Saucey

Some of the other rosters may disappear. I know there are kids on the ones still listed that got spots on other teams. Team shopping. Gotta crank up the BS meter a little higher...

Yep. Steel City is a perfect example of what I have been talking about regarding resources not being spent at the younger ages. All top heavy. With only a few PAHL programs creating new players, all the organizations fight over the players coming out of the programs who make the investment. All the programs, no matter the level. Year after year. And then the ridiculous heavy recruiting commences. This isn't a healthy hockey market. Big Bear seems to concentrate at each level, anyway. Parent driven hockey results in poor development of the market.

You know, it seems the really crazy nasty people are no longer posting. This has settled down into something good. Ever check out a forum in Michigan? ?

It irritated me. Does so many hours at the rink that it hurt my marriage at one point suffice? I've definitely earned my opinions.

Because it needs expensive improvements as they were quoted saying in articles? I mean, it's all speculation. I think it's a shock to the community and people are just worried what further ramifications there may be.

I've also known PPE kids never talk about how much fun they are having. And parents pushing their children into playing on these 'AAA' teams when their kids don't want to be there because they are not competitive with the teams they are playing. So they might be resilient in their losses but still not having much fun along the way. If it isn't fun, then no one should be playing. Fun and development take a back seat to this push to the top. Could be it just depends on the kid. Again, a parent driven market.

If Black Bear becomes an owner of rink and a league, it seems. Increases costs. But maybe that has to happen for improvements and profit. But....that is also a monopoly. But better that than a loss of the facility entirely.

Hockey does discriminate against race. It is improving, but the sport has a really long way to go. Money is a huge part of it, and you can't untangle it. If people with the power and with the money really wanted to make changes, they would have to spend money. When push comes to shove, that money does not get spent. We would have seen something viable now on the Hill and in a rink in the East End. USA Hockey, too. Their current diversity effort consists mostly of offering programming once a month to get others to become change makers. The audience for that programming is the ones already interested in change. The problem is, USA Hockey IS a change maker, but would have to spend more money than this little programming to really get there. They aren't even willing to treat their successful women's Olympian program the same as the men. The NHL likes its college developed hockey players. Maybe they should pay attention to this. Not a good trend for them either, if more and more schools drop their ice programs.

Sad for the market, considering the upgrades they mentioned the rink needs. Which we all know are overdue. Hope we don't lose another rink.

I agree and I don't. My main purpose in writing this post was to talk about whether the way this is working grows the game. It's just developed into, 'it's my money let me spend it how I want'.Supports my belief that our market is parent and pocket book driven, not development driven I think playing a sport is worth it. This new company coming in, I heard they just make things more expensive. It's such a fun game. I'd like to see entry points at any age and income. Ah well.

BTW I appreciate everyone's responses. This is a great discussion.

That's a parent perspective. That doesn't mean that is helpful to growing hockey around here. And yes, they all end up in beer league. So many don't understand what you just said. They think playing for these teams will get their kid somewhere.

No, I mean, you all are telling me that your child gets to tell you what they want to do. Come on. There are ways to guide your child without 'crushing their dream'. They all say they want to be NFL players and what not.

As others have observed, organizations are trying really hard to reach parents younger and younger, to lock them in. There is money to made from those that don't know any better. There is no AAA hockey that is recognized as such till 14u. Till you can compete for a National title. Gotta lock em in.

I hear this about Esmark, that they are upfront about the skill that came to try out. I actually don't think Esmark is a pretender program. They do give kids exposure. Good on your child.

Never said they are good for hockey.

There is so much you need. Size, skill, willingness to work. Luck. Connections. Money. You can have all that and still not make it to the chel or college hockey.

Not for me. There are sufficient levels already in PAHL for the level of play that exists. You are discussing a separate league for tier Ii outside PAHL, really. And what are you talking about, PAHL has to do more? PAHL teams can play as many games as they want so long as they complete the PAHL schedule. Lots of PAHL teams do just that. Your question starts to get more to the heart of things. Lots of these AAA teams want a crazy amount of games and if they are within an organization with tryouts, you may end up with parents who don't want to do that. So many of these teams want to hand pick their players. 80 games a season is nuts for children.

I'm not saying that. I have lots of criticisms of PPE and I don't like what happened to hockey around here when they came in. But you have to go through them. So, to exclude them from the conversation, pretend they don't exist, makes no sense to me, either. They may refuse to play in the regular season, but who is really challenging them in districts? Esmark every once in a while. Vengeance 06 team came within four goals. Again....we don't have a AAA league of 6 to 8 teams.

Didn't have a choice until midget. And that was dependent on his skill and willingness to work. I won't send a child to college just because they want to, pay for it and there is no indication that they would do well or work. That's not good for the child or my pocket book. My background is definitely not what ever the child wants they get.

So says the parent of a AAA kid on Icemen. Because I don't think it helps our area. I get it a parent doesn't care. You just want your kids happy. And I don't believe that kids find it fun to be beat down by large margins. Again, it's parents driving development. But Mid Am or someone interested in developing the game, should be looking at this trend.

Absolutely. Exemplifies my point, you have no players in the pipeline you've got nothing eventually.

Absolutely, you get it. We don't have six to 8 AAA teams when some of them aren't in the top of Tier II obviously. But if we are talking about AAA, you are not talking about AAA if you exclude PPE. That's exactly what these AAA teams want to do, ignore PPE and pretend they are AAA.

Those kids belong in in house. Travel hockey is too much for those kids. Used to be, low level hockey teams weren't traveling. And I hated he idea that high level hockey means no fun.

So......six teams that play each other with PPE most likely winning all the games? Or are you going to exclude PPE, because I doubt they'll play. You mean..... a different AA league. I hate BY model for our area. If your skill puts you at the top team, that's where you go. If people are dissatisfied with PAHL, I get it, but current situation stinks.