miked

i don't understand this, are you saying that there must certainly be some type of political unfairness because a child that at one point played low level PAHL could never progress enough to deserve a spot on a high level team?

did not know about PIHL, that really does seem, shall we say, preventative.

i think there is some confusion based on the posts referring to these as new teams. They are not new teams, these girls teams currently exist, they just play a partial schedule. So all these girls also play on a PAHL team. I know a good portion of the PPE U12 girls play A Major Gold for Foxes 276. they are 9-2-8. yea i had to double check that, 8 ties, weird. Anyway, IMO this move makes perfect sense. Why have these girls juggle 2 teams? So the PPE created full year teams for them. Was it motivated by some high powered parent? possible, but i don't know and neither does anyone else who wasn't in the PPE board room when the discussions took place. The fact is, this is going to be better for those girls. as far as PAHL, they will gain 17 U12 and 34 U14, probably not going to tip scales much depending on how they spread. i'm surprised by your question about the focus on girls hockey. you seem to have the insider knowledge about USA hockey and i would think any push to promote girls would be coming from them. no? I know i see USA hockey sponsored girl content and advertisements. but as i mentioned, these girls teams already exist, so it's not really registration related per se, but i would be very shocked to not find an increase in girls registration in the area.

for all the reasons this is unlikely, the outdoor rink is of no concern what so ever. and the current situation of filling a 1200 seat rink is really not relevant either. but just for reference, a few years back, when RMU made the tournament, they were doing a pretty good job of filling the rink, but the team is not as good now as then and the top players from those teams did not pan out with their AHL signings. Either injury or ECHL demotion with an eventual exodus to Europe has been the norm. This can't be good for recruiting, as well as mentioned before, the arena is not top notch. BUT the idea of building a new facility, would have to be a driving force to better recruiting, which would most likely correspond with a conference shift. I could see the 7 team big 10 being a fit due to travel proximity of teams and easy rivalry with PSU and OSU. Simply joining the Big 10 would significantly increase attendance (mostly away fans at first) and increase the signing power of RMU. Better recruits, better hockey, better attendance, etc.. as racchi's rug points out above, blowing out the bench side wall and adding seating would make a lot of sense if it is structurally possible. They could then replace the existing bleachers with decent seats and turn the standing room area into a press box/media area. and while this reno would be significantly cheaper than a new rink, it would still require a large amount of donor money, which they couldn't seem to get when they were building a new basketball arena. not fitting that building for hockey pretty much sums it up. i find it extremely difficult to believe that anything will be done for RMU hockey. The mens team will find it harder to compete in the AHC and the womens team will probably suffer the same fate as other universities around the country boost their female athletic budgets. I mean, why would a young girl go to RMU to play at the ISC when they could go to PSU and play at the 'Pegulaworks'?

@Hockeyaintathang find an organization that isn't a hassle to get to LOL, you ARE new to the area. Welcome to PGH where anywhere you go takes between 20 minutes to 2 hours to get to and you can almost never go the same way back as whence you came. and never ever forget the golden rule, You can't get there from here. ?

if a set schedule is the most important thing to you, then NP is probably your best bet. from what i have been told from multiple parents who have 08's playing there is that they have 1 practice a week at a set time for the season. then they have a skills session every other week, which is also at a set time. BUT i was also told that any weekend day they do not have a game, the coaches scramble to schedule another practice which usually turns out to be very early. the foxes give out monthly practice schedules. so the times are always different. they usually have 2 or 3 practices a week. i don't really know of anyone that is giving out full ice practices. they usually do the 20-40-20. So one team takes the ice for 20 minutes then a second team comes on for 40 minutes then the first team leaves and the 2nd team has full ice for 20 minutes.

the interesting thing is that PIHL has the 17-0 game on it's disciplinary list, while the trib writes an article applauding the amazing 18 point performance of the three players. so what's a kid to do? no thanks, i don't want interviewed by the trib and all the "benefits" that might bring, i'd rather be a good sport and make sure i don't hurt any feelings. but i guess the coach should step in keep his kids from getting player of the week? if the media is going to glorify this kind of behavior, then the kids are going to go for it. maybe PIHL should put the Trib in the disciplinary report and find out why they think this should be given positive reinforcement? but if this game degenerated into a shit show, you better believe the Trib would be writing about how terrible it was they ran up the score. common sense sportsmanship is over, the media glorifies the side show over the game. if you took someone who never heard of the NFL and showed them a commercial, they would probably ask why all the dancers wear helmets in this show? i don't like it, but i'm not going fault some kids for getting their names in the paper. the media is to blame for glorifying it. where's the "Seniors and leading scorers sit to avoid blowout" articles?

" I wonder if any 8u’s have ever received a match?" yes, i've seen and know a couple. and to put it into perspective what it takes, when my son was like 6 or 7 he got a kid in a head lock and took him down like he was roping a calf. they made him sit the rest of the period then he was back in. 8u's get a lot of leeway, until it comes to stick work. where we did our ADM with my youngest they would split the kids up in practice, so you would meet the parents on the other teams while the kids were working together. I made lots of friends with "opposing" parents and would stand with them when our kids played against each other. last weekend i ran into one of those families. our kids played against each other for 3 years of ADM, never teammates, but we became friends.

i think the video is from livebarn on panzoom and then zoomed in and rotated to focus on the coaches. after watching the video a few times, i think i noticed that coaches left hand pop out as the girl goes down. like an oh shit i knocked her down reflex. my completely speculative opinion from what i saw on that camera angle. the girl came through the line not looking at the coaches, the coach in question gave her a pop on the shoulder probably because he felt disrespected she was staring dead ahead, she went down, and he seemed to have an oh shit reaction. dum dum move by the coach. but really this isn't national, or i guess in this case international news. make the coach write an apology, suspend him, move on. if you've ever sat through a safe sport, you know how much worse it is out there.

i appreciate trying to give people the benefit of the doubt and all, but super dad went on the ice and slowly walked past the Plum stands with his middle finger prominently displayed for all to see. Including the little kids. there were no good intentions. from the perspective of the rink, as an owner or manager, i would ban him for life. that is far to much of an insurance liability. if he slipped and fell he would have a law suit and even though common sense should prevail and the case get kicked out, his lawyer would take the approach of many respondents on this board and blame the refs and coaches and security and say he was trying to help the poor kids who were being let down by the system. end result, he would be rich and Baierl would be closed. just look at the sad ending of the BBT.

exactly, but when something happens the hierarchy of blame goes in reverse order. The officials lost control, the coaches just stood there etc... while sometimes officials do let games go unchecked it's still ultimately on the players to control themselves.

let's take these one at a time "No Security at Bariel parents went crazy" wrong, there was security, you can clearly see them throughout the game, but with a face off with ~1 second to go in a game that had no reason to believe there was going to be trouble, they must have headed out. after the dad went on the ice you can hear people calling for security. someone got to the ice door to block it and was clearly having words with super dad and shortly after you see another security coming up in front of the Plum parents going in between the 2 stands. "Security could went out their to stop it" so you suggest a random person who may or may not have ever skated should go on the ice in street shoes with no helmet and what? fall and bust their head open? "Only 5 Kids from Moon on the ice 10 players from Plum." so if these numbers are true, that means only 4 kids got off the Plum bench. it looked to me like most of them did because the game was over. so if there were only 10 out there, most of them stopped or possibly were stopped by the coaches. just because they were standing with their arms crossed doesn't mean they weren't telling kids to get their asses back to the bench. "Why wouldn’t Plum Coaches go on the ice to stop their players I didn’t see any of that." again, to do what? bust their head open? maybe a ref can chime in, but i believe the coaches are supposed to stay on the bench and refs handle it one situation at a time. leading to... "Officials should have been in between the players after the game moving them to their sides no where to be found." the ref dropped the puck for the final face off so he was clearly in between the two sides by definition of face off. once again, this wasn't a game that was all chippy or something. this really came out of no where and escalated fast. real fast. the refs were in the middle of the big mess, where the pummeling you mention was taking place and then after the kids i mentioned skated to the 2 on 1 a ref showed up there as well. don't try to pin this on the refs, coaches, or security or blame them for not doing something. the responsibility is solely on the kids for this one. all in all this was a well played, coached and called game that was marred by the actions of a few after the game ended, which by the parental behavior on display, it's not hard to see why these few have serious self control issues. the box score shows fighting and game misconducts were handed out, so suspensions will be forthcoming. so i'm not sure what else you would like to be done? "If you think that wasn’t bad something wrong with you." i didn't say it wasn't bad, there is no place for fighting in high school hockey. i was replying to the OP's question of what happened. he heard there was a fight, so i didn't feel the need to go into a diatribe on the incorrectness of fighting in PIHL. we are aware that the fight was a bad thing. i also didn't feel the need to give a blow by blow account of the fight. it doesn't matter the specifics, all fighting is bad. if the OP was asking something along the lines of who won the fight, well that's just dumb, but i gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they meant what happened that CAUSES the ugliness. so I explained what happened leading up to the altercation, which was really not much. It wasn't a chippy game, there was no dirty hit, or taunting, or anything. it wasn't a night long shit show of blown calls, it just, happened. it was then broken up and suspensions will be coming.

oops, or girls, girls can play varsity now, my apologies

watched the Moon Plum game. All in all, not really a physical game at all. There was a little goofy stick play from time to time, but i think that is probably pretty common at this age level. i don't watch a ton of PIHL, but high school boys aren't known for things like emotional control and decision making. still nothing that horrible, refs didn't lose control or anything like that. Plum scored late to go up 5-4. Moon pulled goalie and had some heated scrambles, didn't score. Plum coach did NOT let players off the bench to fight. the game ended, his players started to skate to their goalie and found themselves in a melee. it's hard to say if bench players participated as i wasn't tracking who was on the ice. as far as what started it, it appeared to me a Plum player gave a hefty shove after the whistle and tried to stealth away. A couple Moon players noted it and came in to shove back, which then lead to Plum players taking exception and on and on. There were some decent punches getting thrown and based on the box score game misconducts were handed out. so all in all, i think it was probably handled well as suspensions will certainly follow. it's a shame and not a good thing, but all in all, it wasn't an out of control shit show. just an unfortunate escalation. the worst part from my perspective was the dad who went on the ice and the mom's screaming at players as they left the ice. You asshats are all caught on live barn, full clear face shots with sound so you can't deny your gestures and what you said to MINORS. one last thing, would like to point out 2 kids that i thought showed what hockey is really about. when this went down a Moon kid and Plum kid paired up. they just held each others jerseys for a bit then, they noticed a 2 on 1 without a ref and skated over to break it up. good for you guys!!!

100% correct Saucey and honestly, i don't think i've seen a PAHL PW team that doesn't just roll their kids for the most part. So you're saying the only PW AAA team in the area is the PPE 07 Gold and Black? Pretty sure there is a PPE 08 Gold and Black as well. So eliminating the black would put 24 skaters back into PAHL if both black teams are as short as you say. Still, 24 skaters isn't going to tip the scale much, but i'm pretty sure there are multiple other PW AAA teams in the area. I'm pretty sure that you could easily put 50-60 kids back into PAHL and that would have a trickle down effect. Whether it's the top kids driving or the bottom kids being exploited, it is the same issue, the disparity between skater 1 and skater 15 is to large on most teams. and to the point of this discussion, PAHL placement isn't going to be able fix that.

Honestly, you have it wrong. The fact that some of the teams are dominating is due to the fact that they have one or two players who do belong in a particular division. They belong in AAA or AA but are playing A Major black. The damage is done by the stars of a particular team. i don't really see this too much. Some of the smaller orgs sometimes have a kid or two that are above their current division, but they usually have a few more kids that should be 2 if not 3 divisions down. not much to be done about that. but sure there is always a kid here of there that is obviously the best player on the ice, but i don't see them running wild over the entire other team. but even if this is more prevalent than i'm aware of, funneling the talent back into PAHL instead of all these "elite" programs would go a long way to eliminate the situation. To use A Major black as the example, if these kids returned to PAHL, a bunch of current AA kids would get moved down to Gold, in turn moving Gold kids down to black. the top black kids would become middle of the pack and the team would be stronger overall and better able to handle the opponents, "super star".

this is tough situation because I understand and agree with your sentiment, absolutely you want the fairest divisions so the kids have the most fun, but the PAHL placement isn't the real problem. It could probably be better, but just picking some teams that are losing and saying PAHL is wrong is not correct. First, why are you bringing myhockey rankings into a discussion on PAHL placement? What bearing does the result of tournaments and one off games have to do with PAHL placement? The only way to judge PAHL placement is by looking at PAHL games and so far most teams have only played about 5. I quickly did a check on the 0-5 Foxes 277 and see that they lost 2 bad ones to what seems to be a good Southpointe team and then had some close ones. Second, even looking at the PAHL scores don't give you an accurate picture of what is going on with a team. PW is a very transitional time. The kids are all getting big and strong enough to close gaps and break away hockey is ending. Some kids just refuse or take more time to adjust. They are used to being the big goal scorer on all their teams and now they are getting totally shut down. the lower PW ranks still have a good amount of break away action going on, so the question is, would you rather your kid move down and keep playing wrong, or suffer through a rough season but learn how to play the game properly, so they have a shot at making a decent team later on life? Don't assume all parents only care about winning and don't assume all kids only care about winning. Making friends is more important to most of them. Third, this entire situation though, can be traced to what has been discussed on this board over and over. i hate to bring it up due to the massive flame war the generally ensues, but the problem comes from all the independent and AAA teams getting formed around town. Look, i'm a capitalist, i believe in consumers having the right to spend money on whatever they want, but to an extent. The FDA would prevent a restaurant from serving an Asbestos Burger. the amount of consumer demand would be irrelevant. at some point some governing body needs to step in and do what is best for the kids. What we have now is a somewhat diluted PAHL AA, that trickles down. Just watch a game and you will see that most teams have a couple kids they need to hide. Those kids though would be fine one division down. Should the whole team go down though? If you cut out all the extraneous "elite" level hockey in the area, all these kids would get pushed down into their proper levels and alot more kids would get cut completely and play house league or B. there is no shame there. having strong house leagues would only make youth hockey stronger over all in the area. Fourth more placement games aren't going to help. Kids are on vacation, don't care, coaches are still trying to determine who plays well together. fall sports are taking up some kids time and energy. again, i appreciate the sentiment of making things as best you can for the kids, but the issue doesn't fully lie in the PAHL placements.

So had a buddy tell me he was going to learn to skate so he could skate with his little ones who were getting into hockey. So he asked me if I knew any exercises that he could do that would help him progress faster as once a week public skate is only going to take you so far. I started to answer and stopped myself because i started to think, all the dryland exercises i know are about making a skater stronger and faster and i thought, is that really what you want to do to a beginner? beef up the posterior chain so they launch themselves into the boards with as much force as possible? LOL any thoughts on this? maybe instead of focusing on the posterior chain just focus on core and balance?

not exactly touting, but they do list on their website https://www.pittsburghpenguinselite.com/page/show/2132729-boys-alumni https://www.pittsburghpenguinselite.com/page/show/2132736-girls-alumni but if you really want to track what happens to PPE players, the best way might be to use Elite Prospects. You can pull up a PPE team by year and click on each player and see where they ended up.

i came across this article https://myhockeyrankings.com/news.php?b=319 this does a much better job of explaining what i meant by a model like Minnesota. being tied to the schools and community-centric. but then i was saddened at the end when they mentioned the encroaching AAA programs. something else i found interesting was the talk of respect and lack of after whistle/game shenanigans. just came back from Buffalo where they have instated pre game hand shakes. i was told they were having to many problems in post game hand shake lines. So if a scrum/fight occurs after the game, does the hockey mom still release the bloodcurdling shriek, "THAT"S A MAJOR!!!!!!"

doesn't CHL negate NCAA eligibility? i thought that's where the USHL and NAHL came into play.

don't want to debate the legality of scheduling a new game for the purpose of serving a suspension, but it seems to be fairly common, at least common enough that a ref mentioned doing it after handing out a 5 and game.

yea, i got rambling. it was sort of more of a complaint about why i see PGH not being as big a hockey town as it could be because there are a lot of actual hockey people here and many more who could be easily converted if there was more of a community oriented model. but as i mentioned, i got rambling and didn't make good sense. so my bad, i wasn't actually trying to disagree with you, those areas are definitely more advanced than PGH.

@Eddie Shore the same could be said about pretty much any US city with an NHL team. and honestly, i think one of the problems is the completely bizarre progression (or lack there of) scheme. If you take Football, kids play when they're little with the idea to make it onto their High School team. The best high school players go on to play in college and the best of them go into the NFL. I understand that I oversimplified it quite a bit, but for the most part, that is how it works and it is easily understood. So people can follow their local kids. Their friends and neighbors kids. The kids go to school together and play together. Families go through the process within their neighborhoods. When a team is doing well banners go up and such. no one is even aware of who the PPE is playing or that they won a National Championship a few years ago. there is no sense of community around hockey in our area. The kids play all year, then go to tryouts, get placed on a new team, with maybe 1 or 2 kids from last years team and the cycle goes on. the parents are always complaining about whatever association they are in and talking about how they going to go somewhere else next year or chasing the extra A, as it likes to be said on this forum. there is not much reason for anyone without a kid involved to pay any attention to any hockey other than the Pens, even if you are a hockey fan. is there a rivalry? is one association looking to upset a top dog? without that, it's hard for people to get involved. but they can read high school football news and then go to the local watering hole and watch the game of the week on tv. as an outsider though, i think you may be surprised by how many people in the area are actually "true" hockey fans. i'm not sure what driving an hour and a half to Wheeling to see an ECHL game has to do with anything, but don't forget that the Hornets were a well supported team before the 67 expansion. I know some old timers who were season ticket holders and they were pissed about losing the Hornets especially because the expansion draft was not designed to actually build good teams. and no one was fooled by the "an expansion team will make the stanley cup" narrative. they were well aware who ever made would be curb stopped. but as for not far off, multi-generational hockey families like you mention will become pretty common place over the next 10 years. that will help fuel the change for more hockey but i think if our high school level stays as is, we will never really grow into a true hotbed.

good read, thanks for posting that. working toward something better than what we currently have should be a goal. there should be a way to keep all talented 14 year olds at home and still progress them appropriately. Of the 'daddy' coaches my youngest has had over the years, 1 played juinors, 1 played ACHA, and 1 played D1. they will be the grandfathers soon enough. PGH isn't there yet, but it would be nice to have a good system in place for when we are, because i don't think we're that far off from having the multi generation hockey families.