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12 hours ago, fafa fohi said:

For Mid-Ams there are 11 teams in this group.  Will the top six or top eight advance to the Mid-Am tournament?

If six, only Esmark and PPE will be there.  Vengeance and the rest are on the outside looking in.

It’s always just ppe & esmark. Six is correct. I haven’t looked, I assume the predators season was over as usual in October? I suppose I will take a look. 

Watching that version slowed down - there never was contact with AJ’s teamate as his family states. Petgrave actually avoids the contact with no problem. There  is intent imo, add the players history - I’m now convinced. 

7 hours ago, nemesis8679 said:

I don't think it was on purpose. A player being a goon and having been suspended or getting a bunch of penalty minutes doesn't equate to assuming he would try to cut someone with a skate. Along with boarding, kicking is one of those things you just don't do. And I don't think he did. What I think happened (keep in mind we're not dealing with a player who is the greatest skater nor the quickest thinker out on the ice) is that he is moving with some speed, gets tripped up, and his legs fly up in the air. He sees Johnson coming towards him and instinctually and clumsily tries brace himself for collision, even maybe to kick his skate out of the way. Because of the how fast this all happened and due to him and Johnson both moving at different speeds, he had about a half-second to decide what was going on. Unfortunately, skate met Johnson's neck. 

I feel awful for Johnson, his family, and teammates and friends. I also feel terrible for Petgrave. I'm sure the last thing he needs on top of the tragedy is being accused of killing the man. 

That said, I have no problem with people asking the question. But a big problem with people just accusing the guy without seeing a transcript of the statement he gave to investigators and  not knowing anything other than seeing a video from one angle that doesn't tell the whole story. 

He played in the ohl - I’m going to guess he’s a very good skater. 

Funny to see years & years later things haven’t changed at Belmont.  

1 hour ago, Pa Hockey said:

Another echo of my point about Pitt and IUP Nationally. Pitt got swept by Davenport and IUP split with Delaware. Both are in the 12 -25 Wannabee Category and frankly are where they are in the rankings. Pitt will likely drop from their 12th position. IUP doesn't deserve to be in top 20.  

Davenport and Delaware imo are not even in that 12-25 crowd. They are 30 and below - Look like everyone else tier. Delaware appears to have pretty weak goaltending. The coaches top 25 rankings that came out last week I posted didn’t have one chma team in it. 

I just watched part of the iup stream that’s still up. How many coaches do they have now? looked like 5 or 6 guys on the bench at one point. I just read who the team manger is (last year anyway) - is this guy still the president of the armstrong’s pihl & Pahl programs? He fits perfect with the party school ranking. The 30 minutes I watched was pretty bad hockey on both sides.

19 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Back in the late 90s/early 2000s, there was an ACHA M2 conference called the University Hockey League.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Hockey_League

 

IUP's first team and Pitt were mainstays in the UHL, the rest of the membership fluctuated. Both Pitt and IUP were in the WPCHA, which preceded CHE. I believe that just about all of the teams in the area were in the WPCHA/CHE at some point in their history. Around 2006 Pitt and IUP moved up to M1 and the UHL folded. By then, just about everyone in Pittsburgh was either M1 or M3, so it kind of made sense. RMU, W&J, and SRU had jumped to M1 from M3 a few years before that, and WVU, Duquesne, and Mercyhurst had been M1 for years.

I haven't followed the ACHA for a while. However, back in the 2000s/2010s, the difference between M1 and M3 was more the level of commitment by the teams to things like game times, amount of practice, length of the season, etc. Maybe you could it professionalism and just generally how the program was run. The M1 teams were/are generally more stable, and had a lot of non-students running the show, while the M3 teams were often at least partially student run. The talent was definitely better on average in PGH M1 teams vs M3. However, there were plenty of good players on M3 teams and Cal circa 2006-09 in particular sticks out in my mind as a team that was better than most of the CHMA.

Thank you.
Fun fact - W&J chancellor was said to be a huge supporter of hockey. He wanted to build W&J into one of the powerhouse type acha programs that were starting to come up. The school didn’t go for it. He left, ended up Adrian and build the acha program.  Hope I got that correct, don’t remeber if I read that somewhere or someone told me about it. I think it was verified on this board at some point over the years. 

2 hours ago, dazedandconfused said:

So......... we are to believe that teams from the USHL, which markets itself to the younger players based simply on requiring X number of 1st year players on rosters with a minimum number of GP for those players and......... limits the number of 20 year olds, these teams wanted to bring in a player who was already playing at a low level ACHA school?

And I'm not saying it's low level I'm just using yours and Danner's knowledge.

Yes odd. I think his son lead or was top 5 in acha scoring at some point but he would have been aged out. 

28 minutes ago, Pa Hockey said:

IUP is always on the fringe socially because it like Slippery Rock is an affordable State school with a multitude of social issues. Our family looked at Pitt, Ohio, RMU and others and my question was were we going to put our family and son into debt for many years. The solution was get an undergraduate degree + MBA from SRU and IUP  , which thanks to a smart kid who applied himself is paying off.  The Hockey was a bonus and those adult league teams are filled with kids from  Pitt, Ohio, RMU and others. 

I do know many parents that are putting themselves into high debt to send their kids to college out of state just to play hockey (they will say it’s not for hockey 🙄)

 Very valid points you make above.
 

Is a marketing, criminology, business, sports management, education, accounting  etc degree any different - get your kid a batter job - from minot, adrain, Mary, ohio u, etc vs local colleges? The answer is 99.9% NO. It’s just going to cost the student & family twice as much money - debt for most folks. PSU, Ohio State, etc - a little different. The name can help, not because the education, it’s because the alum is huge & everywhere. 
 

when I had to hire folks back in the day - where they went to school was something I never payed much attention to. What made me choose the people I did for jobs was how they presented & communicated during the interview. These young folks are fresh out of school, they are still learning on the job, even engineers I’ve hired in the past. 

6 minutes ago, sarampage said:

A few years ago, before Lindenwood went NCAA D1, their ACHA team played Denver and lost 9-1.  Denver played their scrubs and outshot them 58-14.

https://denverpioneers.com/news/2021/10/2/du-pioneers-hockey-defeats-lindenwood-in-exhibition.aspx

This season, Minot State gets a shot at Colorado College and Denver on 12/29 and 12/30.

https://msubeavers.com/news/2023/3/1/mens-hockey-minot-state-hockey-to-clash-with-ncaa-national-champion-denver-pioneers.aspx

 Lindenwood was THE powerhouse acha team for a few years. Fun fact - there were a lot of complaints on a old mid west message board about the program. I bet it’s still around to be googled. Lindenwood was doing some “walk the line” type things the other teams in the leauge got bent about because their schools would not allow or do the same stuff. Lindenwood was getting players decent acedmic money just to play hockey, recruiting like a NCAA program, perks etc. come to think of it, I wonder if this was the start of the acha marketing machine? The timeline is there. 
 

thanks for the links! I’ll look forward to watching the minot game. 

I’m just trying to be honest. I made a lot of hockey mistakes with my kids, mainly my oldest. You live and learn. I’m not happy my Alma is having so many issues. College is some of the best years to be young.   

On 10/11/2023 at 3:39 PM, hockeyisgreat said:

So where does the "All knowing Danner"  Rank Pitt?   Since I'm sure you have seen the 13 teams ahead of them and 11 below them play!  Just curious!

I’ve seen Pitt play duqesne, I watched both Adrian games. Liberty is always on espn plus. I’ve watched the streams for Ohio, Arizona State, Mary, Lawrence Tech, Minot along with m2 & m3 games. I have seen a ton of club hockey the past 4 years or so due to my boys watching - watching some of their friends, me seeing how kids are doing that played with my boys, families we got to know etc. some of these streams are very well done, almost cable broadcast quality. Personally I’d say Pitt is a 30 team in M1. Lose thier best player and they drop. 1st Adrian game Pitt had 5 power plays but only managed 10 shots the entire game (zero goals). Pitt has that 14 due to their new leauge. I bagged on pitt for the move, I was wrong. Someone in charge saw the rapid decline of the chma coming. @Pa Hockey is correct - after those top 8-10 teams M1 changes drastically. you have a tier that’s good from 10-30. then everyone else looks the same with a few usual suspects filling out the bottom (3 chma teams are always down there). M2 & M3 are pretty much identical. Each has their top few teams and bottom bad teams. There is a good amount of cross over play between the two. That national champ M3 hope team would beat every chma team without a problem. I don’t know the criteria that makes a team m2 vs m3 (or m1 for that matter) for whatever reason western pa school’s & some eastern Ohio are just m1 & m3. If I recall correctly the first club team’s in western pa were M3. Pitt played in the M3 CHE? Someone around here has to be older than me or know the answer around here.
I’ve seen kids that got a little time in the nahl end up on m3 teams due to the school they decided to attend. 

To put the acha in complete perspective - UNLV got beat down 12-1 something of that sort a year or two ago by a small ncaa d1 program, Alaska Fairbanks. I think that was on espn or espn plus when I watched it. If it wasn’t for the unlv goalie it would have been worse. Alaska dressed 5 lines for the game. Their bottom players & normal scratches got a lot of icetime. The main thing I remember was how bad NCAA d1 skaters made the top ACHA skaters look. The difference was very noticeable. Now that I recall this, I am wondering if it was Arizona, I’m going to stick to unlv, Arizona also played a small or new ncaa d1 team at one point. please don’t point to LIU that was an oddity for various reasons. 
 

The ACHA is beer leauge with a great social media presence. Pick a school for the school, not hockey. It’s not ment as a knock, just the truth. If these young men still enjoy playing, keeps them out of trouble, gives them more to enjoy in college, a path to make more friends -  I am all for it. This is why club hockey was created. It wasn’t created to be marketed & attract kids to a school.

so what about NCAA D3? Well, like the acha, after the top 8-10 teams it takes a hard turn, it turns into acha hockey but It’s a marketing machine for kids and parents that want to say they play NCAA hockey. I could mention one name here most everyone would know playing NCAA D3, everyone would chuckle because they probabaly have forgotten the loaded with cash family name. 75% of these schools you wouldn’t spend the cost on for college if it wasn’t for hockey. We know a good amount of kids playing ncaa d3 hockey. none of them would make those elite 8-10 acha teams. Most of them wouldn’t be the top 2 lines at Pitt. 
 

as for rankings - I thought a few years back the ACHA did use MHR. Currently they use their own computer rankings for M1,2 & 3. I feel like I remember some chatter about them leaving MHR, folks were not happy, maybe I am wrong. 

23 hours ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

Ok so you don’t bash any PAHL or PIHl teams here. You absolutely bash every ACHA team around here. 

Telling the truth & bashing are two different things. 
 

Firsrt ACHA M1 ranking released today. No chma teams in the top 25. Pitt is not a 14 (sorry) I watched them play Duquesne & Adrain. 
 

1 hour ago, dazedandconfused said:

The question is, why do you care so much about college hockey? You belittle every league, age group and organization from college to mites. Especially any local hockey.

It's time to let go as all 4 of your ships have sailed.

When you spend all those years with two boys playing you make a lot of friends and connections. Friends who still have kids playing etc so hockey is still a topic of conversation. if my niece wasn’t playing, it probably would be much easier to “let go” local hockey. since I’m at her games, I get to catch some pihl, Pahl & acha. 
 

I don’t recall ever trashing any Pahl or Pihl teams on here. All I’ve ever bagged on was the faux AAA crap along with garbage tied 3 junior hockey.  If saying the chma is the weakest leauge in MD1 is “trashing” hockey so be it I guess. 
 

35 minutes ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

Got it, you think because the school is a party school, the team is no good. The correlation is right in front of my eyes. But in reality there is no correlation between the two. The article you posted has nothing to do with hockey. And nothing to do with IUP’s hockey team. Therefore I questioned why you posted it. 

I’m not saying either iup teams are “bad” teams. Cannius MD1 is a bad team. In fact I’d wager the top half of the local che MD3 teams would beat a lot of the MD2 teams - remove your top 5 MD2 teams in the country, all the sudden there is not much of a difference. Same can be said about MD1 there are some really bad teams playing in that division.
 

we were talking about how the much IUP has been in the news for race riots, kids dying, drugs, partying, bad acedmics etc. both teams happened to lose to not so good teams when the article about iup being the number 1 party school in America came out. Now two weeks later they have a mass shooting during a homecoming party. 

52 minutes ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

What does this have to do with hockey? I’ll answer for you, nothing. 

We were discussing the downfall of my Alma (IUP) - comparing it to other state schools in PA that have hockey in this thread. 
 

or you can just scroll all the way to the top of this page and see  @aaaahockey post. 
 

https://www.wtae.com/amp/article/one-dead-at-least-five-others-injured-in-shooting-at-party-in-indiana-county/45476242

1 hour ago, Wes said:

Which teams, who did they play and the scores??

 

Both IUP teams - team 1 got swept by GMU. Team 2 got beat down by Saint Vincent College. Embarrassment for both of the IUP teams. 

1 hour ago, aaaahockey said:

Out of curiosity I looked at the Duquesne M1 ACHA program. Looked like they had around 5 local players and 3/5 played juniors at a high level at least a year.  Two didn't have anything listed other than high school so I'm unsure where they played.  Is that typical these days?  The board seems to think it's almost all top tier junior kids but I'm curious and don't want to Google the other 10 programs in the region. 

I’m looking now. We actually know a lot of these guys playing local acha. There are a few kids that sat the bench in the nahl, could not get much playing time and went to school. a few bottom ncdc players that didn’t do much and left for school. The majority of the junior experience I am seeing at the local schools is tier 3 stuff. so it’s not so much the kids are super talented, better than the aaa / aa players, they are just older when they get to school.

It appears team 2 at most of the local schools are younger. Duquesne has a few kids that were mediocre pihl players on team 1 that are not all that old. JCU m1 is comprised of mainly Cleveland area AA and AAA players. RMU seems to be all over the place. I see a few kids on the rmu team 2 that I know are better players than some names on team 1. Same with iup, iup has some good names on team 2 that are better than team 1 names - Maybe it was personal choice by the players. Mercyhurst has Pahl aa players mixed in with junior players. Pitt has a few that got an opportunity in some real leauges didn’t make it, Pahl / pihl players and tier 3 juniors. Kent seems to be a mixed bag on both teams. 
 

sorry to be all over the place, I am typing while one of my son’s and I look. 

Yes,  there was partying when I was there many moons ago but this is not something to be proud of. Between race riots, drugs, terrible acedmic rankings, kids dying etc wtf is going on? Number 1 party school in the country - bottom 25% for acedmics. Extremely dissapointing. 

https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/indiana-university-pennsylvania-ranked-no-1-party-school-by-national-publication/VPAH77BYCNBTJLXHXHDIBLFRJM/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2skrbOeJ5zDmuQYDSldHkelQzzuhUuLbDnRmbQKr-i4qt_NQO9Ep3kTUc_aem_AeYaoFzc7hUkCiut5zgah0nqaNvBeVt9jdol0VGfT4Fuk6UeL4vU-RRXFIZu3bAR3wg&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

It appears both hockey teams partied to much this week. Both with embarrassing losses to bad teams this weekend. 

5 hours ago, Pa Hockey said:

Danner - Alot of these kids are getting cut by Pitt and IUP and may end up in D3 ACHA...............Time to launcn Slippery Rock in 24 

Still surpised the rock is not back. I know you love the CHMA but I’ve seen Michigan m3 teams that would roll right through the chma m1. We both agree, club hockey is much harder to make these days - a lot of these kids won’t make a local college club team. 

15-16-18 (I suppose the years that matter, not so sure about 18’s anymore) 

it appears nothing has changed over the last 10-12 years. The predators “AAA” program continues to be a joke. Season is over before it started.  Keep paying King Ralph & Gary. Mid level AA hockey at best. 
 

with all that said the final ending for 99.9% of all these players will be the acha IF they can make a club a team, continue to play as “adults”. 

On 8/6/2023 at 5:27 PM, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Keystone State Games were last weekend and not even a single mention here. Given how much discussion there is of all other minutia of local hockey here, how far has this event fallen?

Pretty sure it’s a very low level event these days. I did hear they moved it to state college this year, one would think that alone would help attract players. I assume since the hockey has really fallen off over the years, nobody cares about it. 

On 8/3/2023 at 6:25 PM, sarampage said:

One went to the Gulls...and he just verbally committed to PSU.

That’s not going to work out in the end. 

Hope this helps - a very wealthy, politically connected family started this project many many years ago. It was suppose to be a redevelopment of a major portion of the area along with the armory (some of it did happen)  Said family owned properties around the area (the block were the Apple Store has been was one of the properties). What is now the redeveloped bakery square was another property that was apart of this master plan. It was suppose to be like the waterfront redevelopment in homestead. The family sold these properties to the city at an inflated premium then bailed on the city & county lol. I know the state along with upmc were involved at one point. The county urged the city to flip the properties to try and recoup some of the loss, eventually it was all split up between different investors. I don’t know who owns what these days. 

The same family that started the above mentioned project was one the investors in the failed redevelopment of those east liberty hud townhouse projects but this failed due to the federal government not coming through with cash as was promised.

—end of facts—start of speculation—

I have no idea how the pens eventually got involved. just guessing - take some heat off the city/county getting fleased in return for a Tax shelter? After all burkle & Mario owed the state for the big favor ex governor rendell pulled off. I asummed burkle’s big donation to the states dnc would have been enough 😂😂😂  I really don’t know. Look how long the property were Mellon arena was stayed a dirt pile. 
 

thats the history I know on the project, good luck going down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how it eventually became what it is now. It would be great if someone does really know. It’s somewhat obvious due to the original facts why this ice rink was half ass planned.