Novos51

4 hours ago, No Politics said:

All good points.

In regard to the girls, my friend has a daughter who just decided to play hockey last season at 12U.  She is admittedly (and understandably) not very good, and she is moving up to 14U.

I've been looking, and I only found three programs even offering girls hockey at a normal, non-national bound level:  NP, Huskies, and Badgers.  That's a shame.

And the in-house ideas are brilliant.  When I was a kid, sports were just for fun (like in-house).  Like you guys said, when you have competitive travel hockey that takes in kids who belong in in-house, it waters everything down even more, makes it less fun, and forces kids to play at levels they don't want to.

And reasons like that are why I asked if there were too many programs.  I feel there are more, weaker programs than there are legit, interested players to fill them.  If half the programs disappeared, and you had in-house, that could be great.

But then it wouldn’t be travel and parents would thumb their nose at it. Lol

11 hours ago, Pa Hockey said:

FYI Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase 

Armstrong 9 Ringgold 1 

Latrobe 8 Canevin 0 

TJ 3 Canevin 1 

Penn Trafford 7 Ringgold 1 

Just compare sometimes ?

But is that fair. I’m not saying team to team that D2 would compete up. It’s similar to other sports with player pool. All I say is the coverage should exist at more of a level than it is. Just because of majority of the times aren’t in the north or south hills doesn’t mean they aren’t good programs. Do we ignore A football because it wouldn’t compete with 6A?

On 3/23/2023 at 2:59 PM, Clee Torres said:

Couldn’t agree with you more. While I want all divisions celebrated & they are. The D2 division is rarely mentioned. They are also left out of the Steller 6 typically. I think ut is because it’s a group of schools playing together but it’s not the kids or parents fault hockey is expensive. I also agree about the D2 final game. There is a kid on the Ringold team that should

make the steller 6. If you are really picking the top 6 & what they mean for the teams he is a lock hands down. Let’s see if it happens. Great post. 

Many of you may remember me complaining about the same. D2 tends to be out of the limelight and it has everything to do with perception. Hopefully that changes. It my not be deep but the top five or six are good good hockey teams. 

On 3/20/2023 at 10:03 AM, forbin said:

Worst I have personally experienced consistently over the last 20 years - Allegheny, Beaver, Preds. I have found that at the lower levels of play it can be really bad, and at the “faux” AAA level is atrocious. Tournaments are the worst. Mites nowadays are the worst parents ever. Everyone thinks their red mite is going to the nhl, and they act live every tournament is the Stanley cup playoffs. 

My grandson just finished his second year of mites. Still at blue level. I have witnessed more parent nonsense, screaming, almost fights than 6 years of AA. Its exclusively at the half ice tournaments. It’s stunning

18 hours ago, forbin said:

One of the worst rinks in western pa from a spectator perspective. Right up there with Hess

Yeah. We did a lot of work at Hess. Great upgrades. Increasing spectator space wouldn’t work with the budget we had. Maybe in the future. 

On 2/8/2023 at 9:02 AM, No Politics said:

PIA, Southpointe... it's all perspective, guys.  

I live in the North Hills and HATED driving to Printscape, the YMCA, or Ice Castle.  Folks living in the South Hills I'm sure HATE driving to PIA, Frozen Pond, or the Belmont.

One of my sons played for the Arrows.  I heard all the time how far away the Belmont is.  When 28 isn't under construction -- insert joke here -- it only takes forty minutes to get there from downtown, though!

So it's all perspective based on where you live.  Simple as that.  To each their own.  

Makes me wonder why we don't have PAHL districts.  South Hills rinks work better for South Hills families, and North Hills Rinks work better for North Hills families.

It’s definitely a mindset. I grew up in the Mon valley and now live north. One hour and fifteen minute drive. All my family act as if I’m at the end of the Oregon trail and must spend the night if they are there later than 5pm. I’ve always said for them if you cross one bridge it’s okay. Two bridges you might be going for the day. Three bridges is over night. Add a tunnel and it’s vacation. 

On 1/20/2023 at 9:46 AM, hockeyisgreat said:

Just looked at it again. Looks like Neshannock is making another late season run.  Will be interesting to see how they do with Deer Lakes 2 games and Burrell 1 in their final 5 games.   Haven't lost in 2023!  

Neshannock had a lot of roster turnover and lost a great goalie. They are starting to gel and their goalie is finding a new level. They don’t have an easy final five. 

I was today years old when I saw an all star app travel mite blue team. For those not in the know Blue is the lowest level mite. You know. The ones supposed to be learning to skate etc. 

On 12/2/2022 at 1:50 AM, nemesis8679 said:

If it truly is for testing safety equipment, that's awesome. 

If it's just a ruse to get half a million in free grant money for private businesses, that's shameful. 

I’m sure it’s both

57 minutes ago, Lifelongbender said:

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.

Yeah same case. 90% of the parents replaced the stick by the end with a curve. Sometimes aggressive curves

I gave both my son and grandson a flat bladed stick to play with for a season in mites. This determined what hand they shot with. I also didn’t let them have any curve the first year. I wanted them to learn how to use the forehand and backhand. My grown son has a great backhand and uses a very minimal curve. We will see with my grandson. 

And now I got one for Printscape. Little Rebellion learn to play. Free equipment. Year round. They are coming for PPE. Pull from little pens and more young kids to their rinks at anytime if the year. I expect within a couple years BB will be looking at a true competitive AAA as well as their own league and Juniors. Things are about to really change folks. 

8 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

How much is it?

Email didn’t give a cost. Just that the gear was free. Pens LTP is like $150? With free gear. 

Got an email today about learn to play at Palmer. Little Badgers program. Free equipment. Year round. That’s seems to be quite the shot across the bow to the Little Pens. Equipment provided by Black Bear of course. 

28 minutes ago, Corsi said:

The issue I would have with some of this is what happens when a player from a smaller organization "outgrows" that organization?  Should a "AA/AAA" level player be forced to stay and play at a lower level than is appropriate for their skills, or should that player be allowed to "shop" for an organization/team that fits their needs better?  I get the desire to keep the shopping to a minimum, but I really don't see how any of the ideas being thrown around would work due to the number of rinks we have in the area, as well as the wide gap we have in organization sizes.  

I second this. We have a lot of smaller organizations that will never have anything above A Major in a good year. Lower in bad years. Their will always be a handful of players who would benefit from a AA level that just isn’t available at smaller organizations 

This amazes me. PPE covers like 5% or less of the kids playing hockey in WPA and this board seems to focus 95% of its time on PPE. Have at it of course it’s just amazing to me. My kid never played PPE. Coming from a smaller non Pittsburgh organization I didn’t even really know what it was. When we figured it out it just didn’t appeal to us. In all reality my kid probably wasn’t good enough like the vast majority of local kids. 

On 8/15/2022 at 2:38 PM, Lucky17 said:

They also just bought Youngstown which has 1 sheet.  ***edit: though they could convert back to 2 I assume

I’m not sure on that. They have a trampoline park over there now. I don’t know how busy it is. They also lose teams at the older levels in PAHL because of Ohios split season. We had some kids play in our home rink that were there for the first few weeks and couldn’t come back until near the end of the season. Not a lot of PA going to Youngstown. 

I don’t understand why more teams don’t do a hybrid of independent/PAHL. My son’s team did it for two years. Added tournaments and some home and homes. Had great season. Cost was higher of course but everyone knew that coming in. 

12 hours ago, Duster19 said:

Money Grab.

Not your money. Why do you care? 

7 hours ago, Danner27 said:

The NAHL is getting pretty political due to advisors. That NAHL for whatever reason is somewhat controlled by advisors the last few years, more than any other real junior league. 

This 100%. Good luck getting into an exposure camp without an adviser. Had a friend whose kid had NAHL talent went to some camps and not a call. Hired an adviser and next camp got multiple main camp invites. Ultimately decided to go to college but the point still stands

11 hours ago, stickboy said:

Can’t compare BM to WPA co-op schools or other WPA Catholic schools for that matter.

No other program has a AAA feeder system of European imports.  How does that fit into a PIHL pure division?

I didn’t compare them. I made a statement that coops are prevented from playing pure under the assumption that they recruit. You can’t say that and then have pure schools that can pick anyone from anywhere. 

23 hours ago, Chinstrap said:

Again, don’t mean to piss anyone off. Just don’t know so I’ll ask.

Are the rules different for hockey since PIHL is its own entity or do hockey programs do basically the same thing?

Pure schools are defined by kids from one district. I’ve seen it said that coops can’t be pure because they can recruit. Meaning a child’s family changes public school districts. Not the easiest thing to do. But a private/catholic school can be pure despite the fact that any player can enroll with no physical movement of the family. Sounds duplicitous doesn’t it?

Ive advocated that a co-op school should at least have a choice to play up to be eligible for the Penguins Cup

On 6/27/2022 at 6:44 PM, stickboy said:

Calling BM pure is a stretch

That could be said of any of the pure Catholic or private schools

My son played last year and will play this yeah. We did well even against the stacked Philly team. It was a fun weekend. That’s all it is. Think it’s a money grab? Don’t play. There I fixed it. 
BTW our team last year was mostly ACHA D1/2, few AAA (have fun defining that), and the rest mostly AA. 
Roster who tries out. As large as the central region is it’s basically beaver/Lawrence and Erie with some central pa. 
philly shows up with genesis/jr. Flyers

I coached 3 on 3 summer for a few years. Huge mix in talent. B up to AA(AAA). All friends. All having a blast. Didn’t really care about who won   .