Danner27

Those days are long gone in the pros - all the way down to major junior.

Not surprised to see someone say this. Someone that doesn’t know or understand the game of hockey.

Fd up

what does it say ? Something about IUP ? Secret message about all the kids that supposedly transferred out of slippery rock, but really didn’t ? Maybe it’s a message from satan - how Franklin Regional can win the pens cup - drink your ovaltine!

Something just doesn’t line up - being suspended for saying to a ref “end the game”. Doesn’t make much sense.

Coach, Board member parent or one of those parents trying to get control of a team. Either way, connected internally. Doesn’t matter much. this is a serious disaster. It only hurts kids in the end. Shameful.

U18 “AAA” Icemen (dead last in the district #12) VS Predators (next to dead last #11) Both teams had nothing to play for, both were eliminated from districts all the way back in October. I was told after the predators lost both games - afterward, off the ice a predator player attacked someone. Police had to be called. Mid Am is involved. What is it - every year with teams from the predators ? Refs getting punched last year, parents fighting at the tier 2 districts, kids quit half way through the season at all levels, on & on. Sure there are problems of sorts everywhere, but this club - it’s constant. Side note - Mt Lebanon U18 “AAA” tied the Arctic Foxes Pahl AA team 2-2.

I believe meadville plays more games than their PIHL schedule - at least it was that way a few years ago when my kids still played.

Silver Sticks is nothing more than any other tournament these days.

18U Foxes are not going to silver sticks due to NA hockey games.

I’ve seen two PITT games this year, They looked decent but they wouldn’t be able to hang with the top dogs. If they win the region and goto nationals I guess we will find out. @Spear and Magic Helmet is pretty spot on with his assessment. rankings for the acha seem strange, some teams don’t have all their games reported from what I’m seeing. 66 total M1 teams ? Pitt being ranked 14th in m1 is probably comparable to esmark being ranked 20th in AAA (impressive but) still can’t get past ppe and if they do, they get blown out at nationals (see last year when they got an at large bid). I wish my kids decided to play in college but they are both at colleges that do not have hockey. Maybe following local acha will give me something to do in my free time ? no politics or general bs to discuss, it’s over when college is over. The acha is the end game.

I’ve heard Cal has a pretty good acha program, unfortunately I’ve never seen them play due to where they are located. Looking at their history it appears they had a pretty long run of high caliber teams. Why were they never moved up to m1 ? it does appear our local m1 teams are mediocre in compassion to other areas but rmu, pitt & iup looked pretty decent from what I’ve seen this year. I caught a Duquesne m1 game out at alpha earlier in the year. They looked like a pihl team, it was pretty bad.

I haven’t seen much varsity this year but what I did see last year definitely was not as good as the past. The pihl to me, looks like it’s been on a steady decline year over year for sometime. That’s probably a different topic. ACHA is a mixed bag. I’ve seen very weak M1 teams. I’ve seen M2 & M3 teams that would beat up on a good amount of our area M1. Sometimes ACHA classification doesn’t make much sense.

Watched my niece this weekend. There was a Pahl 16u AA game prior. It’s like @fafa fohi stated. No break outs, just a convoluted mess around the puck no matter where the play was. it was most apparent when one team would gain control in the offensive zone. There was a few kids on each team I could tell had a decent hockey IQ - the problem the puck rarely came to these players who were playing more of a team / positioning game. Is cycling the puck down low a thing of the past for youth hockey ? It’s still a huge part of the pro game. To be honest, it was poor hockey to watch for that age. The speed wasn’t bad, the play was poor.

I do remember Hanson playing for them, if I recall correctly he didn’t play many games but he was definitely in that group.

I knew about clackson & minella - Schwartz played acha. I didn’t know about the two QV players. So we are roughly at 9 players over the past 20 years. Some of these players go back to the old hornets days when you could play both tier 1 & Varsity. PPE has put a stop to that. Again, the point is - there are very very very very few ncaa d1 capable players playing western pa varsity hockey.

can you have a discussion with out a sales pitch ? So, over the past 20 years, there have been roughly 7 players that spent anytime playing at the varsity level in western pa that have made it to NCAA D1 hockey. The majority of these players only spent a season or two playing for their high schools. furthers my point about that small run montour had.

The NCDC is a odd league. Some consider it tier 2.5 - it’s not recognized by USA hockey since it’s part of the usphl. They don’t produce many NCAA D1 players. There are a decent amount of players that get cut by the nahl, play in the ncdc with hopes to make it back to nahl and it does happen from time to time. Some scouts consider it on par with the EHL (the top tier 3 junior league in the states) but the difference is the NCDC is not pay to play like all tier 3 leagues. This is how usphl tries to claim it’s tier 2 like the NAHL. It’s good hockey - the top players are capable of making the nahl but for whatever reason they don’t but overall it’s not on the NAHL level. The ex montour forward is averaging a point per game in the NCDC - By comparison he couldn’t crack the lineup in the NAHL.

That montour run was the product of two players for the most part (yes - they did have a small supporting cast - this isn’t a slight at the other players - it’s pointing out how good these two players are) One defenseman who played in the NAHL right after HS who is now playing NCAA D1. One forward that started this season in the NAHL who is now playing in the NCDC. last season they didn’t do as well once the defenseman was gone but the forward still carried the team as well as he could to a playoff birth in class AA. the coach that quit really had nothing to do with the success of that little window. Any parent could have been on the bench and got the same results. How many varsity teams have an NCAA D1 capable defenseman ? None. You have to go back a long way, bartkowski ? Who played a season for lebo, or cliff ? Maybe our resident HS hockey historian will give us the data. the stud D with a dynamic “elite” forward - they ripped through class A to win the penguin cup.

We all understand you are buddies with him - look at his track record. Very similar situation at the last school. After the previous poster mentioned the coaches Twitter I went and searched it, sure enough, previous poster wasn’t lying. Previous posting anonymous stranger already has more credibility than the previous coach in my eyes.

Wow, that was a lot of detail - thanks! It lines up a lot with what I know about that coach. Once he loses high end talent he leaves and try’s to blame everyone to save face. just look at his resume’ He’s not a coach that develops players or a program. He’s a win now egomaniac, a coach that looks for a group of young talent, takes over the team then leaves when the run is over.

Pretty much.

TJ vs BP in the final - this tournament backed up what I had to say about the AA class earlier in this thread. Look at some of the scores.

It appears like most schools In class A & AA - waves - have a good run, players graduate, have a few miserable years then hope another good core comes through. It’s the reality of pihl hockey, excluding the big schools.

Yes & No - Sorry to dance around it. Marc spent a lot of time helping develop kids.