, but this is good news. I'll believe in the continuation of the programs when I see them take the ice, though. I won't be holding my breath.

I'm pretty sure that's correct. That's the same reason that girls/women don't have checking at any level. The studies found that female players are much more susceptible to concussions at all ages.

I can see that you believe in this strongly, and to be honest this is the ONLY defense of this rule change I have read that appears to have any thought behind it at all, including the one used as an explanation by USA Hockey. In fact, this is a generally reasonable position, although I disagree with it. I'll just say that while you're right that it's smart to force younger players to make the harder plays so that they'll learn to make them, this rule change makes the rule that nobody at any youth level can choose to dump the puck in amateur hockey, while the rule before was that players 12U and younger could not. I'd argue that by the time you're 14U, your passing should be coming along (and definitely by 16U, right?), and giving players more options is important for flow. We agree that NHL teams use both options because it is smart, but in the next paragraph you suggest that playing a puck to an area is an easier skill. That may be true - just whacking a puck into an area is easier than putting it on your teammate's stick while not getting them killed - but the tactical decision on when to do one or the other is neither a simple one, or one without consequences, and is a much harder thing to grasp while under game pressure than the pass is to make. If the goal is to encourage younger players to regroup and enter cleanly in an effort to promote the puck handling skills, I'd have to ask if there is any age that doesn't count as younger in that argument. At this time we are forcing everyone who isn't in a pro game, a school game or a beer league to do a squirt-level regroup. I think we both have well-reasoned positions, and it sure looks to me like our difference is largely in whether we want kids to be forced to develop their physical skills (your position, simplified) or their hockey sense. These are things about which reasonable people can debate, but my view is that, especially at levels where body checking is legal, you have to be able to quickly and accurately make those decisions so that you 1) stay alive; 2) promote your team's objectives; and 3) deny the opponent's objectives. Dumping the puck strategically is a very important part of all three of those hockey sense items - which we can all see from the way that NHL players blend their usage of them - and passing to an area itself is a big part of the game that we are discouraging in favor of neutral zone regroups. Passing to an area and battling for the puck is also a tactically useful play from time to time. We'll never agree here, because we have different priorities. But I just don't agree that the neutral zone regroup is inherently superior to a strategic dump and touch-up either from a tactical or technical/skill sense. The best players use both, deciding almost instantaneously which is more appropriate for each game situation. Eliminating delayed offsides is, in this sense, going to reduce creativity and spontaneity in the game. For my money American hockey in general, and Western Pennsylvanian hockey very much in particular, is full of kids with great hands and impressive skating and the hockey sense of a baseball player. We need to be developing hockey sense as much as skills. I think this rule change hurts that cause.

Excellent point, actually, @Saucey.

I haven't watched the documentary yet, but I plan to. On this subject I think @RJUSHL is on the right tack - start body checking as soon as possible, so that smaller, more equally-sized kids can learn it together.

I respectfully disagree, but I guess there are two sides to every argument. My thought is that if there were great advantages to playing the puck "creatively" in the neutral zone without delayed offsides, NHL hockey would look alot different already since they'd have found the most creative possible ways to play the puck. Instead, the NHL guys more or less do the same regroup that squirts would do when they can make a cross ice pass on losing the zone, and dump it around like every proponent of this rule change is saying we'd be better off not doing when the cross ice pass is not there. In short, it's my view that if there were great creative ways to play the puck in response to a delayed offsides that didn't involve dumping it, we'd have seen them already at the highest level of play, because those guys are the best in the world and they find the best ways to do things pretty fast. There are going to be a bunch of offsides calls which will slow games down and make them longer, and when a player is left hanging without a teammate to pass to just outside the line, they'll either dump the puck and take the offside, end up giving up possession, or take a big hit and then give up possession. Also, it's not clear to me that "dump and chase" is always a dumb, or uncreative play. Again, I understand that there are always two sides, but this is my thinking on the subject.

This happens often enough to rise to the level of a pet peeve for me.

But then you wouldn't be able to say you're part of an independent AAA team and wear those fancy sweaters. It's absolutely true that if those players all played in PAHL it would be a much stronger league, but the strength of opponents is hardly the only, and probably not even the primary, reason most of those players aren't playing PAHL. It's chicken or egg, really, but at this point that's not EVER going to change.

I believe that PAHL rules limit games to 2 home and 2 away for each team.

This is something I have been thinking about for years - how many kids could develop into really good players who end up shunted to the bottom teams and never really hitting their stride if organizations really tried to give the kids who NEED the help some good coaching? I know there aren't great coaches falling out of the sky, here, but organizations could be spending more effort to help out those parent coaches who maybe aren't hockey people but who stepped in because otherwise there wouldn't be a team at all. Disparaging dad coaches is popular here because everyone thinks their kid is a AAAA phenom or would be if only Rick Tocchet was their kid's coach. I know a good number of dad coaches who work hard at it and really try to do the right thing. It's a shame that Pittsburgh doesn't have the base of parents who played when they were kids, but my kids will be good coaches for their kids, and the next generation will have experienced coaches to pick from because of the growth here. It's fashionable to say that Pittsburgh hockey isn't the same as Detroit hockey, because it's true, but it won't be true forever as our kids come up and coach the next generation.