Saucey

It's a mess to understand. NCAA Div I is the only one who can grant scholarships for sport only. Everything else, you can get academic scholarships. Which means you have to have good grades and be a good student. There are some good articles floating around that explain the alphabet. But yes, depending on the school/program, an ACHA division 1 club team can be better hockey than division III The disappointing thing that I have found is that a lot of those high level club teams will want your kid to play juniors, particularly if you didn't play AAA. That's expensive. Not sure that is worth it. Go get the degree IMHO. No other college sport makes such ridiculous demands of it's players. There are states that allow you to send your kid to prep school for an extra year just to boost grades and let the kid get bigger. Five years of high school! To get a sense if your kid can play somewhere, take a look at the rosters. A lot of them will put the player's last team on the roster, or you can look them up on Elite Prospects. It's enlightening. Even on a club team, you may find that the roster is littered with kids with AAA teams and juniors.

This happens a lot and is nothing new. We just didn't hear about it. Minorities are not surprised because they live it. And I think people are feeling very bold right now. Behavior is just awful. We need to continue to condemn it, shine a light on it and keep people accountable, regardless of the push back received when doing so. Education is the biggest way to combat ignorance. So disappointing. So much work to do.

'Having a player go into the stands was really something we never thought of....' No kidding, because who wants to ruin skates? I was wondering how that situation started. Many teams send a coach out first and have a coach take up the end, looking out to make sure both that the players don't try and mix it up at the end of the game and to prevent crowd interaction. This will never go away for these folks. Job interviews, etc. So very, very stupid.

... we keep playing JV teams loaded with 04s and 05s for some reason. I will save my complaints about PIHL I think a lot less kids came out for programs. COVID? My kids play for a big program where they wouldn't keep seniors/juniors normally, but the kids weren't there. That was nice of you to share. I think high school hockey presents a unique challenge in that you can have a wide degree of disparity in age and talent on one team, particularly a small program. Some players are ready for system work and others really still need the basics.

I'd be worried more about criminal charges than what PIHL would do. This stuff follows you around.

Yes

What am I complaining about?

I am not cloud yelling. I didn't denegrate the tournament. But it is the internet and an anonymous board. People are not nice on a big, anonymous level, so am I poking at people whining because they came here and people weren't nice? Yes I am. If you want positive support, don't come here. Go to your Facebook page. To be perfectly honest, yes, I don't care that anyone wins Silver Sticks or any other weekend tournament. Should it be that way? I don't know. You are right, it would be nice to go back to the days where if you had nothing nice to say, you kept it to yourself. Our politics and the pandemic have made even in person interactions terrible right now. Maybe the bigger issue here is that youth sports are such big business now that doing these things really is not special at all. When every team does multiple tournaments every year regardless of levell ..they aren't that special to win. It is on a micro level...to those kids, that team, that organization....but on a macro level, yeah don't expect people to be impressed. Or nice. I am old. You too will get old. But even when I was just starting out with my travel squirt, I didn't expect random strangers on the internet to be impressed with my kids weekend wins.

No one comes on here bragging about winning any tournament. If you want pats on the back for Silver Sticks, try your Facebook wall. IGlad you and the kids had a good time.

It's all noise. This board has actually been fairly civilized.

This is true. 07 by is the same.

It really depends on coaching and who is on the team. At 16u they are supposed to be learning all these things. 14u as well. However, they also play on teams where there are kids who don't have the individual skills to do these things, let alone hockey IQ. The independent teams have really decimated the level of play in AA. You've got only a few teams in each age group with what I would say are filled with complete AA players. Everyone else only has a couple or none. If you can't pick up a pass while moving, you can have the best breakout ever and go no where. If kids don't have the individual skills, guess what you do in practice.

PIHL updated the website to indicate info on girls for spring 2022 is coming soon!

Here I was thinking this board was pleasantly pleasant lately. I am ok with being wrong about something and happy that my opinion was not informed in this instance. However, I am incredibly tired of the manner in which people choose to state their opinion and 'correct' others. Thanks for the somewhat backwards apology.

Nice. You could have made your point without the dig. But what would this board be with out someone being a jagoff?

This is the kind of thing victims have complained about for a long time. Disbelief. Slaps on wrist. It's not just the Catholic Church or USA hockey. It's pervasive throughout our society. Blackmailing a child for sex, even if the perpetrator was a minor at the time, is incredibly repulsive, aberrant behavior that is not going to be a one off. How many others were hurt by this silence? I hope our culture is changing to protect sexual assault victims.

That was a nice tribute.

So create a different thread.

PIHL did address this ages ago and crowd control was not put on the refs, but on the schools. Everyone who has kids who play PIHL hockey received messaging from their home organization on how school crowds would be handled. I haven't heard of any further issues. Schools are hyperaware right now. I think this thread has outlived its usefulness and should be closed. If you want to continue discussing reffing, maybe make another thread.

Looking at the schedule, NA plays a lot of those teams heading into playoffs.

Not any more.

Franklin Regional is number one in penalty minutes, anyway. There is talent there, but it spends a lot of time in the box

How are the outdoor rinks going to accommodate fans?

Yeah, or in the summer. Just go to a court with friends.

I theorize that it is because our kids have less time to play on their own around here, with less access to ice to allow for the game to teach them. No outdoor rinks, etc. Small area games would be USA hockey's answer.With passing....gotta make em do it I guess. But I don't really know what is different in training. I just know that seems to be the glaring difference between our teams and those from the big markets.