Lifelongbender

Some of this I agree with. I am not an expert in what organizations are paying across the city, but for the two whose organizational contract rates with rinks I have heard about, $400 is well above what those organizations pay for the ice. It may be that at Center Ice the rate for the Badgers is less than what they're charging hockey schools or other private parties. I don't know what the Badgers are paying for their ice out there. I'm the one who said that about Delmont, and I heard it was $500 for an hour and a half out there from someone I trust (but I have not called the rink to get a quote myself). No question that competition for PIHL especially would be incredibly beneficial. The rules for Middle School rosters alone should make school programs want to look elsewhere. Any league that competes with them will be welcome, as was Alpha's this season. Listen, keeping RMU open and operating is incredibly important. And let's face it, if ice rinks were hugely profitable operations in SWPA, there would probably still be several Bladerunners around the city instead of a bunch of former ones operated by different entities. Bethel Park Bladerunners was at essentially 100% utilization for both those rinks at the time of the sale - heck, SHAHA was using about 80% of their available ice themselves, talk about guaranteed sales - and the owners still chose to sell it to the YMCA, which doesn't really want to own an ice rink and never hid their intentions to get rid of one sheet right away and the second ASAP. Nobody here has actually claimed that they heard that Black Bear is buying RMU, and although my first post asked how long until the new player in town owns it, my point wasn't specifically about Black Bear but just a guess that RMU will be sold right quickly. I cannot imagine that Robert Morris will want to continue owning an ice rink without D1 teams to put on the ice. It's critical that Pittsburgh not lose that ice. Whatever may happen to ice costs in the aftermath of all of this is just the way of the world. As has been noted elsewhere on this board as recently as today, it's already absurdly expensive to put a player on the ice. Another prediction: it won't be two hours before someone accuses @mrfreeze of working for Black Bear.

If football is important, then Pitt made a huge mistake by tearing down the stadium. That place was always packed. Heinz Field just isn't for Pitt. Of course, one could argue persuasively that it sure feels like they value basketball over football there. The RMU Island Facility is, or at least once was, a nice facility. But being off-campus surely hurt them. It will be interesting to see what Black Bear does with it (or whoever else ends up owning it). One thing is certain - the City can't afford to lose that much ice.

I don't see any university among all the ones in Pittsburgh poised to bring D1 Hockey in here anytime soon, either.

No. The WPXI article ends with this sentence: The university says it will be adding the club sports of women’s ice hockey, women’s golf, men’s rowing, and skating for the fall of 2021. And the RMU website statement includes this: The university is adding additional club sports, including women’s ice hockey, women’s golf, men’s rowing, and skating for the fall of 2021. This will give RMU 24 club sports, including three club men’s ice hockey teams. More than 400 students are currently involved in club sports at RMU.

How long until the new player in town owns the rinks on Neville Island? This is probably not great news for the hockey world in general in Southwestern PA.

Right. All the literature suggests ratios more like 2:1 practices to games or more. USA Hockey recommends between 3:1 and 2:1 for 14U and 16U players, and minimum 3:1 for any kids younger than that. In at least a couple local organizations 16U players only get 1 practice every two weeks. Now, that's clouded by the fact that those players are often playing school hockey in addition to amateur, and those kids are getting two or more practices at school hockey, but they also play more games in that situation. All of this assumes that the practices are well planned and well executed, too. You don't have to be a hockey player from your youth to be a good coach, but it sure helps. Around here alot of kids are getting poorly planned practices run by dads who played other sports.

There's that, and the simple fact that in Minnesota and Canada there are parents and other adults who grew up playing hockey. Here in Western PA we have the same level of parent experience for football, but not for hockey. That is changing over time, but the sheer number of adults with useful hockey playing experience available to work with kids is much larger in those markets. Former football players do not always make good hockey coaches.

I heard, but cannot confirm, dark rumors of ice now costing $500 for a 1.5 hour slot out at Center Ice. If that's the future, there are going to be a good number of players and parents with sticker shock, and that will price some players clean out of hockey, I figure.

This conversation gets MUCH worse if you concentrate on girls' hockey because there are fewer players. MUCH worse.

Seconded. No matter what the extent to which we don't hold a candle to Detroit hockey, or our parents are too stupid to understand scams, or whatever else has been repeatedly and pointlessly alleged on this site, one thing is true: ice hockey in Western Pennsylvania is improving significantly over time. It's so far above where it was when I was 16 that there are literally not words to describe how far its come.

You win, man. I have no idea why you think that "fact" - if it is truly a fact - is relevant to the question of how much the guy makes.

Sure they do if their "real" home is a $10M mansion somewhere else, and the townhome is just where they're living during the season. You don't think that every single Penguins player has a home somewhere other than Pittsburgh? Lots of Penguins players have rented local homes from former players over the years. And what a shock - alot of those homes are in Mount Lebanon, right next to the rink they used to practice in frequently. That's why Kunitz, Dupuis, and Adams all had kids playing at Mount Lebanon when they played here. Because they lived in rented houses there. Despite the money they made. Of course he could be making 6 or 7 figures and live in an inexpensive home near the rink. That's just silly.

I know a few very wealthy people who have apartments in one city and permanent homes elsewhere.

I figure making it to Nationals Quarterfinals is a success in and of itself. We all know how fashionable it is to hate PE, but that's still doing pretty well.

This is one of those ideas that makes sense and doesn't. On the one hand, there are plenty of coaches who will tell you that moving around like that hurts development and makes planning very difficult, and it's hard for organizations to plan for teams for next season if they can't predict who will be where. On the other hand, there are plenty of parents who will say that they should be free to seek the best fit for their players. It's my observation that, for the top players, team shopping seems to be at least occasionally effective, even if it is unappetizingly mercenary. For lower caliber players, however, it seems to never work out the way the parents want. It's hard to come into a new organization where nobody knows you and get a fair shake for A minor players. Isn't this more or less the way little league works in most places in our area? For my part, I would tend to agree with such a rule.

Yeah, this is pretty much entirely true. And that order of priority does make sense.

Girls are definitely allowed to roster on one PAHL coed team and one PAHL girls team. I know of players who play for a coed, a girls, and PPE.

@GrumpyOldPucker, I get it. To be honest I'm not that concerned about the upper level teams because my kids are lifelong JV and A players. Beer league or bust! (just like all the "AAA" players, I suppose.) When I said you were speaking gospel I was referring specifically to having tryouts be closed to spectators. Although I have to say that I thought alot of that post was pretty smart. I can tell you that I have evaluated in both closed and open tryouts and it is absolutely my opinion that kids play better when their parents aren't watching, and when a kid blows a tire once on the ice you don't worry about him or her getting screamed at all the way home afterwards. The toxicity of having (some) parents involved isn't limited only to the evaluators and the coaches (and, in game contexts, officials). It's my heartfelt belief that every player thinks they play better with an audience, but almost every player ACTUALLY plays better without one. In the past when I have been approached by a parent after a tryout to talk about a kid's ratings I have simply refused to discuss it. I follow that rule for parents who are good friends and parents I don't know at all. It's just simpler. And like you said, I try my damndest to make my evaluations neutral - like you said, the kids are just a number - even though, like most people who watch closely, I can identify most of the players by their skating alone. To be honest, parents seem happier once they accept that evaluations are closed, too. They hang out in the parking lot and just relax with other parents rather than get tense watching their player on the ice. As a related aside, it has long been my opinion that organizations should try as hard as they can to find evaluators who don't know the players at all. I used to send a little white paper to my local organization every year proposing calling up the Head Coach at Cal U or Pitt and offering to send a bus for their kids and pay their players in pizza and a small amount of money to come out and evaluate. The resulting evaluations would be truly anonymous and also done by actual hockey people. (There are a number of potential objections to this idea, but the only one that really matters is that no organization will ever do that because it takes the influence out of the coaches' hands.) I've even mused at times that there might be money to be made in starting a company that runs tryouts and reviews players for organizations, except see the objection above. Nobody would ever hire that company, so it could never make money.

Most of that stuff was about National Bound Teams tryouts and they way they interact with non-National Bound teams tryouts (i.e., the "higher" teams), but this is speaking gospel. Banning parents from tryouts is best for the players and the evaluators. Without a question, hard stop. Parents shoudn't be permitted to observe tryouts at any organization at any level.

I remember when everyone called that region "Mars" because that was the name of the exit you got off at to drive up RT19 to the turnpike. Basically farms there then.

If not internationally.

Well said! If I had a quarter for every time I've thought this on this discussion board, well, I'd buy that beer for you, anyway.

This is still more or less prevalent in players, in my experience. While there is much to like about the ADM in terms of skills development, the things you need full ice to practice suffer under it. Like @GrumpyOldPucker, I've noticed that breakouts especially have suffered, not just in terms of creativity as discussed above but also in terms of simple execution. It's a consequence of not being able to really get rolling out of the zone because your ice ends at the red line. Especially for the kids playing for the teams without those extra As - for many of those teams you get breakouts only in the form of one player carrying the puck and the other forwards following along. Nobody to pass to and nobody crashing the net for rebounds. Of course, most organizations wouldn't have enough ice to give full ice to their teams very often even under the old model.

Wow. This is a ton of wisdom in one post. I don't see much to disagree with here.

Yeah, I have to agree with @aaaahockey. Virtually every team I know does something like this at the end of at least some of their practices.