Saucey

And don't forget 10u is frequently a crap shoot because the kids are unknowns and develop so much in these years so even the best intentioned placements don't always work out.

1 hour ago, Corsi said:

Your point is exactly why I pushed back on the earlier comment about kids playing on "AAA" teams or "THF/AHF" and the implied negative impact it is having on local hockey.  While I will admit costs associated with "AAA" or "THF/AHF" have made the sport more expensive, please consider that if the Pittsburgh area would distill hockey down to only one or two "AAA" teams the impact on local hockey would be exponentially worse due to many of the players who did not make one of the two "AAA" teams being faced with the choice of leaving the area to compete at that level.  If they leave, they also lose the option of playing for their PIHL team.  

I doubt there are that many chasing the dream so much so that they will leave. Let them go.

2007 is also a low BY, don't forget.

14 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

90% of what you are saying is true.  I will take exception to the zero impact part.  Both fake AAA teams and black bears THF/AHF crap really waters down the local competition and hurts kids not affiliated with those organizations. 

This 1000 times over. A completely parent or player driven market is not great for the growth of hockey. And it drives up costs.

On 9/18/2024 at 12:50 AM, Carl Racki said:

Yes, said it when they bought their first rink in the area.   BB is no good for hockey.  They just want to monopolize everything.  Rinks, leagues, live barn, the associations that play in their rinks, tournaments, .... (which are WAY over priced).  

Complaints can be filed with the Attorney General office 

5 hours ago, fafa fohi said:

I was at Tuesday’s games and I saw a consistent drop off of overall talent amongst all of the teams compared to last year’s group.

Is it because most of the 06’s that has been a deep age group graduated and have moved on with only a handful of them left in a sea of underclassmen?  

2007 was a light BY. 

11 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

Good riddance to the fair play points. Now I hope they fix offsides and icing on the powerplay

Those are USA hockey rules, I believe. PAHL could eliminate them but then they would not be a USA sanctioned league and thus games would not.count towards qualifying for Midams and nationals.

39 minutes ago, TheRightCall said:

This is absurd. This kid should be out playing with friends and experiencing other sports such as soccer, baseball, lacrosse, etc. Maybe level with him and see if there are any solid articles that detail the benefits of diversifying one's life at such a young age.

Nah don't bother. Those folks don't want to hear it. If anything, just say what you do with your own kid because of your own concern with burn out etc and then let it go.

On 5/14/2024 at 11:04 PM, aaaahockey said:

They were really good and deserved it.  Local kids doing great things.  

This. I mean, if you call yourself AAA and appear to deserve it, then this Board seems to leave you alone. The other organization in recent memory that had some success was Mt Lebos 04s, I think was the BY. Jealousy may play with Pens, maybe Esmark? But for other organization, if you are calling yourself AAA when you aren't even remotely there, you deserve all the backlash IMHO. Why do people care how we spend our money and time.... because if you know anything about hockey, playing way above your head does not develop players, I don't care how much ice you get and off ice, it just doesn't. And other people care about diluting the talent available to play PAHL.

On 5/21/2024 at 10:45 AM, zam said:

Agree with most of those thoughts. However, the one thing you're going to fall behind on is skating.  It's hard to make up for lost time there. Kids that grew up in our neighborhood and only played deck hockey, they had great hands, they had above average shots, they struggled to make their school's Middle School team.  One took classes and private lessons. But became frustrated and gave up hockey.  

 

True. But I wouldn't even spend there at that age with privates or anything until it is clear that hockey is their passion. It is a late development sport, and we really didn't do anything extra until my boys were older and wanted the privates. I had some good hockey players. Otherwise you might as well take that money and stuff it in a drain.

At this age, one of the best things you can do with them that will cost you next to nothing is to....play with them at home. I am convinced that my boy developed some great hands because he was obsessed with....knee hockey. Whoever he could get to play with him, he played. Sounds silly , but those little light balls can move pretty fast. It helped his reflexes. That, driveway play....we get so focused on the skills training, lessons, etc that we miss the development that happens with unstructured play. And quite frankly, if they aren't pursuing the sport on their own time in some way, whether physically or watching it somehow, that gives you a big clue that you shouldn't be dumping a lot of money there.

11 minutes ago, Huskies_Director said:

 Each of our teams will play at the level that the group decides is best for their development and I have made that clear to the families.

Unless you are playing PAHL, then you play at the level that the placement committee determines, regardless of what you and your families desire. Although they are letting more weak teams play AA. Probably due to less AA caliber players playing in PAHL. So I would say if your team is not placed AA, you should really consider playing minor. No shame in that, the kids will have a better year.

Welcome to the area! Good luck to you.

You would no longer be able to say that you are having "open" tryouts. Although that is basically a farce for most places, but would cut into try out fees generated.

Going to hazard a guess that hockey ops in the various orgs got tired of trying to form a team and making offers to kids playing the tryout circuit and getting turned down. Used to be you made the top team, you stayed. I think its selfish to try out somewhere you have no intentions of playing for, and that happens a lot, people keeping their kids feet moving for school tryouts, too. You mess things up pretty badly for the org and there is a ripple effect....that offer could have been made to a kid who wanted it, now you want to offer to that kid but they've moved on. Too much power is in the hands of parents around here. I know you all like it. It's not that way everywhere.

My kid played on a tournament only team. Not this one. Depends on the age and your goals. Some rural areas, a tournament team is the only way they can field a higher level team. 

Maybe people can't afford it, too. The cost of these programs keeps skyrocketing, and they've been around long enough to see you don't get the return promised.

2 hours ago, No Politics said:

Maybe I'm not understanding this team, but why is this posted under the "Western Pennsylvania YOUTH Hockey" thread?

He has a kid who plays and he coaches. It's not a bad thing to alert the general community regarding what is going on so no organization gives him access to a bank account. 

2 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

It's not a great school either compared to where many of these kids are coming from.  

2 hours ago, sadday4hockey said:

They are over-trained on the ice 

I knew a trainer who said they believed they were seeing the kids injured by the end of the season due to too much physical activity. Some truth likely to that.

11 hours ago, Tendymom said:

Yep, that would be my kid that got cut because we would not get on board with NC/ Excel. Logistically not feasible for our family but hey, as we were told they never cut kids for not doing Excel. 🤷🏻‍♀️ and to sweeten the experience the rest of the team knew by 5:30 who had made it but we had to reach out to the coach at 9:45 pm to get an answer. What. A. Joke.

Sorry that happened to your family. Fortunately there is always a place for goalies. I am sure that he will find a home.

12 minutes ago, zam said:

Can we just get a permanent thread pinned at the top called "Pens Elite Problems"??

It's the most amazing thing about this message board! There are roughly six or seven "current" threads, they all have different headings, but every one of them has turned to something related to Penns Elite. And nearly every one of the posts starts with "I think" or "I heard". With so many contradicting theories from one thread to the other.

One thread says they only let locals play the younger ages and it's a fundraiser for the program and they replace all the local kids by the older ages, but another says they don't care about 18U so they let locals play without going to North Catholic. 

One thread says all the best kids leave town to go play elsewhere. Another thread says all the best kids are out of towners.  One thread says Excel and North Catholic aren't "required" for the good players that it's typically the 15,16 and 17, 18th best players have to do Excel.  

So what I gather it's a Fundraiser thru Middle School. Strict North Catholic requirement for freshmen and sophomores, money grab with a bunch of schmo's playing Junior and Senior year.

Why bother summarizing without adding to a discussion?

4 hours ago, Icebucket said:

They all complain about how boring it is. It ends up being a lot more standing around 

I hate that system because it is never used around here until midams. I think the refs take a couple of games to get used to it and actually miss more than the two person system, and it just adds more bodies on the ice to get around.

On 4/2/2024 at 10:34 PM, bender05 said:

Heard the esmark skates have merged 2008 and 2009s together to make it look like more kids there. only about 12-20 kids total have shown up for each skate for u15 and u16 all combined. Doubt 2009s will be able to field a team unless some imported players come.  Allegheny will be 2008 and 2009 combined so no clue what that team will look like. Renegades seems to be keeping their team together for 2009 and had a good turnout. Heard vengeance skates were a bit of a mess 

I mean, how can you tell for sure? You don't know if players that already have a spot came. Because I can't think of any organization that doesn't already have a good idea of who they want at the older ages.

1 hour ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

USA Hockey says there is only "tier 1" and "tier 2" and renders the AAA/AA/A labels meaningless, like it did with Jr A/B/C.

I thought that was already the case? All the As, divisions, etc are what the local areas do to help organize competitive divisions.

Aviators can't put together a good AA team let alone AAA. Since losing home ice, they struggled to put together any team. That's a good one. But they are trying something new. They have a home ice now? Who knows, roll of the dice.

Some of these programs end up occasionally having some success, but it's a flash in the pan success. Usually it's a highly invested dad coach who heavily recruits and makes one good team. Then that kid ages out or moves on and the team falls apart. 

Vengeance is pretty much all new now. People who started it are gone. Who knows.

You kind of have to be connected to that crew of talent to know where to go 

It's hard to recommend AA anymore. Most AAA is basically AA now. If I had a young player, I would not even know where to have them play these days.

Coaching. At this point the best advice is to get good coaching. Fits into your schedule. Easy rink to get to. You can afford it. Good non drama to families.

Playing Jr A to progress to ACHA is a ton of money and delay in schooling to me. And....your student may decide that school and hockey is too much. College is a whole different ball of wax than high school .How long do you want to be away from the academic setting before returning? 

Maybe you can afford it. Maybe your kid could use a year or so to mature a bit. But to have this become the path to play in college just sucks.

4 hours ago, CranjisMcBasketball said:

Don’t they all?

Actually this board is pretty tame anymore. People tired of fighting with each other post pandemic maybe.