Saucey

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.

On 2/9/2024 at 4:58 PM, Pucks11 said:

This right here☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻. I know for a fact that in 1 Tier 1 AAA birth year that 4 of the the top 10 teams in the country have parent coaches. I know "pay for" coaches that are worse than parent coaches. The people usually complaining about parent coaches know NOTHING about hockey and just repeat what they hear other complaining parents say or they THINK their kid is better than they are. If you don't like it then volunteer/apply yourself.

It's also a sales pitch....paid coaches!

Or you could just look for the team and coach that develops your kid and fits with him the best. I loathe this fascination with by by by. My kids definitely benefited from playing with and against older players. 

On 1/11/2024 at 9:50 AM, James Gatz said:

This is a good discussion with some interesting points.  From my novice perspective, I am wondering if it makes sense for PAHL to activate the stats tracking tools for the U18 and U16 levels for sure and maybe even U14, or at least the AA levels for some of the age groups below U16.  I do see some validity to ignoring the stats for the lower ages/lower divisions.  The scorekeeper is usually a parent volunteer from the home team.  Many are not familiar with scorekeeping and there is often a rush to complete the score sheet as soon as the horn sounds.  I get why the stats are enigmatic in those situations, and it probably is too much distraction for an A minor squirt to focus on individual stats, especially when they are inconsistently recorded.  Does a hybrid tweak make sense?  Keep/report the stats for the upper tier teams where there is probably more knowledgeable/experienced people serving as score keepers, but keep the stats muted for the more development oriented divisions?

This makes some sense to me. Stats were available when my kid first started, then they shut it off. I don't remember the exact reason why, but it wasn't to prevent poaching. Maybe that became the reason. I seem to think it had more to do with kids and parents focusing too much on stats over development. I did hate when goals and assists were attributed to the wrong kids in PIHL. They use those stats to pick All Stars.

4 hours ago, Law said:

All this is true. SRO crowd of 4,100 tonite. The football team that just won their conference championship across the street and brought their trophy over between periods. Great crowd, great atmosphere. Liberty won 5-3 in their Midnight Mayhem game

That sounds like it was so much fun. 

Hockey should be a bonus with club hockey, nor the reason that you picked the school and for sure.

This is a great article but it only really touches on the very top tier of club hockey, which, just like few kids are gonna play DI, few are going to get on these teams. It didn't delve into anything else that you might find.

3 hours ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Do you think Hockey is Ruined in this area?  I do think the only people who come on here are disgruntled about something related to their kids Hockey experiences!  I'm trying not to "Pounce"!  Neat word!

I have been on here a few years and discussed my views on hockey in this area many times. You participated in many of those threads. My opinion hasn't changed, my kids are almost aged out and I no longer care enough to engage and repeat. If you really want to refresh, you can read my old posts 

33 minutes ago, nemesis8679 said:

ou either have your head in the sand, are misinformed, or have a kid that is on a AA team that is there firstly because of encumbancy or another connection and secondly because of hockey. 

 

He is a cheerleader Grandpa, claiming that he wants to learn the sport. However, he is not overly tolerant of criticism from people who have been playing or have kids playing in the system for years. His desire is to be constantly positive, which is cool. But he pounces on people who are not, which I find not cool.

1 hour ago, Ihearthockey said:

16U AA seems like a clear top and bottom.

SP....yikes.  

Definitely some teams that should have been placed differently. There are kids who can barely skate on some these teams. Yay for the watering of AA.

This just happened a few years ago. 16 yr old bled out on the ice. There was some more additional enforcement by some refs in both PIHL and PAHL and then nothing again.

7 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

That place sucks. Hate going there. Same with Palmer. Though at Palmer I'm not sure it's homerism as much as not wanting to be shanked by a Badgers parent. 

Limited number of refs even willing to work at those places. 

At least as a spectator at Belmont, you can hide in the balcony.

Facts. Always get homered at Belmont. Although there are a lot of teams losing FPP in those age groups it seems.

4 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

Well after the first couple weeks AAA scores are all over the map.  Almost looks like Rock Paper Scissors.  Seneca hasn't looked nearly as strong as I would have expected.  Player availability?  Who knows?

I feel this was to be expected. Most teams are very young with little standout talent. PAHL at 16uAA is looking very similar. The level of hockey is disappointing, not nearly as good as prior years.

19 hours ago, sarampage said:

He ended up at Pitt with a very difficult major and decided he didn't want to commit to hockey.  

Yes, this too! The school needs to meet 'the broken leg test'. If something should happen to your player and they can't play or decide that they don't want to, are they going to be happy at the school.

Congratulations to your son.

Club hockey is weird because the schools seem to set the criteria for what makes M2, M3 etc.RMU told us the levels there really have to do with commitment after the one team. So if you don't want to practice much per week, maybe you look at the last team. Your skill might not mean much between those levels. My boy was told he could play any level there he wanted to, depending on how much time he wanted to devote. And for RMU....there is reason club hockey was not touched when they cut the D1 program. Those teams do attract kids and tuition. Some of those schools, hockey is a draw for people and the school uses hockey as an attraction.

Everything Danner said is right on, except in the last few years, it has become harder to make a club team at a big school, which is so disappointing. (And all the more reason not to be chasing around these faux AAA teams, etc) Frustrating that spots are taken up by older players who had the money to pay to play for those Tier III Jr teams. And the pandemic caused a bottle neck. The schools my boy got admitted to, some with fantastic hockey programs and who recruited him heavily.... academically did not have what he wanted to study or were ..not very good schools. Or located in a really bad area like IUP. And like Danner said, at the end of the day, they aren't getting a degree in hockey. The area of study, the school itself, finances, fit for kid... should come ahead of the hockey. If you get the hockey, treat it as a bonus.

It all ends at some point. Soon they will be terrorizing us old farts still trying to play. 

8 minutes ago, JerryTime said:

I'm not sure the reason but they do it for the other club league, AAU (formerly CHF). Wonder if ACHA likes their own methods better or if MHR decided not to allow them.

I would hazard that it would be really hard to do this, considering how different all the teams operate. Scores, schedules and games aren't reliably reported anywhere, either.

Although it is easy to forget on this board, hockey is a pretty tight community. When someone is hurting, you do see people step up all the time.

2 hours ago, hockeyisgreat said:

I asked you specific questions! You chide (nice word) me for being positive! I give up!!!!!!!!!  Enough exclamation points?

But....I don't have positive things to say! So why bother responding when you will bemoan that I am so negative!

He loved his hockey experience. No regrets there 

6 minutes ago, hockeyisgreat said:

I am here to learn from people who have been through it!  

Cool, cool. Do that, for sure. But you also seem to have an unrelenting desire to chide people for being negative, by your definition. You don't have anything to add to the conversation other than.....be positive! As nd a bunch of exclamation points.