nemesis8679

It absolutely is 100x better than when I was a kid.

I've heard it's made up of a good portion of Burrell Varsity?

If you can stay away from the holes.

You're right. The ice is awesome there. 😂

I honestly thought they'd have some success initially, purely for being another option. Tired of the same organization year after year, or been through a couple different ones and haven't found a good fit, no opportunity at your current org, or you want a better organized org? I figured they'd have quite a few people ready for a change. I guess not. I don't know anything about who's running it, coaching there, or whatever. I just thought a new org with money to market it and start from scratch would be an easier operation than it seems to have been. Did they really just have nobody show up, or did they gamble too long not taking the kids that did show up, waiting to see what cast-offs from other places they could get?

I heard the tryouts were pretty light, right from the start.

Listen up, orgs! I have the next big moneymaker— Elite Learn-To-Skate. It's a gold mine waiting to happen.

I'm going to take a guess that at the upper ages, especially 18u, that kids are deciding to play for school only. And why not? I think it's hard for a lot of kids to do both, or have little enough interest in anything else to have the time to do both. Now if these club teams just played PAHL and a few tournaments, that's one thing. You can do 20 games, maybe 4 tournament weekends, 20 school games, and the practices to go with it if you wanted to. But add another 35-45 independent games to that, and now you're playing more than an NHL'er. And going to school, and trying to have a life in there on top of it. Makes it not very easy. They come to the realization that chasing PAHL/Independant isn't worth what they might have to give up. Hockey is supposed to be a fun thing, maybe there are other things they enjoy, too. Whether it's spending time with friends, a part time job, spending a lot of time looking at colleges, wanting a few nights to play video games, or whatever else they could be doing instead of being at the rink 6 nights a week. Friends going out to the movies this weekend? Girlfriend wants to go to the school dance? Too bad, you have to drive to Philadelphia or Columbus to play a handful of games to count towards your My Hockey Rankings. It's stressful, it consumes a big chunk of free time, you might get split up from your friends you like playing with, higher costs, etc. And it becomes increasingly apparent for just about everybody that there is no scholarship to Notre Dame or getting drafted to the OHL coming any time soon. Or alternatively, you can play for school. Still be part of a team, still play good hockey, and actually get a crowd engaged in the game, other than half a dozen dads yelling over the glass at you. And unlike the independant teams, you're actually playing for something. You're at school half of your day, 5 days a week with your peers. It's more likely some of those kids you go to school with care more about talking about and cheering for their school team than the Pittsburgh Icemen, or the Allegheny Badgers did over the weekend. I don't know if I'm right, but my guess is that is contributing to where these players have gone.

Tryout season has been made way more difficult than it needs to be.

Instead of folding a team, what's wrong with just still having it, and placing them in PAHL in the division they belong in?

I think it's fine, but should be a AA Major or AA Minor situation. And not all orgs do it. For instance North Pittsburgh could probably do this every season at the majority of age groups.

I think they rank them pretty good. I think they do a good job with it. Although you often do have that one team that doesn't lose a game, or that one team that doesn't win a game. But I'm not sure that that's avoidable. And I think sometimes a borderline team may be moved up or down to add to, subtract from, or balance a division. I've heard some say the two placement games could be used by an unscrupulous coach to "tank" to get a lower division, and I see how it could be gamed a little. But I'm not sure that it actually happens, and certainly not enough to worry about if it does. Or maybe your goalie has two bad games. Or maybe your best player is sick. But I'm not sure that happens enough to be concerned about. But the best thing to do is play a handful of games in addition to the placement games. They allow you to enter any tournament games the team participated in, and you're also free to schedule a few of your own scrimmages and submit those scores. So I think that's a nice thing that they allow you to use a larger pool of games to judge by. And of course they're also looking at where the kids were before. Some places in other states don't do mixed year, and your first year in an age group you play A Minor and your second year you play A Major. And that's how Minor/Major is determined. I'm sure that has its good points and it's bad points. Many areas also have it where your travel team is dictated by your location- if you live in X, Y, or Z district, you tryout and play for a determined team for that district. Now they do allow one or two moves, if something isn't a good fit or whatever. But there's no team carousel every year. Not sure how these ways of doing things affects rankings, if that would help/hurt the parity. But I'd say as it is right now seems pretty reasonable and fair.

I just received a message this morning stating the North Pittsburgh 07-08 registration is closed.

Definitely not just you. It's frustrating seeing this happen, all the kids spreading out and leaving each team with 3-5 players that belong at the level they're at, and filling the team with whoever is left.

So we could agree that they must not be great at developing their own kids from younger age groups?

Do you think they take all the out of the area kids partly to create the perception that their org is so amazing, people come from miles around to join it?

Reading the last several replies here, some random thoughts: Paid coach, parent coach... if they're a good coach it's irrelevant if they're paid or parent. Hell, I know of paid coaches that never had hockey experience over playing in-line, and parent coaches who at one time played high level college or professional hockey. Do they know what they're doing, are they fair? That's the questions that are important. But telling your neighbors that your son's coach is the left wing's dad doesn't sound as cool as telling them how the coach is some part-time professional coach, right? Regarding Pens, as mentioned above, it's not just a hockey team it's a lifestyle. There's a lot of barriers there at older ages that make other options look better. So I'm sure tons of good players are off the table before getting on the table just on cost and commitment. On the subject of the AAA revolving door. Most parents (and some kids) think they're looking at a future of moving right to high level juniors, NCAA, and I'm certain some think they'll be in the NHL draft as soon as they turn 18. When they play at "x" organization and nothing really happens during the season aside from their team getting a number ranking on MHR, they aren't on the power play, or whatever grievance they have, they think it will be different on another team so they try to go there. With the number of "AAA" teams in the area, you can do this practically every year. And if you run out of teams, you can just start back where you started. This is all applicable of the revolving doors in AA and A also. Also, organizations at every level should put a ban on any coach coaching a team in the org, and offering skills lessons outside of team functions to any players they coach. Not saying they shouldn't be allowed to operate skills lessons, just not to players on their team. Under no circumstance is this a good scenario for anybody but the coach. It shouldn't need to be explained any further the ways in which this is a bad idea. There's plenty of skills coaches around that you shouldn't need to be going to your coach for it. Most importantly- it's a game, it should be fun time for your kid. With the pressures/stress of school, girlfriends/boyfriends, looking at colleges, making time for other hobbies & interests, and plain being a kid growing up in the times we have today... hockey should be a place where kids can forget all that stuff, have fun, and NOT be stressed out over it.

Did it look like they had a fair amount of kids come out?

To be honest, I'm not sure what the Vipers plan to offer, after what I've read on the board and heard at the rinks about them having little to no ice and bouncing around across various rinks, I didn't look into it any further.

Teams are pretty much set before "tryouts".

Nevermind that. Doesn't matter.

The sad thing is I would have my kid try out for Vipers, no problem. It's close, current org really offers no opportunities to move higher.... it could be a great thing to have Vipers as an option. But it sounds like it's going to be a damn mess.

I don't think so, necessarily. It would be cheaper, less time-consuming, and maybe their kid wouldn't look out of place. Compared to a kid on a travel team, neither are realistically going anywhere other than ending up with a lifelong love of hockey and playing to have fun, if that's what they choose to pursue.

Yeah that was my point

Good.