GrumpyOldPucker

I always wanted the rinks to have a Polaroid camera on hand to create a "wall of shame" with a picture of every person ejected over the course of a season.

I had a crazy mom screaming at us officials as well as players from both teams - and it was obvious who her kid was. At a face off I had just about had enough of her and was tuning to take care of the "situation" when one of the centers says."Hold on ref I got this".... He backed up a few feet and yells, "MOM! Either shut up and watch the game or go sit in the car before you get tossed out again!" The rink went silent, then a few laughs, then people applauded. We had no further issues the rest of the game. And then there were the times where it was "OK, everybody between this beam and that one.... you either make the loudmouth leave or everyone can go watch from the lobby..... They usually chased the loudmouth out. Unfortunately, there were times that entire sections needed to be tossed.

I've seen this rules flip-flop a couple times now..... There was just as much gnashing of teeth on both sides every time...... Yup coaches are free to to coach as they see fit. Remember that the rule change is not about making the elite players better, it's about trying to develop more of the younger\maybe marginal players to be better and maybe eventually have a couple more develop to higher\elite levels. The problem is that coaches are like many of the current crop of school teachers that teach to pass standardized tests..... The coaches want (need?) to WIN and will coach the simplest style that their entire team can grasp in order to WIN. You don't need delayed offside to play basic dump & chase\crash the net hockey and it's a lot easier for the less skilled players too. Players need skills to pass and regroup and you need to have coaches willing to teach the skills and situational awareness maybe at the cost of WINNING. Some coaches are teaching the skills no matter what the offsides rule is. And just how many parents will buy into paying a couple grand and driving all over hells' half acre and NOT WIN? As for Highschool hockey.... USAH doesn't give a flying flip about it other than it's hockey and they want control over it..... IIRC, the PIHL DID NOT have a seat at the table in Mid-Am for a long time. Anyone remember rumblings about HS switching to NFHS, AAU or PIAA? Me thinks a big part of the reason they are allowed to play to different rules are simply that they want to and would take their puck (and registration dollars) and go play somewhere else.

Aaaand this is exactly what the Red Army team did to the NHL'ers on NHL ice until the the goons took over. You work really hard to get control of the puck... I don't want to give it up just to have to go fight for it again..... But it takes skills and awareness - two things that are not associated with 90% of the players that have been coached to fire the puck back in deep.

Hey Jack, Go find some footage of the old Russian red army team. They were better skaters and more skilled than most of the NHL players and more than held their own vs NHL teams until the Flyers literally gooned them into submission with ~AHEM -COUGH COUGH PUKE~ "tough physical Canandian Hockey" and the game has been worse off ever since. They would turn back and regroup anywhere on the ice - including taking it back out of the offensive zone if they saw fit. They maintained possession and puck control while they looked to set up specific plays. It was not the familiar "get the biscuit to the blue paint and crash the net with your stick down" game that is all too often played today. I grew up playing immediate offsides in the 70's.... I coached and officiated during both tag up and immediate offsides rules periods as well as through the multiple transitions between them. It's not that big of a deal and the players will figure it out.... The problem is more likely that few of the active coaches have any notion of how to coach\teach puck possession from an individual player or a team perspective - let alone have experience playing any way but tag-up dump and chase. As for the less skilled\younger players, by definition they have always had issues with that pesky blueline.

Don't know about masks and such as I had stopped in there in May (when they were still required) and was told that a waiver was needed to remain in the facility..... I did not "remain in the facility". Take it for what it is, just reporting a little first hand experience.... Not saying it's good or bad, but then again I no longer have any real reason to go into very many of the rinks in western PA anymore.

Heard that EVERYONE that enters the rink has to sign a waiver..... players, coaches, fans, everyone....

So they are finally making the changes in how to call checking that they should have made back in 2005..... I applaud the body checking changes.

Too many people that I know are passing way too soon lately.....

Are the rinks still using that electronic score sheet system? IIRC I think that it might be linked to MHR somehow.

Thanks for the intelligent and peaceful discussion.... I really think that it's got the potential to be a lose\lose situation no matter what. Face it, the money brought in by King football and Prince Basketball goes a long way towards funding a whole lot of the rest of the university budget. Take that away and a whole lot of educational programs go away (or the price goes up even further)....... If you wanted to eliminate the scholarships entirely and start paying athletes then how do you keep them (the players) "affordable"? How about keeping them from jumping ship to another school every season? Collective bargaining? Remember it's not just football\basketball\hockey, it's EVERY SPORT...... Huge can 'o worms that would get kicked over.... Here's my solution - only half (or so) tongue in cheek: 1- Players can sign whatever endorsement deals they want, but the NCAA still has contractual control over what is allowed to be displayed during any team function. 2 - Keep the scholarships, but limit them to only the first school that the player accepts it from. If a player jumps schools they are not eligible for another athletic scholarship unless they reimburse the first school in full. 3 - Get more money for the players and schools from the gambling entities.

Yeah, except where would the basketball team practice every day? Remember that both are winter sports and it costs a whole lot less to just turn on the lights than it does to keep a 17,00 square foot ice cube frozen.

Smartest way to do it.....

Wait, What? Huge Supply? You must be including all those faux AAA teams in your accounting..... LOL (I did say that I was bored and that I got a new canoe paddle to stir shit up with!)

Also trying to think about this one from the bigger picture of all athletics and not just hockey...... I am not saying I am for or against this, just want to expand the conversation in this place beyond the usual faux AAA threads.

OK, I'm bored and just go a new canoe paddle to stir the pot with..... this one might really upset the apple cart since a lot of the "amateur hockey industry" is based of getting little johnny or jenny a D1 scholarship. D3 does not have athletic scholarships.... Why should D1? And with the push to pay the athletes these days, an athletic scholarship is basically compensation for their play, so why is the value of an athletic scholarship not taxable income?

Sounds familiar. I also seem to remember recommendations to increase neck strength to help reduce the whiplash effect.

I believe that there were studies done.... I don't know\remember details anymore. It may have been a result\recommendation of the various concussion studies that recommended that we try to limit the potential of brain injury due to collision\contact based on and age-development curve.

Yes, Absolutely agree..... Likely a byproduct of an ADM skills in small areas mentality and most folks (mis)understanding of the full development model.) Like I said, "We need to teach the teachers mo-better than we have been."

Quad, I see that we basically agree..... I do get wound up over the folks here constantly putting down a major part of the backbone of youth hockey - "Dad\Parent Coaches". Pre ADM a lot of them simply stepped up when their kid was a mite or mini-mite simply because they needed a coach to have a team and learned as much as they could on the job. Some got good and other not so much. Over the last 40 odd years I've been a dad coach as well as a paid non-dad coach (long before I was a dad) and I've seen the full range of coaches from parent coaches to paid former NHLers. Some are great tacticians and game managers that could not teach the skills or the game to save their lives. Some of these were smart enough to fill out the coaching staff with coaches that could teach... others had egos that were too big and the kids suffered because of it. Some were very competent in both teaching and game management. These coaches were usually smart enough to choose assistants that filled roles and complemented each other. I've seen parent coaches that could not stand on skates but knew the game. They could communicate with the kids, teach the game, and sometimes manage the bench too. Others could teach the skills but had the hockey sense of a rock....... The community likes to put a saddle on the officials and ride them hard, but having lived my life on both sides of the boards I have to say that the USAH Officials education program is far and away better than the coaching program..... USAH coaching program is set up to force funnel coaches to level 4 on a time frame and in my opinion doesn't teach them a damn thing along the way. Oh the seminars have interesting speakers, but I don't recall seeing anything like some of the in depth discussion we had during upper level ref seminars. From the first seminar they should have discussions on how to teach each age group. There should be discussions of various drills that will teach skills and game situations. Discussions on how to set up practice plans to maximize ice use and avoid standing around. Discussions on setting up practice plans to best utilize full and half ice. By the time a coach gets to level 4 they should have a binder full of drills & notes, hours of discussion on how to utilize them and how to relate the skills to game situations. IMHO this is where we are sorely lacking.....

Quad A - Dad coaches got nothing to do with this.... Either the coach knows how to teach or they don't.......... I've met way too many non-dad coaches that were great players at high levels but had no clue how to pass it on because they "just did it"... they didn't have to think about it and all to often they just don't understand why a player has trouble with "basic stuff" that they take for granted. Why is it that the superstars hardly ever make great coaches, but the grinders do....

That's nothing new..... I still remember getting called for an elbow back in 1982 when a player literally ran his face into my left elbow (I'm right handed) after I gained possession of the puck in the center circle in an opening faceoff. I was 6 foot tall, he was about 5'5"..... But in all seriousness, if the puck carrier delivers what the NHL commentators laud as a great "reverse hit" that should be penalized and is what the rule I referenced above was aimed at. Nothing wrong with bracing for contact and making them bounce off, but at some point it crosses the line when the puck carrier aggressively initiates contact. Again hard to describe but I know it when I see it. Yes, too many officials call the result of the play rather than the actual actions of the players.

There (was?) wording in the rules that specifically called for a penalty when the puck carrier initiated contact....... I really don't care enough to try to find out if its still there......

OY.... Well sounds like they tried to define and codify allowing the physical battle for position..... not really a bad thing. But.... at what point does competitive contact become interference? I know it when I see it but I'm not a kid with a couple dozen games and an ego that needs to come in through the back garage door. I wish all of you that still have a kid playing both luck and patience... I can see it now.... some stripes call it no autopsy no foul and others throw a deuce at the big kid when the little one loses due to the law of tonnage (in a collision the body with the most tonnage will usually win).... makes my hair ache..... I really hope they have some good example videos.

Well now.... I started this one and went to Florida for a while.... Nice to see we discussed it without pissing in each others skates til now.... Not gonna get into the fauci covid deal cuz I need a new roll of tin foil. Couple things to add to the real discussion: 1- Don't paint all parent coaches with the same brush. Many played into college and coached for a while before having a kid. I will say that there is a motivation for many of us parent coaches, that HAVE played, to try to shield our kids from those coaches that are absolute fusterclucks and have no idea how to teach skating, skills, or how to actually play the game. Something that I've noticed is that many of the better players ARE CONSISTENTLY the ones that had a parent that played and usually coached them for the first 12 or so years of their life.... or if not formally coaching, spent a significant amount of time passing on the tricks of the trade to their kids (and had kids that would pay attention to what dad was teaching). 2- As you go from PAHL B level up through AA you transition from kids that just want to play hockey to kids that have the discipline and want to learn how to be a hockey player. The former does not posses the drive and work ethic needed for the AA and AAA levels and are normally quite happy on A minor teams. The problem is that we do not have enough kids that will put the effort in to reach their potential. Some of them have enough raw skills to make A Major teams where you have a mix of kids with varied potential and work ethic, or worse they have enough raw talent to get picked for a AA team where they proceed to either put out a half-assed effort in practice which hampers the development of the kids that do have the spin to win attitude and mess up the flow of drills simply by not skating 100% or worse intentionally mess up because - well practice sucks and they just wanna play games. They have no intention or clue about being a team player. My kid started as Mite B and ultimately plateaued as one of those bubble players with tier 1 legs and hockey sense but tier 2 hand and went on to D3 college. No matter the team level I heard complaints every year about (lazy) players that didn't put the effort into practices and those players consistently showed as lack of discipline, effort, (or skill) during the games. I now return you to your biomedical debate.