Paul Baxter

Multiple posts have been removed from this thread. Thread is now closed.

The above post is from the PIHL's report in Dec. 2019. It reflects two of the incidents discussed on this thread.

LIST OF MAJOR INCIDENTS THIS SEASON 2019-2020 1. A Greensburg Salem parent threw a bottle of water from the top of the seating section at an Indiana player on the ice during a Varsity game. a. The incident was caught on video, and when presented to the Greensburg Salem association, they said that their parents had already told them that the bottle of water was thrown… by the opposing student section. 2. A Moon parent went on the ice during a post-game altercation in a Varsity game between Moon and Plum. This parent gave the middle finger to the opposing spectators, argued with the rink manager about being ejected from the building, then tried to avoid the security guard by returning to the far end of the seating section. The same parent gave a lengthy list of excuses in a subsequent email about why his behavior was justified. a. The Plum parents from the same Varsity game between Moon and Plum screamed at the Moon players as they exited the ice surface, then yelled at a Moon coach because they were upset by some of the players giving them the middle finger. b. An Avonworth parent who witnessed the altercation in the Moon-Plum game sent an email to the PIHL to state his belief that the referees and security guard “lost control” during the altercation and that the referees should be reprimanded. There were only 2 referees on the ice – one of whom was bleeding from the mouth because he was hit in the face by a stick – and at least 16 players on the ice. The security guard was positioned at the player runway to the locker room, where he was supposed to be. 3. A Neshannock parent confronted a referee in the parking lot after a Varsity game, and the parent’s son allegedly suggested that he was going to bring his gun to future games. a. A police incident had to be filed for this matter. 4. Peters Township parents stood in a manner that surrounded a broadcast crew from North Allegheny during a Varsity game, and their yelling throughout the game disrupted the broadcast crew on multiple occasions. a. A league official tried to prevent those parents from using the locker room hallway to exit the seating area after the game since they were clearly angry and disobedient and should not have been allowed near players. Three of the parents were uncooperative and attempted to push their way by, which would have put them among players of the opposing team. 5. A Cathedral Prep parent blocked the referees from exiting the ice surface, demanding that they answer questions for her because she is a “SafeSport rep.” She began berating the officials and standing in their way of getting to their locker room over an incident in the game where a Cathedral Prep player was penalized for shooting the puck after a goal and nearly hitting one of the referees in the face. 6. A Wilmington parent entered the official’s locker room after a Middle School game to complain to the officials about how he felt the game was called. 7. A photographer overheard a conversation between parents of opposing teams at a game between Wheeling Park and Wheeling Catholic. One parent told the other parent that he was going to punch his team’s head coach in the face because his kid was not getting enough playing time, adding that the worst thing he felt that he would get for doing that is a fine. 8. A Gateway Middle School coach loudly told a player on his bench that he will “knock you the f*** out” and then hit the kid on the helmet. The coach then told a PIHL Game Coordinator that he can do whatever he wants because it’s his kid. 9. Norwin scored 5 goals in the third period of a game in which they were already winning 12-0 through two periods, out-shooting the opponent 16-1 in that third period. The top scorers for Norwin were involved in most of the third period goals. The final score was 17-0 in a game in which the opponent only had 8 skaters and no wins on the season. a. Several of the goals scored in the third period included celebrations by Norwin players. b. The Norwin coaching staff attempted to defend these actions on two different phone calls with the Commissioner’s Office. 10. The entire Upper Saint Clair student section moved to the Mt Lebanon seating section in the second period of a Varsity game at Ice Castle. When the security guard asked an Upper Saint Clair parent if the students who were sitting in the other section were from USC, the parent said, “Yeah, isn’t that funny?”

one way to solve this is to publish the actual PDF scan of each scoresheet. If the PIHL is going to pay people to do this work, it ought to be correct and the scorekeepers should be accurate.

Is there no public place to see placement game scores on the PAHL site? I have found the master schedule for each level, but that google doc does not have scores...

I fully agree with your assessment.

The original deadline has come and passed... ZERO applications for Moderator. Will keep this topic open until at least one moderator position is filled.

According to the Huskies web site, they have one 16u team and one 18u team. I don't know how they can afford to run an org with only 2 teams. From the Vipers web site (which doesn't look like it's been updated lately...), they only have one 16u team branded as "Vipers" and the following branded as "Viper Stars": 11u, 12u, 13u, 14u, and 18u, although I am fairly sure they don't have an 18u team. It seems very confusing to have both a "Vipers" team and a "Viper Stars" team, in addition to "esmark stars" under the hood of one org. All in all what is out at PIA would probably be confusing to a new hockey parent... especially since neither of the orgs seem to have mites, squirts or pee-wees. Not sure how that bodes for the long term.

Congratulations to the following area players who were part of the KSG teams that won medals. I think this might have been one of the better showings by the West in quite some time. The South is as usual, loaded with Flyers Jr. AAA players, and I don't know if one male PPE played for the West or Central. West Region 12u - (2-1 record) - Silver Medal West Region 14u - (2-1) - Silver Medal West Region 16u - (2-1) - Silver Medal West Region 18u - (2-1) - Silver Medal Central Region Female - (3-0) - Gold Medal Central Region 12u (1-2) - Bronze Central Region 18u (1-2) - Bronze

Hello all- @one97one00 has decided to retire as an admin (please thank him for his service). As a result, I would like to open up 2 new forum moderator positions to help with the day-to-day operations on the board. We will be starting our busy season and will need the help to keep the forum going. Ideally, both will have a good, wide knowledge of youth hockey. Preferably, one will have experience with the younger ages (~mite to ~peewee) and the other peewee and up. What does it take to do this? 1) passion for the western PA hockey community 2) ability to log on at least once a day to check on the forums and moderate as needed. 3) good decision making skills and a patient heart 4) relative UN-biased as it relates to specific teams. You can have your own opinions, of course, but the main job is to keep the forum operating smoothly, review questionable posts (and fix or remove the problematic content). When I say "un-biased" I mean you shouldn't be on here saying how great your org is compared to others, etc. That's not your job. You job is to police content and answer questions and grow the content on the site by making good posts. If you think you're up to the task, please direct message me the following: 1) why you want to be a forum admin? 2) why you'd make a good choice 3) a brief overview of your hockey background **Minimum criteria for moderators: You must be at least 21. All moderator appointments will be at my sole discretion. Moderator appointments will now go for 1 year terms, starting 8/1/19 (this year will be slightly late). If you're doing a good job I will probably ask you to stay. If you're not, your term may be less than one year ? What you will get in return for being a moderator? 1) a special title on your forum tag to denote you're a moderator 2) pride in knowing you're helping the hockey community by volunteering your time 3) thank you's from me! ?

I will fully agree with the above, and not to mention it's in a lousy part of town and not easy to get to. There are a ton of rinks around. I really hope it will be moved out West.

I think by playing at a rink with more than one sheet, it would be an easier sell (for the players and parents) to do 4 games. I think a championship game and 3rd/4th place game would be beneficial. My big issue with the hockey games as they are now, is that they are so gapped out, it's way too much down time. One game a day, F-S-S leaves too much open time when compared to a normal tourney. On the other hand if you do: Friday: mid day and evening game (2 total) Saturday: 1 game preferably in then morning and then have the whole afternoon off (note, or do vice versa, 1 Friday and 2 Saturday). Sunday: champ game or 3rd/4th game. I know strictly looking at it from a game standpoint, it's a harder sell for 3 games versus 4 games (which is pretty much your average tourney). Secondly, the way it is now, if your team plays lousy in one game, you're toast. If you have a champ game, that give a team that may have lost 1 game a shot at a rematch.

In my opinion, it's the QUALITY that's more important than the quantity. A team with 20 "good" players, could be beat by a team with a few superstars and the rest "average". I will take quality over quantity...

I 100% agree with this part of your post. That way it's 4 games for everyone...

Not sure why you have a problem with the KSG, but I think it is a fun hockey event for players looking for some competitive (yes, it's competitive) summer hockey. If just a few top western PA players would join each West or Central team, they would be able to give the East a fight. As it sits now the East has been very tough in the male hockey bracket, partially because the games are basically held in their area (which will be changing). I wish a few more top players would join and play in these games. The West's 19 female team is going for a 3-peat this August - and that's because they have a good solid core of girls and they come back each year. Good luck to the area players playing in the KSG!

I will second this and thank you @one97one00 Thanks @Rodd Seifarth you stated your reply very clearly. = @Fca31 and everyone else, Co-Op situations are not guaranteed (as far as I know) to keep going in perpetuity. Things change, and sometimes that is ok as well.

WOW! That is not good news for kids in that area... lots of teams (club and high school) use that ice. What a shame.

Note: I have removed a few off topic posts from this thread. Best of luck to NC as they work on building their program. -PB

@The King Please do not post this sort of thing on the board as it serves no purpose other than to possibly fire up other members. I did not find any issue with the posts of the users you called out. These sorts of posts have been made regularly over the past 10+ years and it looks like to me they are stating things from their perspective. I may be missing it but I don't see where they are showing NC "in a bad light". People can have their own takes here and that's what it looks like to me. We went down the same road with you and Esmark and being critical of posts/posters, which (unfortunately) resulted in me having to clean up that whole thread. For example, @fafa fohi posted "I heard that NC will be fielding a Varsity team in the fall. Congrats to the school and to the program. I don't know if they have enough players for both a JV and a Varsity but it is good to see local school hockey growing in western PA, especially with a program that is going on its 4th year and was dormant for so long. " and you @The King replied "Guess we know where this guy’s money is going!" That was a completely below the belt reply and unless you know @fafa fohi how would you know (or even care) how he spends his money? @fafa fohi post looks completely legit to me and I am grateful more kids will be playing hockey through their school. I don't see anything bad at all about his post. As soon as you made that reply post it resulted in a flurry of back and forth action. Had you not made that reply things wouldn't have dropped to where they are now. For a while you ( @The King) were making posts with good thought and insight, however some of your posts in this thread seem to only be intent on whacking the hornet's nest and stirring up action. DO NOT post requests for us to moderate content publicly on the board. You can PM us. Do not put my name in a post and ask us to do things. You are NOT a moderator. PB

I fail to see how such a presumably innocent topic can escalate like this... State your take/opinion and move on and leave the personal angst on your side of the screen. It's ok to disagree with someone's take on an issue without going into any form of personal attack.

Thanks for sharing. By the looks and description, this is strictly going to be a skating rink, not a hockey rink. (see all the pics and descriptions). If the building is ~300 feet long, and a regulation rink is ~200 feet, it will never fit in the building as depicted in the drawings - the rink is shown as square and less than half the length. It's just a public skating rink.).

@The King I agree with your first sentence. Some of your posts do indeed appear to be insightful. However, I haven't made a single post in this topic in regards to the Esmark Stars, which is what this topic is about. This board has been around for at least 10 years and has pretty much operated the same way over the years. I have never said that I am perfect and have never made mistakes. None of us are perfect. If you operate within the topic at hand and engage in a insightful/logical manner - where the topic at hand is discussed, rather than the integrity of the poster themselves (which is where things stray sometimes), we pretty much will leave you go. Questioning how we moderate is a line that shouldn't be crossed by the users of this forum... We try our best and that's all we can do. the less time we have to spend fixing/editing/reprimanding (ANYONE) the better for us moderators and will keep the various threads more on target. Thank you-

Hello @EsmarkStars Thank you for your detailed reply to the post(s) above. This is an open forum for people to discuss youth hockey. We have no means of verifying the validity of posts made to this forum, which is the way most forums around the planet operate. I am glad you took the time to post a reply and to clarify things from your side and encourage you to continue posting here and correcting what you see as incorrect. Regarding "Stop allowing...". If the moderators know a post to be factually incorrect, we will take appropriate action. But we as moderators have a limited realm of knowledge (aka "we don't know everything")… so if we start pulling various posts (pro/con/whatever) it would basically cause most of the content to be removed, thus defeating the purpose of an open forum. Forums/discussion boards are meant to be discussion places and positive and negative (or pro and con) comments tend to balance themselves out over time. Beyond that, we have no idea about the truthfulness or accuracy of any particular post.

Hello @The King Welcome to the board. FYI, how this board is moderated or operated is not up for public discussion. You have now been officially warned. Further posts of this type may result in account limitations, suspension or ban.

@Hoomie This was an unnecessary post. The only people banned were doing personal attacks and had been repeatedly warned. People post their own thoughts and experiences here. We can’t validate the truth of every post. A community like this will tend to self balance itself by people posting on various sides of a topic. If we know something (by our own experience) to be not truthful, then we will act accordingly. But we don't have the time, means or knowledge to police and investigate the validity of every single comment on this forum.