BeaverFalls

9 minutes ago, Corsi said:

Based off of last season's rosters, most of that State College team left and played either in Pittsburgh (SHAHA BY) or for Mustangs AA out of Altoona.  I haven't heard where those kids are playing this season.  

You can have unexpected teams show up and compete at younger ages because if you have a good goalie or one or two really good players they can dominate.  As the players get older and are able to mentally play more of a structured/team game the ability of one or two players to win a game on their own goes out the window.  My guess is having younger BY teams at AA would help in developing that "structure" earlier for those kids.

The problem, again, is what do smaller organizations do that might have one or two "AAA/AA" skilled players but then a huge drop in skill/talent?  Going that route would essentially force the best players in small organizations to go to larger organizations so they can play with like skilled players or force those organizations to field "combined" teams at the AA BY levels as a way to keep the talent in-house instead of those kids going other places.

Which leaving to go to another program isn’t always feasible due to cost or travel. So idk what the best solution is. I think true parody won’t really ever be achieved across the board, and that’s sort of the business pahl tried to get into with these placements and dozens of division levels. 

2 minutes ago, RJUSHL said:

And they've lost some kids as well. I don't understand the decision. If you blow out a AA division, then consider going independent. This group has never done that. It's not a bad team, but it's not like PAHL AA is below them. Not even close.

I guess the other part is to not take it personally they aren’t playing PAHL. Who knows what their thought process is. Maybe it’s well thought out and based on time, people, budget etc they have a clear end state goal they’re seeking with by going independent. 
 

on the flip hand it’s completely conceivable it’s a rash decision that isn’t based on the best development and fiscal responsibility. 
 

Bottom line is, PAHL has been around for a long, long time. And even if a few BY teams or even whole organizations leave, it’s not going anywhere. 

I think we can all agree there isn’t a really great solution that meets the needs of all the organizations and all the levels. But it is encouraging that people are thinking of some ideas that might help. 
 

Maybe part of the problem is PAHL is too cookie cutter and not tailored specific enough to each age group?  Maybe it’s vice versa. Idk. 
 

3 hours ago, RJUSHL said:

I think AA Major and AA Minor would solve the exact problem you mention of small programs not being able to field a AA BY team. Why do you think it's too open ended?

If there is a smaller organization that doesn't want a BY team, they could put together a team of primarily kids in their major year with a few minor year kids sprinkled in. Those teams (depending on placements) would have the opportunity to play AA Major. But the AA Minor division is truly protected with no major year kids. This solves the problem of good minor year teams having to make the decision of 1) Play PAHL AA and get smoked because of size, not skill, 2) Play Major Black, but still against mostly older kids, or 3) Go independent and only play other BY teams. Unfortunately option 3 seems to be becoming more common.

I just think it opens to door to mixed BY teams that aren’t really the quality of team you’re trying to help develop to sneak in as AA minor when they could just as easily be A Major. 
 

Id rather go with the BY model which would be each programs top team in that BY. The more I think about it, maybe if a mixed BY team really wanted to and we’re able to they could qualify for the upper BY division. 

3 hours ago, Jack Handey said:

There would be 40-50 teams here, not unlike DVHL.

Like I said though if necessary there could be further divisions there. I’m not necessarily against A major and A minor etc. 

Also a real question is, what is your PAHL rep telling the league during meetings?  Half of them don’t even call in according to the minutes so if they aren’t pushing for effective change, it won’t happen. 

One thing I might be able to get behind is having BY divisions in addition to A&B. I think having AA major and minor makes it too open ended. That being said, that will almost certainly make it impossible for a small program to field a AA team.  I’m not overly hip on the AA landscape so maybe this is a non-issue. 
 

But a possible compromise that might make sense is:

BY older year

BY younger year

Open A

Open B

If there needs to be more dividing from there then so be it. 

11 hours ago, BACKCHECKING said:

Don’t the AA teams usually play 15 to 20 more games a year compared to A major teams? Do organizations / parents want the BY teams to have a larger schedule?

Last year NP AA played 50 games and NP A major played 35. Steel City AA played 70 and Steel City A major played 29.

Not sure what an organization that only has one team is supposed to to?  Move their entire team up to a level too high for them?

1 minute ago, RJUSHL said:

Don't know for sure but it seems like they don't want to be playing primarily against kids a year older and in an "A" division. I'm just wondering if a AA Minor division would keep them in PAHL.

That’s not AA hockey then. 

11 minutes ago, RJUSHL said:

It'd be interesting to know if there are parents or coaches of some better 2012 or 2010 BY teams that decided to go independent instead of playing PAHL, if things would've been different if PAHL offered a AA Minor division. Would they have stayed in PAHL?

What’s the resistance to playing A major?

42 minutes ago, RJUSHL said:

Lots of eye rolling and "faux" this and "faux" that. It's always interesting how quickly some people are willing to reveal their own insecurities.

In terms of making PAHL AA stronger, the most interesting idea to me is to have AA Minor and AA Major divisions at the 10U and 12U levels. This didn't make a lot of sense until all the larger organizations started putting together BY teams as soon as a kid was a squirt. Thinking of Allegheny, North Pgh, Renegades, SHAHA, Preds, and many other of the larger organizations, don't they put together BY teams immediately? We can argue about whether or not that's a good thing, but the reality is that it's just not going to change. So how can PAHL adapt? I think Minor BY teams would stick around and play PAHL if they had a Minor AA division. A lot of those teams don't want to bump down a division or two and play mostly kids a year older.

What would be the negative impact of having AA Major and AA Minor divisions at the 10U and 12U levels? I know there are some negatives. But keeping teams in PAHL may outweigh those.

I don’t think renaming a turd makes it any less of a turd.  I mean at what point does it stop?  Theoretically we could just rename every level AA and have a AA-AA Major all the way down to a AA-B Minor and it’s still the same problem. 
 

And I truly do appreciate that you want to improve the product. 

49 minutes ago, stickboy said:

A step to end this independent AA and faux AAA BS is to remove all Tier 2 and AAA rankings below No. 50 (and thats’s a stretch) from My Hockey Rankings.  There’s no point in ranking these teams as they are irrelevant on a national scale. 

That might help some. But as long as parents get to thump their chests that their prodigy is x,y,z level higher than their buddies, it’s going to be a problem. 

On 9/10/2021 at 8:03 PM, Jack Handey said:

Hmm... it could be.  A small group of parents or maybe only one parent holding a USAH number and can roster kids willy nilly?  There's some power there that could be abused.  It may not affect any one individual personally, but there should be some oversight to think on behalf of the community if it's a good idea to allow this.

Oversight is a good thing but if we are looking for mid-am or usah to provide it…I think they’ve proven their methodology is rather laissez faire at best…

I had a deja vu moment but this time it was AA instead of AAA. 

12 hours ago, aaaahockey said:

Anyone ever solve what happened to the blog/news?

Haven’t heard. It may be a slow news cycle time for them and I believe they are all volunteer so maybe short handed right now. 
 

I did see an article posted not too long ago about Duquesne fielding a D3 ACHA team so I don’t think it’s shuttered totally. It would be a shame if it was. 

it’s a matter of semantics I think.  It’s easier to market you’re a AA team than not.  It’s the nature of the beast the way things are set up.

General statement: There should be only one AA division imho. If you’re all a first year team at that age division and you can’t compete physically or skill then you aren’t a AA at that division, yet. There’s no shame in being A Major etc with the expectation of being AA the following year.

4 hours ago, Jack Handey said:

A year later, Huskies are down to 1 team? 

At what point do we do a charter review to see if an organization is holding up it's end of the bargain?

Is it really that big of a deal?  Doesn’t affect me either way. Just wondering what the impact is of them having a team or not having one. 

On 8/9/2019 at 12:56 AM, Ynot02 said:

From the PAHL website:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vREo1g3uRaOJrhUxI4vysLS1yAPiT15492TLRBb_cVk0GOVj_4sVQ2K-V1Busm1ti8JzxmOVltlcYuV/pubhtml#

.

Back to the tourney at hand, Bethel rebounded with a 7-1 win…so, let’s dissect here…

5 hours ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Went to the Pittsburgh Hockey Digest to check out the St Margaret Tournament that kicks off the High School Hockey season.  Nothing!!! Anybody know what is going on?  Seems like there were some very interesting scores for sure. Mt Lebo beat Central Catholic 6-0 and Franklin Regional took out Canon Mac  9-1.  Does anyone else find them surprising?

Usually Pittsburgh hockey digest at least does an article or two?

3 hours ago, Jack Handey said:

and Bethel Park falling 8-3.  What is going on?

 

Didn’t they get a new coach?  

On 9/2/2021 at 2:09 PM, Danner27 said:

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve seen big / tall kids have a nice clean hit but get called for roughing, boarding etc (Pahl, varsity & tier 1). All the while smaller kids get away with flying elbows. I don’t think this is any sort of league or level of play issue, it’s the refs & usa hockey. 
 

my niece is playing Pahl, her father just explained the fpp system to me, that wasn’t around when my kids were in Pahl. I understand what they are trying to do with it but execution is awful. I was also informed that if a player gets four minor penalties in a game they get suspended a game. This rule is even worse than the fpp point IMO. What does this serve ? We are talking about minor penalties - tripping, hooking etc there already is an advantage given for these non violent and non contact penalties called the POWER PLAY.  

Simple solution:

change the fpp criteria. Any 5 min major, two 10 min misconducts or any game or match penalty by any player, coach or created by a spectator loses the point. 
 

To me that is reasonable. 

I concur with the argument about general talent dilution but also the fact that everybody who wants to pay gets to play travel and there’s 8-12 different divisions tailored to each team dilutes things as well.  I personally don’t really care about the quality of youth hockey in the area that much. I really have no reason to. But to that affect, when there was simply a AA, A and B divisions, and each organization fielded 1 team in each, it was a different feel. 

Idk if it’s fair to say there is only one true program. Maybe in certain aspects. That being said, there are some that clearly aren’t on the same caliber as the top 1-2 programs in the area. But If people are content paying and playing there, good on them. 

2 hours ago, Big_Clapper21 said:

Might not have any contact at the rate we are going lol 

national Elite always has a good checking camp. Focus more on angles. A lighter punching bag that he can hit with his equipment on dry land is a nice investment too

Honestly who knows at this point both in the near term with Covid and long term with the growth of no-check hockey divisions up north, filtering down.