deanyoungblood

It’s funny to me to see everyone trash the former org for whatever reason - some deservedly so - but yet many of these amateur hockey organizations continually renewed contracts with them. If PIHO was such a terrible org run by such terrible people, what does that say about the folks who continued to entrust them and pay them on behalf of their members?  Just funny to me. 

6 minutes ago, happygilmore97 said:

The PIHO Monopoly and biggest buddy-buddy officiating system across youth sports finally FALLS! 

After former PIHO Officiating Director and 'highly decorated' AHL Linesmen assaulted a young official earlier this season by throwing sticks and gloves at him mid-game, his former officiating monopoly has finally collapsed. After all, maybe it just takes officials to speak up for themselves after being shafted by PIHO's unreasonable and outrageous officiating fees that also ripped off hockey organizations across the area. A few things I find hilarious about todays announcement is first, PIHO mentioned their "board of directors voted unanimously to cease operations effective immediately." After speaking with multiple members of the PIHO board (schedulers and admin personnel) they all noted that they were blindsided by tonights announcement ceasing PIHO's operation and noted that they never were involved in any vote. One admin member stated that this was a "fu**ing irresponsible decision made today." This just yet again seems to show PIHO's lack of communication and writing up something to the public to "look good" while blindsiding the people who worked for them. 

 

Needless to say, I am ecstatic that PIHO is no more. There are multiple other amazing scheduling personnel throughout the Pittsburgh area. First, local schedulers who schedule single rinks are great, as they build a person to person relationship with officials (normally because there aren't 500+ officials begging to skate at one rink) and are very simple to communicate with. Also, Alpha Ice Complex currently has an officiating scheduling company that runs circles around PIHO. Not only do they have an officiating scheduling service, but they also have multiple contacts to organizations that run tournaments year around (SuperSeries, HockeyTime, MyHockey, USHL, and PIHL just to name a few). Their staff is very personal, easy to work with, and the best part is, you don't have to wait 4-6 months to get your check. They pay officials monthly while not ripping off organizations with middleman scheduling fees and are very transparent with what they are charging said organizations without the hassle of contracts. Last, not only do they offer officiating scheduling, but also EMT and scorekeeper scheduling for events. Basically a 3-in-1 bonus! 

 

Today's news is very exciting for the officiating community, as those who knew what was going on with PIHO knows that this means new doors have been opened and new opportunities await. As registration for the upcoming hockey season opens, new officials are ALWAYS encouraged to sign up! Kids, teens and adults! If you are an official and want to join the Alpha Officiating System, be sure to join! 

Well I think we know who this is…

22 minutes ago, TheRightCall said:

PIHO threw anyone on a game just to get a slot filled. Ask the Allegheny Badgers.

 

At least other schedulers look to see who is available and/or qualified for a game, they just dont throw a body on a game and then bill an extra bunch of $$$ for scheduling or phantom evaluations and observations. One official told me that he was evaluated via livebarn and the constructive feedback was that his helmet was not shiny enough.

I don’t think the Allegheny Badgers necessarily attracted the best officials. From what I’ve heard they used to have a bad reputation (parents/coaches) which caused most of the better officials to block them from their schedule. Plus it never seemed like the PAHL organizations were the priority. 
 

also I’m not sure why these orgs sought out PIHO and got fleeced to begin with. Who made those decisions on their respective boards?

Regardless of who schedules you’re still going to have basically the same pool of officials and I don’t see the rates going down. I’m sure they aren’t going to work games for less $. Not in today’s climate with a shortage and inflation at its highest in decades. 

It amazes me how people come on these message boards and trash people by name while offering no solutions nor raising their hand to offer their “expertise” (because they could obviously do it better) all while hiding behind an anonymous account name.  Carry on. 

10 hours ago, GrumpyOldPucker said:

Happy Hockey Fan, Unless you are a member of USAH district or national staff, or in a position of administration in a league, you have no right to expect to see such a list of evals any more than you have a right to see the nightly evaluations of NHL officials. AND NO, you do not pay the officials' game fees.... you pay money for your kid to play at xyz org and xyz org in turn pays money to play in abc league... It Is abc league that is responsible for providing officials for their league games and in turn pay for the officials so if anyone gets to see such a list it should be the folks responsible for running the league - not some pissed off self important parent.

Just like eval lists, discipline of officials is not normally something made public. I know of two officials that received 1 year USAH suspensions and many other occasions where officials were removed from the schedule for a month or more. The leagues were notified of the actions but it wasn't posted on the interwebs to satisfy the need for a pound of flesh....

Does the HR department where you work send out a memo to all employees detailing infractions and disciplinary actions taken against employees?

? this post wins

51 minutes ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

 

I know that parents can be obnoxious and deserve to be punished for poor behavior. And there is plenty of evidence that bad parents are disciplined.

 

Lol exhibit A

9 hours ago, Happy Hockey Fan said:

I am pretty amazed that there is so much money to be made as a referee scheduling agent that a company can be formed to make enough money to support the corporate structure at PIHO. 
 

I understand scheduling for any events that are not regularly scheduled isn’t an easy task. Even with the technology available for schedulers it isn’t always as easy as putting out a sign up sheet and all your slots get filled. There will be plenty of times that some recruiting with more emails and phone calls are going to happen in order to fill your slots. So while the scheduling isn’t effort free, I don’t think the extra effort should require so much compensation as to have a business with multiple executives. 
 

I would however support the compensation IF a company was also dedicated to to the improvement of officiating. Somewhere on here someone mentioned that PIHO actually evaluated their referees( which sounds like a job for USA hockey to me but is a whole different subject) but were done via LiveBarn. A good idea to evaluate, bad idea to do it by poor video.  It sounds like they maybe sold organizations that they would help improve officiating by doing these evaluations, without revealing they wouldn’t be done live but by watching poor video on a computer, and charging more than they are worth. Obviously a LiveBarn evaluation is not going to be good because of the poor video and unbalanced viewpoints. But like I said, if they were doing actual evaluations and improving referee performance, the extra money would be worth it. 
 

 

I believe it’s part of their contract with the PIHL to conduct x number of evaluations per week. Not all are done remote, some are done in person depending on schedules because the veteran refs who probably have the ability to evaluate most likely also skate themselves, so the remote eval is a solution to that because you can watch at any time. 
 

I know there are in-person evaluators because I’ve seen them and said hello to some of them, so again, folks on here just spewing stuff that they know nothing about. 

7 hours ago, Offsides said:

Organizations that use PIHO are definitely charged more than other schedulers are doing, and they are getting the same officials because there is no hidden group of officials skating exclusively for anyone. Bottom line is there is more than option for people, and that is a good thing. People who buy into an empty  sales pitch ultimately see that once an agreement is made, this is factual.

Why do organizations continue to re-up with PIHO?  I think PIHL, CHMA, CHE, PPE, Esmark, have all renewed contracts several times over. Seems like PAHL teams continue to move away from independent schedulers. Allegheny, Vipers, Westmoreland, Mon Valley, North Pgh, etc. 

If you aren’t getting your money’s worth then what are you doing?

I can tell you some of the organizations in the area that still use independent schedulers are a disaster from what I hear and see. 
 

I just don’t think there are many people who want to get involved which is why there’s value to just hiring an outside org. Just my $.02. 

14 minutes ago, happygilmore97 said:

Everywhere that uses independent schedulers to my knowledge is thriving. A big reason for that is because guys do not have to wait 4-6 months for their game checks, like PIHO officials do. Also independent schedulers charge $0-$7 per game to schedule. PIHO is charging organizations around $20+, per game, to schedule. Plus, if that game gets cancelled or rescheduled, they charge another fee. Also, the PIHO motto is a joke. They’re all about providing ‘evaluation’s and advancement.’ However what they don’t tell you is the evaluator is at home sitting on his couch getting paid $75 an hour to watch a LiveBarn video and then after that game he sends the officials an email with an evaluation. The only place their evaluations have gotten local officials is a midnight beer league slot at Lemieux. 

70% of your post is not factual.

All the pearl clutching and faux outrage on here makes me laugh. I’d be willing to bet most of you are out there every weekend in the stands yelling at amateur refs and acting like clowns. Hockey around here is in trouble. Big trouble. What the individual in question did was abhorrent. Unfortunately it’s become all too common. Especially around these parts. So it’s not even surprising anymore.  Look at this thread, we have people still making excuses and defending the indefensible conduct from that Huskies game a couple years ago when we had coaches contacting refs on their personal cell phones sending clips and telling them how bad they are.  I wouldn’t want to become a ref either. nor would I want to be a scheduler. Too much hockey not enough refs. Simple math equation. Sounds like you all have it figured out though. PIHO took over for independent schedulers because it wasn’t working out, so I’m not sure going back to that is the answer. Anyway, have a blessed new year!
 

Many of the people responding to this topic who are outraged with the abusive conduct are the same people who have been abusing officials, probably even the exact ones on this game, for years. Ironic. Hopefully this incident forces us all to take a look at ourselves and our conduct at youth sports events.  Nothing more embarrassing for our kids on the ice than one of their parents making an ass of themselves in the stands. I sometimes wonder if the LiveBarn feed was pointed at the crowd how many people would be able to show the footage of themselves to their bosses at work on Monday. 

7 hours ago, Wes said:

Question about the incident - perhaps I missed this in an earlier post.

Is there any accountability for the refs in all of this?  If the goalie can hear the chants, the refs certainly can.  I haven't seen a single quote from the referees from the game, on this subject.  

Will the PIHL have anything to say to the refs (or the refs face any sanctions) about why they didn't stop the game and handle this immediately?

The whole incident could have been vastly different had this been dealt with mid-game, rather than letting the whole thing transpire and blow up on social media and in the forum.

 

You seem to have it out for the refs in this game. Did they call a penalty on your kid once or something?

Look at all the clowns on here blaming the officials. It’s no wonder we have a shortage. So the officials have to worry about the players, coaches & 100’s of fans/students too?  Even when there’s paid security there?  Nah.  Imagine WPIAL football refs addressing the student section on Friday night lol. This is on the Armstrong parents & Belmont security. Period. 

On 2/13/2021 at 10:02 AM, Wes said:

The game was out of hand way before the brawl with 2:30 left.

Halfway through the second period it was 42-2 in PIM and you could feel the anger building from the Huskies Parents (due to the lack of calls on preds and excessive calls on Huskies), the tension building in the players and the coaches.  I've been to a thousand youth hockey games and I've never witnessed a game where the PIM were like this 20 minutes into a game, where 99% of the calls were against 1 team.  All those calls were made by the ONE ref.

It wasn't until one of the Huskies coaches (not the HC) chirped the younger ref about all the penalties going one way, that the OLDER ref chimed in and called a few on the Preds the last few minutes of the second.  That coach got a 2 min. unsportsman like penalty but it obviously woke up the older ref and he called a few so the scoresheet wouldn't look so bad.

The fact of the matter there was something going on there with the younger ref and the Huskies.  

Right before the brawl the penalties were around 60-10.

When a ref singlehandedly calls 55+ of the 60 PIM and only ~4 PIM on the other team, it's going to cause hostility no matter what.  No way to avoid that.  Everyone on the one team is going to be boiling.

And at that point the players already know they've lost their FPP plus lost another FPP point, so who cares anymore about taking penalties.

 

Blaming the undisciplined actions of the players, coaches & parents on the referees. Lol. ?

On 2/13/2021 at 10:02 AM, Wes said:

The game was out of hand way before the brawl with 2:30 left.

Halfway through the second period it was 42-2 in PIM and you could feel the anger building from the Huskies Parents (due to the lack of calls on preds and excessive calls on Huskies), the tension building in the players and the coaches.  I've been to a thousand youth hockey games and I've never witnessed a game where the PIM were like this 20 minutes into a game, where 99% of the calls were against 1 team.  All those calls were made by the ONE ref.

It wasn't until one of the Huskies coaches (not the HC) chirped the younger ref about all the penalties going one way, that the OLDER ref chimed in and called a few on the Preds the last few minutes of the second.  That coach got a 2 min. unsportsman like penalty but it obviously woke up the older ref and he called a few so the scoresheet wouldn't look so bad.

The fact of the matter there was something going on there with the younger ref and the Huskies.  

Right before the brawl the penalties were around 60-10.

When a ref singlehandedly calls 55+ of the 60 PIM and only ~4 PIM on the other team, it's going to cause hostility no matter what.  No way to avoid that.  Everyone on the one team is going to be boiling.

And at that point the players already know they've lost their FPP plus lost another FPP point, so who cares anymore about taking penalties.

 

This guy comes on here to trash tier 2 amateur hockey referees and he wonders why they aren’t getting the best guys on their games. ?

be happy anyone shows up to skate these gong shows. 

I heard Wes McCauley wasn’t available to skate the game Saturday night so they had to settle for local refs. 

They are probably looking for volunteers to wear the stripes if you’re interested 

45 minutes ago, forbin said:

Fight happens with 2:15 left in the third if anyone wants to get right to it.

Gotta love the group of squirts in the corner waiting to take the ice watching this unfold. Preds player takes a run at Huskies player with a 5-2 lead in the 3rd. Classy stuff right there.

I don't have a dog in this fight (pun intended) but after watching this, then watching the 2nd period to solidify my thoughts, the officiating during this game was unbelievably terrible. Not to defend the parent/coach/player that you can clearly hear berating the ref for allowing this to go on, but holy hell the ref had ZERO control over this game. He was just out there getting his laps in.

 

I heard we are operating at 60% of last year from a numbers standpoint for officials. Fortunate to even have 2 guys show up so the game can happen. Although considering this thread and the behavior of the players parents and coaches involved in this game I wouldn't blame any zebras for not showing up.