Lifelongbender

7 minutes ago, mrfreeze said:

I know that it seems like Black Bear maybe a bad thing cause they raise the cost of ice, but lets look at it if you owned the rink. It makes sense, Someone said ice at PIA or delmont was going to be $400 for an hour and half? I could be wrong, but most orginazation that are not playing at a comunity rink are paying between $325 and $450 for an hour. That is the going rate, I have not heard of Black Bear buying RMU and I don't think it will happen, but I could be wrong. RMU rink was given to them from the Hillman corp. Again I maybe wrong, but the way it was explained to me, is Hillman originally made this site a park and tried to give it away to the local city with everything that is burried beneeth of it and the problems. I was told if it was sold that Hillman would still be responsible for the mess under the rink/park. Well that fell though and a couple years later they built a rink, ran it for a couple years and then gifted it to RMU. It looks like RMU made it at the time, not so much now and if they decide to sell it they are still holding the responsiblity to clean up the mess. If Black Bear does its homework, I am sure this is a deal breaker. But you never know. I can tell you if it was me that bought it, I would trim some staff that have very good jobs and benifits from the school and bring the salary in line with simular rinks, that alone would increase profitablity enough that a raise of the hourly rate would be minamal. The Black Bear model actually has some great benifits. They would start their own inhouse leagues including school and amatuer, the BS that goes on in PAHL and PIHL would now have competition that can move quicker and make decsions that could be benifical to local hockey. They offer more programing like learn to play, mens leagues, camps and tournaments. They have also got involved in Junior and AAA progrms. They are part of the ownership groups of USHL, NAHL and many tier 3 Junior and AAA teams and they are creating pipeline for these programs. To be honest Black Bear might not be a bad thing, they have money and the rinks they have taken over, they have invested and cleaned up. Would you rather go to PIA and have to put up with toilets falling off walls, broken doors and just shitty enviroments that have been mis run for years or have rinks that are operated and run and are a pleasure to spend time at. Rinks like Baierl and Ice Castle, the owners take pride and run them accordingly and it shows, then you have Alpha and Frozen Pond, they both made improvements and are better than they where in the past, but still are not run the best or the cleanest or offer more modern conviences. Then you have the shit holes like PIA which is one step above the old Golden Mile or South Side before it closed. I say the added cost will not be much more than what you paid before, if it is, it is a buyers market and you can go to other rinks. Lets be glad there are people or groups willing to buy or invest in rinks and not closing rinks as was happening a few years ago with Airport closing, Bethel almost closing and loosing a sheet of ice, Rostraver on the verge of being condemend. Change and the unkown are difficult, but I think Pittsburgh hockey is still growing.

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.

33 minutes ago, dazedandconfused said:

This program probably survived longer than it should have when you look at all of the barriers that are in place working against. The biggest drawback and obstacle has to be the lack of an on-campus facility. Just look at Pitt football, they can't get students to hop a bus from Oakland to Heinz Field.

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.

1 minute ago, champeen said:

But D-1 college hockey is absolutely a hole in the market unlikely to fill any time soon.   Hate to see PGH lose that piece of the larger hockey picture.

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.

40 minutes ago, BeaverFalls said:

The one point that often gets overlooked is that quality practice, lessons, camps etc is paramount to development. 

I shudder when I see teams or kids playing 60-80 games a year and only on the ice for practice maybe 1:1 game to practice at best. 

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. 

3 hours ago, forbin said:

It absolutely is. I'd venture to guess that the only real places where its more development driven would be Minnesota or Canada, simply for the fact that they have WAY more access to ice and way more people involved. I have seen some newer groups popping up to help assist families financially to get into the sport and I fully support that mentality, while also recognizing that hockey is a sport that requires a considerable amount of resources to be played properly. 

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.

2 hours ago, Saucey said:

This new company coming in, I heard they just make things more expensive. 

It's such a fun game. I'd like to see entry points at any age and income.

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.

3 hours ago, Saucey said:

It is repeated on this Board constantly how having 6 to 8 'AAA' teams is growing the game in Western Pa'. I challenge the long term sustainability of this notion. We have a long term problem around here with this trend.

The biggest fallacy with this is that PAHL programs in general are not using their resources in the minor levels. Few are doing anything but concentrating on their top teams. The AA and AAA get all the ice, etc. So when these programs need talent, they are not pulling from their own ranks. They are raiding the programs that do a good job developing their young, less experienced players, and there aren't that many of them. That means there are not enough players to go around. Consolidation happens into one or two super teams, they have no one to compete against, and have to travel to play. Increases the cost of hockey and does not grow the game. Increasing costs creates a barrier to entry. AA play should not require travel outside of PAHL. And that's what the low level teams are, AA.

This is driven by coaches and parents who are only interested in their own child. What do they care if the lower levels are developing? Their kid is taken care of.

I'm sorry, this is not growing the game. Parents of kids who are playing minor levels, you need to become active in your boards. All the eggs should not be placed in one or two baskets. Directors of hockey ops, other people are also paying for their kids to play. Their children also deserve to develop. And we know kids develop in different stages, so they should be given that opportunity.

 

 

 

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

MUCH worse.

13 minutes ago, hockeyisgreat said:

We look forward to having another quality hockey player who most importantly loves the game in SW PA. Despite what some people say I think we have a very respectable Hockey community and players. Most of all we are trying to get better.  A lot of serious kids doing as much as they can to improve.

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.

2 hours ago, Theroadtobeerleague said:

Mueller lives here full-time in a condo.  Fact. 

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. 

2 minutes ago, Theroadtobeerleague said:

People that make 7 figures don’t live in 400k townhomes

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.

8 hours ago, Theroadtobeerleague said:

If Mueller makes that much then why does he live in a townhouse in Cranberry? Also very easy to find online. 

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

54 minutes ago, sadday4hockey said:

Losing 6-3 in the QF's is a success? For The Chosen team? With all those years of Excel Academy training? The best facility. The best coaching. All the other hoopla and kool-aid.

That's not a very high standard.

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.

15 minutes ago, Jack Handey said:

This model is used in Minnesota for high school and the Chicago amateur league kind of works this way.  If you don't like your club, you get 1 free hop to another club then that's it.  There is no hopping from team to team each year like some west PA families do.  

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.

10 hours ago, BeaverFalls said:

I think typically the hierarchy is PPE, then PAHL. Most programs i know go out of their way to adjust schedules so they don’t gave girls and co-ed the same dates and times. 

It does suck as a coach, but i think most of them at the rec team level are willing to take them for the 15 games they get them and not sweat the 5 they miss.

 

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.

3 hours ago, GrumpyOldPucker said:

Bender, that's just my opinion on where I would start to reform the tryout process....

As for parents.... most of the times that I was an evaluator they didn't close tryouts. When asked\approached by a parent I explained the process and referred them to the board - END of discussion - to me the players were just a number. Those few parents that I was close enough to that I would discuss their kids performace, it was not with respect to any other player.  They got my personal, NO BS, very hard and critical opinion of their kid. They knew the gloves were off and they didn't usually do this more than once 'cuz I didn't feed their ego or opinion that "Johnny should be on 'X' team". I made it a point to burst their bubble and gave them a very clear review of their kids flaws from an evaluator\coaches point of view. Some were put off and some thanked me for the no BS list of things to work on.

@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.

8 hours ago, GrumpyOldPucker said:

If the GrumpyOldPucker were king he would declare:

- All tryouts are closed to parents

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.

16 hours ago, forbin said:

PPE is a white collar clique. Predetermined rosters based on parental income and butt kissing, but then again that's pretty much everywhere nowadays. 

It's so funny to me to see what Cranberry has become. It was a whole different world growing up there in the late 80's. I avoid it like the plague now. 

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.

11 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

I agree with most of what is posted here.  14+ pens elite us gonna be tough to just walk on I would guess but largely because they start pulling regionally (if not nationally).  I think at the younger ages there can be some back and forth. 

If not internationally.

7 hours ago, GrumpyOldPucker said:

Me thinks that - as usual - we do not have all of the facts to intelligently discuss this one.... But why let that stop anyone..... someone pass me another beer and some popcorn! ??? 

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.

5 hours ago, GrumpyOldPucker said:

Mentioned that the players used to half ice practices had no full ice end to end speed, no explosiveness out of the D zone because ever breakout drill stopped at the red line, and again no clue what to do with the puck from the top of the D zone circle to the top of the O zone circle except skate straight ahead with it. If they didn't have the puck they usually would usually coast through the neutral zone or pace the puck carrier waiting for a lateral tape to tape pass instead of carrying the speed through the zone and passing forward to the open areas. 

I have not watched ADM or Squirts in a couple years. The trend that I remember once x-ice ADM became gospel was that we now had kids that could stick handle in a phone standing still in a crowd or maybe along the boards but the same kids that would take the puck coast to coast when it was full ice still went end to end.... You still had players with playmaker mindsets that recognized who they should get the puck to and defensive mindsets who would be natural stay at home Defensemen . So what was the net gain here? Has it changed any in the last few years?

 

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.

8 hours ago, Denis Lemiuex said:

It's not the ADM model. Actually I was against it at first but it have come all the way around. I saw way too many full ice games played by 10U guys, Complete waste of time and energy. One kid would skate around the others and hopefully his/her teammates knew enough to get on sides. Kids are having fun and they have pucks on sticks. And nothing other than introducing them to the game and letting them have fun before the U12 level is going to improve their chances of a post HS career.

The biggest issue to me is kids at the youngest age are being taught by people who don't "know" the game. The USA modules are at best less than adequate. The principles of time and space and puck support is rarely mentioned and doesn't show how to teach those things.  Go to U14  and even U16 AA games and see how many times a team actually has any sustained offensive zone play.  Even man breaks are just one on one play. Cycling happens but the no idea what to do. And on and on. They get these bad habits and are never corrected because they are winning games. In hockey areas the first coaches of kids as well as their parents played at high levels and know the game as compared to our guys who are dads pulled out of the stands, watched 20 modules not understanding what they mean or are missing, and attend a coaching clinic or two. (Side note. Went for my level 4 and sat next to an assistant coach from the Chicago Steel U-16 team). One subject was practice planning, He whispered to me that he has 6 ex players playing D1 and and will have 2 or 3 more in a couple of years. He knows how to plan a practice or better have known to coach at his level). That's what USA Clinics waste time on.

Second is the game to practice ratio. Pros have a 3-1 game to practice ratio if you factor in game day skates. U14s - U12s are playing 40 - 50 games. Are you telling me they are on the ice 120 times for practices. Or don't U14s and below need as much practice as the pros? And the off ice stuff doesn't cut and is a joke. One HS team I know had 2 sessions a week over summer but didn't provide a plan for the other 4 days (one rest day). So what they were doing was a waste of time but it made the parents happy.

Which gets me to point 3. Parents really have no clue what they should be paying for. Too many BS artists or people who think they know. Organizations preach player development. Maybe if they really believe it they would guarantee a spot for two years unless the player/family has a discipline problem. If they are so good at development no need to bring in other players or have tryouts. Practice ratios. Real off ice training. Etc.

That's just a start.

 

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

12 minutes ago, aaaahockey said:

I'm not sure I understand this comment but maybe I'm missing something. You just use your half of the ice and set up two nets cross ice (mite style) and let the kids play a short 10 minute game at the end of practice. 

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.