miked

the thing you need to keep in mind about all the safe sport screening, FBI checks, etc... is that they will only uncover a person who has already been caught. someone passing these checks and being allowed to coach/manager only means that at the time of the their application, no law enforcement agency has a record of them breaking the law that the specific organization considers reasonable cause to block them. I'm not sure if they run the same checks these days, but years ago I went through the background checks and speeding tickets showed up on my report. Besides the occasional, "how's Trixie?" or "did you let Spridal out of your trunk?" jokes, there were no issues with me being considered cleared. anyhow, just because someone is cleared, doesn't mean they haven't been participating in elicit behaviors for a long period of time. it just means they haven't been caught. there is a point to this rambling and it is this, Safe Sport outlines suggested practices to help curb incidents and it's very important for cleared members to follow them and also as parents to make sure the cleared members ARE following them. Coaches should not be addressing minors alone. If a coach needs to cut a kid, he needs to have some assistants or managers with him, or call the kid in with their parents. when a coach is accused of something, they should be able to say, oh well, assistant so and so was with me when that happened and the parents need to make sure the coaches are working in groups, so that hopefully, everyone is checking and balancing each other and stopping incidents from happening in the first place. BTW, this really has nothing to do with the WA situation, i have no knowledge and make no claims, and have no opinion or side to take. just simply a statement on SafeSport as a way to protect minors and volunteers.

wrong, it's not THEIR style causing the problem, it's the first group of refs who did NOT call the game correctly. the parental opinion of the USA hockey rule book is irrelevant and look man, i do totally agree with you in disliking some of the new rules, but they are the rules and the refs need to call the game by the rules, not some interpretation of the rules that the parents (or themselves) like better. I would imagine that in your scenario above you would put the game 1 refs in the 30% who care and the game 2 refs in the 70% who don't, but in reality, it's probably the opposite. the game 2 refs called the game correctly and ignored the pressure of screaming coaches, parents and players. their job is being made harder by refs who call games incorrectly, like the game one refs. everyone says they want consistency, but what they mean is they want the game called consistently how they think the game should be played. I'll say it again, i agree with you that the "new" rules suck, but our opinion of them doesn't matter, at least not during game time. if there is some USA hockey rules petitioning process, do please let me know, and i will gladly sign up with you, but the fact of the matter is, your game 2 got out of control, because the refs in game 1 did not call the game correctly.

thanks for looking that up. it is very interesting. the comments above got me thinking about how many times you see an NHL player take a major at the end of a period and just go straight to the locker room with no replacement in the box. dropthepuck is probably onto something with the idea it should help calm kids down at the end of games. in reasoning I guess it makes sense, but as he mentioned, yea, we know how that will go. thanks for the responses all!! @dazedandconfused yea, I've heard rumors that is the case, but I have little personal knowledge. I don't want to be judgy, sometimes kids have a bad day. game ended with 35 and 22 PIM respectively so it wasn't just him and a bunch of choir boys, it was, shall we say, old tyme.

just want to point out that i'm putting no blame on the coach. it was a bit of a kerfuffle, so he was getting an explanation from the refs and after, he just put his hand on a kids head that was in front of him and the kid skated to the box. the kid was fine about it until he saw the penalty time go up and realized that he wasn't coming back out. then you could tell he was pretty bummed out, which is what got me thinking, why does anyone need to be in the box?

so I was wondering about something after my sons game this weekend. U12 level. about 4 minutes to go in the game, a kid goes bonkers and picks up a 5 minute major and a game misconduct. so he goes to the locker room. no matter what happens this team will play with 4 skaters the rest of the game. so why do they have to pick some other poor kid who did nothing and stick him in the box? this kid, loses a couple shifts for no reason. there is no chance to be released, he just had his game ended because he is the kid the coach picked. But why does the coach have to pick someone? IMO U12 is still developmental and I didn't see any reason a body had to be in the box. I know it's not a lot of time, but it will be shorthanded time, it's something. does anyone know if this is an actual PAHL rule stating a warm body must occupy the box?

lots of info on their website. http://www.thearmorypgh.com/ looks like they are saying 125 in garage spots, and agreements with local lots. everything will be by valet.

stick tap to theroadtobeerleague!!! after posting I began to consider all the ways I might be considered an a-hole for offering constructive advice to the OP as that seems to be the norm here, but a complete lack of understanding of comparative analysis never occurred to me. hockeydad23, another option would be to see if you can get a free trial of live barn, or buy it for about $15 and then go watch some 09 AAA hockey. they only store a month of history so you should do this soon. Pretty sure NP is a live barn venue, so you could watch some of the NP squirts and see how you stack up. anyway, the point is, you have some options to compare the skill level of your child to other levels in the area, be it AAA or lower, before you start dropping tryout $$$

hockeydad23, if you want to compare your kid to 09 AAA kids, go to the Wednesday public skate at rmu. there are some 09 vengeance kids that take skating lessons as well as other kids from PAHL teams. they usually wear their team warmups. watch them skate. not just during their lesson, but after as well. these vengeance kids can flat out fly. that should give you a good idea of what your son would experience at a AAA tryout. i understand the motivational concept behind attending a higher level tryout, but you don't want to create a discouraging experience. after you watch the AAA kids, look around and watch some of the PAHL kids and i think you'll get an idea of where your kid fits.