hockeyisgreat

River Monsters playing this weekend!  4-0 to start the season. Playing the Sun Praire Killer Bees. Anybody see any games so far?  Were the home games well attended?  At least the league got off the ground!  Hopefully the guys playing are having fun!

Read the PAHL Pulse for January 18th 2024.  It trys to explain their rationale for shutting off all access to the Stats.  Very sad that they don't have their act together enough and are blaming the individual teams for this mess!  I guess they can't even get the standings correct because of Fair Play Points!   Black Bear is looking better and better!

16 minutes ago, Pa Hockey said:

Edina has 4 team Varsity + Junior Varsity teams and Junior V Gold and Junior Gold B.   Junior V Gold comes to Notre Dame for Hoosier Cup. My source is coach of   Junior V Gold who is in his 70's and has been around for years with program 

And that is why their Hockey should always be better than ours!

2 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Edina is a Minneapolis suburb. The district has about 8500 students, which is about the size of North Allegheny School District. NA is by far the biggest suburban school district around here, and they don't have 165 kids trying out for their hockey team, which I think is the point someone else was making.

Does anybody here know how many kids NA has tryout for the Varsity team? Do they have the most Players tryout? 165 kids would be good for 8 teams! Wow, that seems a little hard to believe! I wonder how many kids tryout for Edinas Football team!

Might want to look at it before they shut it down also!  Haha

Rewster, you can see the goalie leader and goals leader for a team by clicking on the game time in the schedule.  Better than nothing I guess. I tried for 18UAA and 14UAA and got that info.

Rewster, great job!  According to some on here Western Pa hockey is awful!  The PAHL's lack of promotion does nothing to change that image.  They need to use the tools they already have to promote the league particularly at the U18AA and U16AA levels.  I have to believe that officers within the organizations in PAHL look at this website.  Would sure be nice to get this on their meeting agenda. Open up the stats and recognize your top players PAHL. Quit sticking your head in the sand and trying to please everyone!  If PAHL did more for 18U and 16U AA players maybe you wouldn't see so many Faux AAA teams! Just a thought!

24 minutes ago, aaaahockey said:

So I totally agree with opening up access but I can also tell you as soon as they do every Chad and Karen out there is going to start emailing their manager telling them little Johnny scored 27 goals not Jimmy.  They will also get mad about penalties, assists, and everything else.  Telling them PAHL says you have to write what the referee says won't help.   If I were a betting guy, that's why I would say access is turned off.  I'm also guessing most parents out there don't know about scoresheet access but now I'm waiting on the calls 

They can look at the game sheets after the games now!   Assists and shots are a whole different story.  The scorer can only write down what the ref tells them and shots are never accurate.  Being afraid of hurting Chad and Karens feelings is not a good reason to shut off the stats. Don't even get me started about participation trophies! PIHL has it turned on for everyone!  All the way down to Middle School!  No good reason why PAHL can't and won't.

2 minutes ago, Lifelongbender said:

I might be crazy, but I think I can remember a time when you could actually see the gamesheets - or at least all of the game sheet data - on there. That changed many years ago, but I'm pretty sure all of that data was in fact available a while back.

So far this year you can see the gamesheet data!  They just don't have the Player Stats and Team stats sections turned on.  I'm sure it is as simple as turning on the access!  I think they are afraid of hurting peoples feelings!  Maybe it's an all or none type thing!  Who knows but the dinosaurs need to wake up before they become extinct! 

PAHL Meeting on January 16th would be a good time to bring the issue of Stats up.  If enough Associations question them maybe we can find out why they choose not to let the public have access.  Or maybe someone from the PAHL board who sees this message board could respond to why the PAHL chooses not to show individual and team stats.

11 hours ago, Rewster said:

You had me up until the “spreadsheet and a couple of hours time” part. 

I guess that I can understand the fear of independent teams poaching players; but only up to a certain age point and they definitely should be publicizing the U18 level…especially the AA. The majority of the U18 AA players are in their last year anyways. There’s nobody to retain.

It’s got to be only hurting whatever chance of advancement that the 18UAA kids might have. I mean, there’s at least a few really good PAHL AA teams that are nationally ranked high. Armstrong Arrows are currently ranked #5 in the Nation for Tier 2 and are beating legitimate AAA teams. The Pittsburgh Predators AA team is ranked higher that their AAA team and it’s not even that close. The Steel City Ice Renegades won the Tier 2 National Championship a couple of years ago (although I think that was 16UAA).
 

I’d think that the PAHL would want to show that they are developing players that get promoted past their AA level (even if’s a lower level Junior league); not the other way around. IMO, it would help keep the independent (dare I say faux) AAA teams away from poaching players if the PAHL can show that their best teams in the highest divisions are getting national recognition and visibility of their players from higher levels.

I mean, the PAHL has a U18 AA team in their league that is superior to the same organization’s “other” Independent U18 AAA. What more evidence do they need?

I agree with you 100%!  I blame it on the organizations. IF enough of them would complain maybe they could get the PAHL to turn on the Player Stats portion of the program.  I know for a fact that ACHA programs look at the Stats in the PIHL when they are recruiting players.  Ask your organization what their stance is on Stats.  The info is there!  PAHL just chooses not to let the public access it!

1 hour ago, Rewster said:

Id like to piggyback a question if anyone knows; why doesn’t the PAHL provide their league with individual statistics in aggregate compilation on their website? The PIHL does, and it’s essentially the same format of SportsEngine as PAHL. For instance, say I wanted to look up and compare the goalies in PIHL. It’s easy to find each division and compare: Games Played, Minutes Played, SOG, SVs, Goals Against Average, Save %…you can even see their PIMs and Assists under the separate “skater” category in PIHL. You can separate it by each division, or do the whole overall Varsity or JV league-wide comparison. Same thing with skaters statistics.

But the only statistics that you can find on PAHL for goalies is the number of Games Played. That’s it. No Goals Against Average, no Save Percentage, no W-L-T record. In this day and age, it seems weird to not provide the running statistical total…especially for the top-end AA teams. 

All that information is in there.  They just choose not to display it!  Not sure why the organizations within PAHL don't complain and force them to make them public.  Especially for teams over 12U.  Are they afraid that they will hurt feelings by listing the stats?  Black Bear shows all the stats and even has players of the week.  Why can't PAHL do the same?  They need to get out of their own way!  You can look at individual game stats but they won't let you look at  Player stats or goalie stats!  So bizarre!  At least this year they posted rosters!  First year for that!  Maybe next year we will get to see player stats!

Hard to believe that was Puckcovid19!  Not his typical conversation!

So is 8-4 Mars better than 12-0 Chartiers Valley?  Anybody know why the PIHL loaded up A Gold?  How many from each group will qualify for the playoffs?  No crossover play so they really have no idea if any of the teams in Blue can compete with Gold!  Makes for an interesting playoff scenario!

How did the first day go?   Are the results posted anywhere?

Bummer!  What's the major cause of all this?  Did the requirements to get in go down?  Do they accept anyone?  What's it going to take to get them back on the right path?  Has anyone heard any more about Slippery Rock trying to bring back their ACHA program?

1 hour ago, Pa Hockey said:

Great job, Thanks!  Neshannock is to low!  They beat Deer Lakes and Carrick.  Crazy loss to Central Valley. Split with Burrell.   Canevin, Burrell, Neshannock, Carrick, Deer Lakes is I think closer. 4 out of 5 from Gold Division and probably 5 out of 6 as Central Valley would probably be 6th.  Fun to talk about.  Congratulations to players of the month!

2 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

This begs the question - what is the best beer league team in Pittsburgh?  

We need a tournament to decide of course!  Bragging rights to the Rink that fields the team. Might get more fans than a River Monsters game.

34 days to the first scheduled league games!  Will it actually get off the ground?  What are the odds?  50/50, 25/75.

Will the con-man be the demise of the Pittsburgh team?  Could it survive with someone else running the team?

Maybe Danner should take it over and show us all how to run it!  

Will the league fold before the Pittsburgh team?  So far it looks like 16 committed teams!

Who is the Coach of the Pittsburgh team?  

Would the best Beer League team in SWPA beat the River Monsters?

Can you tell I am bored this morning?

PA Hockey is probably in Jamestown NY for the Scholastic Showcase.  Good luck to Western PA teams playing there this weekend.

Any body have an update on the rink maintenance issue?  I see the Black Bear rinks are selling ice time over the Thanksgiving weekend!

Yeah, like Deer Lakes jumping Burrell after Burrell won head to head on Monday 7-4. Head Scratcher!

10 hours ago, ice is cold said:

it's ego vs ego. 

At the end of the day isn't that what all sports come down to!

I liked your rankings last week a whole lot better!

11 hours ago, Saucey said:

I have been on here a few years and discussed my views on hockey in this area many times. You participated in many of those threads. My opinion hasn't changed, my kids are almost aged out and I no longer care enough to engage and repeat. If you really want to refresh, you can read my old posts 

No thanks, your opinion really isn't that important to me.   I just try to generate some discussion on an otherwise dull message board lately!