Saucey

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.

15 minutes ago, Rewster said:

Meh, now you could very well be right about the 16U AA PAHL hockey quality being terrible. I have not kept close tabs on the skill level disparity across the board, or the coaching levels, competition, recent history, etc.

I know that this year’s PAHL 18U AA hockey was honestly some of the best Midget Major hockey that I have seen as a conglomerate in this region. Armstrong is obviously the best as they have gone toe-to-toe with just about every reputable Tier 2 18U AA league in the nation; and either won, or tied. Considering that Armstrong was this year’s PAHLs 18U AA measuring stick. There were 4 or sometimes 5 league teams in the PAHL that could have been legitimate players in Tier 2 18U Nationals.

Maybe this is the culmination year for PAHL and the entirety of their divisions and organizations. It could be the brilliance of the bright flame going out in PAHL 18U AA…never to be rivaled again. I’d argue this season was …possibly/probably the best “ever” that came together in the history of the league’s apex age classification.

The 06 BY was pretty strong. You had some kids keep playing that usually quit by 18u and a lot of the AAA options died. I think that is unusual. And....no one cares about 18u hockey, really. All washed up by that age. 🤷‍♂️ 

13 minutes ago, RJUSHL said:

 

There will be more 09 AAA teams than 09 AA teams. Crazy. 

This has been developing for a while. In order to play AA, you have to sign up to play AAA. 😞🤢 All it does is increase the cost of hockey and time spent on it. PAHL AA 16u hockey was terrible quality top to bottom this year. I don't know about 14u, didn't watch any games this year, but I remember thinking last year watching two of the mid am games thinking....this is awful. Bleh. Good luck chasing, all.

On 3/13/2024 at 10:51 AM, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Hockey budget size is a much, much bigger factor than school size. They also have a rink on campus, which some NCAA schools don't have.

Jeff Docking is a big hockey guy and gets their teams a lot of money. He sort of had a vision like that at W&J, but I don't think he had the support from the administration that he wanted. W&J was a very good ACHA D1 team when he was there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Docking

Too bad the school itself doesn't have the same credentials. 😞

1 hour ago, hockeyisgreat said:

How good is Adrian?  Did you see the game?  Adrian has a great D-3 team as well!  Not bad for a school that has 1700 total undergrads!

Adrian is a hockey powerhouse.

1 hour ago, RegDunlop7 said:

Somewhat surprising result for 16U Tier 2. The SCIR 16U AA team ended up winning States (beat Armstrong and SCIR 15U, who are both ranked higher according to MHR) after losing 8-1 to the Huskies in the PAHL playoffs. Seems like there was some parity in the 16U AA division this year. Good luck to all WPA teams at Nationals!

Not so surprising if you are familiar with that year...any of the top six teams could have gone. The 07 BY was low and the level of play not so good in PAHL this year. There were no stand out teams with stand out talent. And if they had any, they went to play independent. 

Good luck to them!

1 hour ago, dazedandconfused said:

People who are so fascinated and caught up in stats are almost 100% of the time the ones living vicariously through their kids because they NEVER accomplished anything in their athletic lifetime.

Or grandparents with nothing better to do! But watch their grandkids practice on Livebarn! #hockeyisgreat

Just now, Overqualified said:

Other sport teams use max prep or elite prospects 

But for kids to get looks from colleges this counts weather it's D1 to D3 or club 

Meh. Most kids looking to play at that level can get stats from High School. D1 isn't pulling from these levels, either, and they need to go play AAA or juniors for the better programs. Maybe some D3. Club hockey is all over the place with level of play and how you make the team, anyway. Some club teams are purely run by the kids and they pick who they want to drink with. Truly.

Get a team statistician each year and do it yourself. The dad in the stands who is a problem child generally, give him a job.

I am telling you, it really doesn't matter that much in the long run.

Maybe PAHL can release to individual people their own stats at the end of the season. 

Recruiters aren't looking at kids from PAHL for D1. They just aren't.

Why exactly do we need all these stats? Tier II and lower is not typically where you find your future NHLers. The league does have a huge recruitment problem, however. My team kept stats usually so the one time I needed them in over a decade of playing, I had them. I think it would just make the insane landscape....insane. I am fairly certain that a few of the posters lamenting this belonged to teams who heavily recruited.

I don't disagree that PAHL could use some updating. Kids are on social media. Even PIHL has done a great job in the last few years promoting kids and the league. If they don't want to publish individual stats, they could do other things. As can individual organizations. When a kid gets a hattie in a game or goalie gets a shut out, for example. So much is volunteer driven, however, and the fact of the matter is that people crap all over you. A lot.

We didn't travel East often and with the exception of one tournament that drew high ranked teams, the competition from that end wasn't very good. I would not want to make that drive on the regular for league games for sure.

13 hours ago, PUCKCOVID19 said:

im all for it IF they get back to the old them, which I not very certain they will......fill the stands and get back to pre pandemic competition level and attendance.  then pop this kinda question.........    until then nothing wrong with rmu its 5-10 min down the road   

But they have support rn. They should build on the incredible outreach they received to keep the programs. They do need to do what good D1 programs do, and that includes a rink on campus. 

Reading another forum regarding comments made by the PAHL rules' committee, it didn't sound as if there was a great understanding of the girls' landscape. There is no pending litigation, only a fear. 

There is a prevailing knee jerk reaction that is appealing in its simplicity. "It's not fair that boys can't play Tier I and on a PAHL team and girls can, that is not equal, so hence we are subject to liability." This goes to how a segment of society is viewing affirmative action outreaches in general.

This thought process ignores the reality of what it is to be female and try to play. Even Tier I girls teams struggle to find appropriate competition. There are not more than a team or two legit AA teams around here. So good female hockey players struggle to find appropriate competition to develop. Having teams made up of a wide range of age differences is frustrating to development.

Playing with boys helps that development, but as others said, also has a lot of drawbacks. Not every girl is going to want that.

I don't know what the solution is. Triple rostering is a terrible idea, because that does not help the team that comes in as the last choice for that player. Beer league minutes on youth sports teams because of lack of bodies also hurts development, but hey, there is a team out there!

I just don't get the sense that the people who are looking at making this actually knows what it is to be female and try to play around here or sufficiently care. What is new?

1 hour ago, Corsi said:

Yes, my understanding is MidAm asks for...  Name, Height/Weight, Stats (GP, G, A, Pts), Prior Team, and Future Team (if known).  

PPE is the highest ranked team in the District, but that doesn't mean that the other programs don't have individual players that can play at that level.  Making a blanket statement about it being a waste of time doesn't make any sense.

It's been a few years but we found it to be a giant waste of time. I am not the only one. I don't think it hurts to go, but to move on as a Tier 2 player is....the exception for sure.

21 hours ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Looks like the entire Pens Elite 2010 team was invited!

Theoretically the elite are at Pens. No way Icemen can make that claim. No matter, when teams are 'evenly' sorted for the weekend the wanna bes are on the outside looking in, even the PPE players.

19 hours ago, RJUSHL said:

Posted: https://www.midamhockey.com/page/show/8307898-boys-14-2010-tryouts

You mean the Icemen can no longer send entire teams? ☺️

Never been a fan of SCIR teams. But they have been very successful, and they have to give up everything to become an organization that has had....a few successes. Bleh.

7 hours ago, ice is cold said:

I dunno. My son had a parent coach his first 2 years (which he didn't start ice untill u12) and they were both pretty bad. Taught him wrong things, kids acting like idiots, almost dangerous on the ice with no ramifications or correction, it was awful, he wanted to quit. So I think it all depends on the coach. Not all parents, not all paid coaches, not all ex players can be coaches. It takes a person who knows the game, can handles kids appropriately and can discipline in the right way. Unfortunately, that typically lands on a paid coach as they don't have a personal association with a child and said childs friends. And they also typically have coached longer than a parent coach. 

I don't disagree. But paid coaches are used as a sales pitch, like they are always better.