miked

not even close. it's just a simple fact that playing college hockey has become even more difficult since ~1200 kids just became eligible to compete for those spots. interestingly, this might help the CHL. Kids no longer have to choose, so there is no reason for them not to go CHL and as they age out they can move to NCAA.

North Catholic and Shaler are above Moon and Avonworth. I would put Avonworth over Moon as well. Moon won, but AV goalie had an unfortunate first period, but AV took over the 2nd and 3rd. The 2 are close, but I would give AV the nod. 1. CV 2. QV 3. North Catholic 4. Mars 5. Shaler 2 through 5 are pretty interchangeable though. then you have a next grouping of AV, WP, Moon, Indiana, and Blackhawk's goalie will make them a tough out. Montour has some scoring power, so they should give out some runs for the money. i'm guessing it will be 6 per division to the playoffs? So there should still be some exciting action for the last spots.

the playoff games so far have been Home site games. SF and Char both had admissions table and announcer for their games but the home team would have paid that announcer. Now that the games are neutral site i'm not sure how an announcer would work, maybe the two teams agree and split the cost? but whatever games you were at, that was most likely a home team descision to not do those things.

At the Moon Richland game last night. Richlands first game back in PIHL and the after the 2 hour drive, they had to stand through a 15 minute 67 jersey retirement for the Moon player who passed away last spring in a car accident. So how did they handle it? By hanging a 67 Richland jersey behind their bench. Class act all around from Richland. tenband tv broadcast the ceremony and game if anyone is interested.

Aviators used to play out of Airport Ice Arena. When it shut down they were sort of thrown to the wind. I think they were playing at PIA a few years ago, so good for them getting into a more central spot at Alpha. But that's why there are 2 orgs in the Alpha house. It's not some sort of A teams B teams situation. Aviators (and a few high schools) got screwed by their ice rink closing. I've also heard the Vipers are moving into Alpha for next season.

exactly, so why isn't picking a school based on hockey vaild? with all the twists and turns that life is going to throw at an 18 year old what do they know? as another poster wrote, they found the school that was the best fit for them. what made it the best fit? for some kids and their family, the hockey might make it the best fit. it might not. whatever is going to make your kid comfortable and happy is most likely going to lead to a better chance of success.

ah, i was thinking that seemed like a crazy price bump over 4 years.

14K a year for Clarion (aka PennWest)? I was just at Edinboro (aka Penn West) last Friday with my son and they showed us the breakdown at 12k a year for tuition, 22k all in a year. So i'm not going to try to tell you what you paid, but seems prices may have changed. So if your choice is 22k for no hockey, or 25k for Bobcat hockey, seems pretty worth it, provided the kid can actually make the team. and with stats like this According to the National Center for Education Statistics, one-third of all U.S. college students switch majors before earning a bachelor's degree. And around 1 in 10 students changes majors more than once. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, around one-third of college students transfer schools before earning their degree. not to mention how many people get jobs unrelated to their degree or after working in their field for a few years change careers entirely. You pick a school that is the best fit for YOUR family. if that includes hockey or not, it's only YOUR business. Whether the school is in state or out of state is YOUR business. I know kids that went to school in Colorado just to go to school in Colorado, So what? their business, not mine. If everybody is so concerned about everyone else's education costs the advice that should be given is go to community college, get an associates degree. Transfer to a 4 year university with a transfer agreement with your community college. the associate degree gets you a 20% tuition discount on your remaining 2 years. Graduate with an associates degree and a bachelors degree with minimal debt relatively speaking. if your kid wants to go to a school to play club hockey, do it. chances are they will be more engaged and less likely to be part of this stat 30% of students drop out in the first year. Only 41% of students graduate in 4 years. Male students have a 20% higher chance to drop out, than female students. Asian students have the lowest dropout rate.

@Saucey My rant wasn't aimed at you. I understand when you have one practice a week you have to cram as much as you can into that slot. but there are still options. You could talk to your association about setting up some 20-40-20 ice slots where Team 1 practice is 20 minutes full - then Team 2 takes the ice and both teams have 40 minutes half - then Team 1 leaves and Team 2 has 20 minutes full. Then the coaches could work together on the half ice slots from time to time to break into 3/4 1/4 breakdowns. There's lots of options to get the kids the ice they need and still keep costs under control.

understand completely that there does have to be some element of full ice to tie together all 3 zones, but if coaches would work together, smaller surface practices could become more effective, thereby decreasing the need for as many full ice slots, keeping costs down. yea, you are spot on i'm so tired of having this discussion with some parent year over year. "My superstar special snowflake plays on the Squirt 17 team, and it's not fair, I demand we have all full ice practices." Really now?, We have X number of teams paying for ice here, which one(s) of them do you think we should take the ice away from? and do you expect them to continue to pay for it? Are you willing to double your fees since you are doubling your ice? "grumble, grumble, it's not fair, this association sucks, i'm taking my kid to <insert mystical elsewhere association that gives all full ice slots for half the cost>" but on the bright side, think of all the jerseys the kid will have collected to decorate his mancave when his beer league buddies are over!!!

sorry, i meant to say former, the host schools have assigned co-op schools.

thanks for the file, do you know if the host schools have assigned co-op schools or do kids in the co-op schools list just pick a host school to play for? i'm pretty sure it's the latter but how do you figure that out? also does anyone know of a Brook here in PA or is that the Brook County WV school? and I guess while we're on the all things co-op, how does a kid get his school added to the co-op list?

2 summers ago I had to take my wife to an appointment at UPMC. while I waited, I walked over to the rink hoping there would be something to watch to pass the time. to my surprise I saw Vincent Trochek, JT Miller, Zemgus Gergenson (sp) and that local D man who's more of an AHLer but did get some NHL callup time, along with a bunch of what I'll call prospects. They were all wearing some sort of identifying jersey but it's not relevant who I recognized and didn't. What did I watch them do? well first they did small area games for about 30 minutes. 2 groups in 2 stations using one zone. After that they played 3 on 3 cross ice. Yes just like 8U adm. cross ice. after all that, they went to 4 vs 4 full ice, which was pretty much a joke. Trochek was "hitting" everybody on the ice, at one point pinning a prospect to the boards and pulling his jersey over his head. Guys were trying to change and JT Miller would wave them back onto the ice. It was pretty hysterical to watch, but the point is, their work out was done in half ice or less, then they used full ice for some fun. but still, no one says you can't cut the ice in half in the other direction and skate the full 200.

couldn't agree more. I would rather have more ice slots on smaller surfaces than less slots on larger surfaces. thing is, when people say half ice slot, everyone always splits the ice at the redline. I see so much wasted ice because coaches don't talk to each other. Say one coach is going to do one on one battle drills in the corners for 15 minutes. why can't the other coach use 3/4 the ice for that time? and then they switch. if the 2 coaches would work together, the ice could be split in different ways to maximize its usage for the betterment of everybody.

I always thought which way you went had to do with number of seniors, but a little research shows that Knoch has 6 seniors (JV-2), QV has 5 seniors (V-A), Gateway 5 seniors (JV-3), and Beaver has 4 seniors (V-A). so i'm not really sure if that holds water. QV clearly made the correct choice, Beaver, probably not, but hard to say, after taking some beat downs early in the season, it looks like they finished off the year with some competitive games. Knoch and Gateway are doing well in their divisions. Knoch probably could have won some class A games, Gateway probably made the correct choice, really hard to know though just looking at PIHL site.