BobRued

I finished my hockey career at Cal U about a decade ago but spent my entire youth in Butler Valley organization. As one person already mentioned, Brandon Saad played here (he was playing up as a squirt on our peewee team and was still the top scorer by a lot, his brother George was the only one who came close to his talent). We also had an incredible team in 2006 that was a goal away from winning Nattys. The organization was always a disaster, hence Brandon leaving before bantams and that '06 team being completely independent from the rest of the organization. I stayed because we had a group of 15 kids who just loved playing together and parents who were capable coaches. Although I never left BV (I wasn't nearly as good as the players around me), a lot of my friends and even my brother did go on to play for other programs. At that time, my best friend went to the dying Viper Stars program in Lower Burrell. They were an atrocious 1-69-0 during his first season and barely improved during his second. He eventually left for Armstrong and nearly clawed his way back to nationals in his senior year iirc. Of course, that Armstrong program was also on the decline back then and was dealing with a lot of internal drama. This culminated in a pair of coaches and a manager leaving the Belmont to restart the Pittsburgh Huskies program in Lower Burrell. That team instantly attracted a lot of quality players from NP, BV, Armstrong, Vipers, and Jr. Pens (a lot of guys who played together when they were younger) and was also instantly competitive in the 16U and 14U divisions which was all that comprised the organization then. So to parse through the point(s) of this rant, I'm not a fan of Butler Valley's board at all and it comes as no surprise that they went this route, completely burying the BV history in the process. At the same time, Esmark Stars was the top ranked Mid-Am program last year....the same team that was 1-69-0 when they made the jump back into AAA ~15 years ago, so there is always hope for all of these programs. Finally, there is a lot of talk about homegrown players here but the truth is that just doesn't happen in American hockey. Any good player is getting better from constantly practicing both within and outside of their team, if a kid is limited to just what his coaching staff and parents tell him then they're limiting their potential as well. The one anomaly in this world is the Armstrong Arrows. I didn't grow up around K-town, but my mother relocated to Freeport a few years ago so my baby brother played in Armstrong for a while. There's nothing special about the organization, the coaches, or even the water but somehow they always manage to pump out these great teams. For as terrible as Kittanning is as a town, the hockey they produce is undeniably good.