carroll81

Ask the players. As much as the parents like to think they know who the really good players are, they usually look at the players and teams through a colored lens. The players know who belongs on various teams and who does not.

Wes, is this the right bracket format, or am I finding the wrong tournament? https://cdn1.sportngin.com/attachments/document/7322-1586068/PLAYOFFS_Seeding_Charts_ODSETs_9_Team_Format_rev_1.pdf

That is a great question. My thoughts on it are that the movement of lacrosse, basketball and even soccer are similar - move to space, setting picks, set plays, fast breaks, slow breaks, etc. These are all concepts that are taught in those sports that directly contribute to on ice awareness. You get to see those things in different spaces, with different numbers of players, taught by different coaches.

Knowing what to do in tight space and when you have pressure is still a skill. You teach it using small area games. If they are not doing small area games at your practices, then there is a problem. Doing these types of drills will also help with IQ, or what I think Denis was referencing as the IQ that coaches want to see. But, it is more than space and opposition. It is awareness, pattern recognition, seeing the ice, knowing where the play is going. That is much harder and many/most can't get there.

It is hard to coach IQ. There are lots of coaches who can run drills out of the Coaching Manual. There are fewer coaches who can actually coach proper skills. There are fewer that can coach IQ. If you want to increase IQ, play other sports. Basketball, soccer and lacrosse. Even with great coaching, many kids will never develop IQ.

That seems crazy. Nationals are not for another 7 weeks. You can get another whole season in before then.

Is this your district tournament to determine who goes to Nationals?

ALL roads lead to mens league.

I call them "mediocre days and bad nights". Sometimes it is just what is going to happen.

I guess I should just be happy that we are playing and back to arguing over which 12 year old are the best in the world. Do you two even understand how the scores are reported and how the rankings are calculated?

Fair enough. My only question, if you were on the ice, do you think you would have come up with the same penalties? I lied, second question, does the kid who got boarded get an unsportsmanlike minor?

Wes, do you have a link to a scoresheet? If I get a chance I'll go back and watch the first. Agree that there should have been at least a 2/10 for the hit that started it all (check from behind or board).

Watched the 2nd and 3rd periods. Video kept cutting out. Do you guys posted scoresheets in the west? Would like to see what they called at the end. Looks like they restarted with 5-4 man advantage for the dark team. That looks right. Honestly, in a 2 man system, as long as they got the board/check from behind which started the scrum, I would be OK with it. The officials seemed to get in pretty quickly and protected the guys down on the ice. They can't see who else did what. Looks like they put everybody on the ice in the box with at least roughing calls. Not sure what else you can expect them to do with only 2 guys.

Just had the Bishop Kearney (Rochester) go through. Really nice team. They were on day 7 of a road trip. Headed back to NY. 4 more days/games to go.

Thanks. You are correct about co-ops in the East. They play regular season games against teams in their division as well as league. They have divisions playoffs, but do not advance to Flyers Cup. With the exception of AAA, divisions here roughly match up to PIAA leagues and have teams of different sizes (AA, A). AAA is the good, no-boundary schools and they play themselves as well as other size schools. Glad the teams are back on the ice.

Do they then only play teams in the same level? Are co-op teams eligible for Penguins Cup?

They have been buying rink here in the East pretty regularly. They recently joined other rinks that operate the teams in their rinks to form their own league. I've seen this business model in other sports and it is very effective - for the rink owners. http://www.blackbearsportsgroup.com/news/black-bear-sports-group-partners-with-ice-arena-owners-to-form-the-atlantic-hockey-federation

This is a high school thread isn't it? AAA, AA and A all reference school size, not competition level. The State Champions in A the last few years can skate with and beat just about any other teams in the state. The recent Flyers Cup champions in AA and A are in the same ICSHL division and regularly play each other.

Wes, did they give their reasoning?

As of right now, InterCounty and Atlantic Prep are scheduled to start 1/8 and the Suburban is scheduled to start 1/10. Have not seen any adjustment to Flyers Cup, based on the new dates for USA Nationals, yet.

The change to the Icing rule is useless, since they defeated the change to prohibit the line change on icing.

Yes, sports could be part of the decision. But, if you choose your school using sports as your priority, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. What happens when you get hurt, get cut, the school drops the sport, or there is a pandemic. Every college coach that is worth their job will tell you the same thing. All roads lead to men's league.

Slippery Rock and other State Schools are hurting for students. It is mostly due to demographics. https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-state-colleges-20200716-uptvrbh3wrcnjf4oowfvlt2hqi-story.html This, plus what is happening due to Covid, is a great example of why kids looking at colleges should not choose a school based on sports. They should love the school first, and the sports is a kicker.

This is going to make coordination with Flyers Cup, Penguins Cup and PA State quite a but tougher now. Flyers Cup had been pushed to go after the original USA nationals. They were going to go 4/5 - 4/20, so States could be the 24th. That may now conflicts with district tournaments.

This is the rinks shutting themselves down. Call of 23 rink at Penn is also closed. There was a shutdown/pause of all the rinks in Montgomery County a few weeks ago that was at the request of the Health Department, due to contact tracing linking the rinks to some cases. They were closed for 2 weeks and are now open again.