aaaahockey

Depends. Have the best teams already played each other? Are there schools that have played weaker schedules to date and are higher in the standings but still have to have the harder teams? Are there key injuries that, upon their return will be game changers?

To be fair standings aren't an accurate portrait of rankings of teams especially early in the season.

I think there is some perception out there that, like Pens, you get replaced with non-Pittsburgh billeting at the older levels. In this case Russian/Eastern Euro kids. I'm not sure to what extent that is true as I don't have the rosters but I do think most of the teams end up with a number of them.

Is the sale price guaranteed?

Better to have expensive ice than no ice.

Or you get with toxic parents or a toxic coach or toxic players - is there an appeal process?

No to pick too many bones here but the SHAHA 06 Team has split with pens Elite this year and was #42 last year and tou don't think they are AAA? Seriously wondering for clarification on your position.

Maybe we should try some sort of relegation system like soccer has. Knock teams up or down based on how they do.

The 06 and 07 teams are midget and SHAHA is definitely better at 06 and currently ranked better at 07. If we are talking u18 it's meaningless anyway according to this board. You either are in the NHL or need to play beer league at that point. ?

Well I was wrong about Predators and SHAHA

06: Pens Elite: 16th SHAHA: 20th Esmark 41st Predators: 86th First PAHL Team I see is Steel City but this is hard to compare because Tier 1 vs. Tear 2. When you sort by ALL midget minor teams, this steel city team is ranked 159th behind SHAHA 07 and Esmark 07 07: Pens: 4th SHAHA: 49th Esmark: 51st Vengeance: 61st Icemen: 91st Predators: 95th See note above about PAHL. If anyone knows how to sort that better or knows which teams are 06 vs 07 teams in PAHL that could help. 08: Vengeance: 2nd (interesting since they just lost to the Pens) Pens: 3rd SHAHA: 52nd Predators: 75th Esmark 83rd Top PAHL Team is Steel City below all these AA teams - when you get rid of tier 1 and 2 Esmark is 118 and Steel City is 130th 09: Pens: 14th Vengeance: 46th SHAHA: 67th Predators: 76th Esmark: 102nd Icemen: 120th Looks like Arctic Foxes is the first PAHL team at 154th

I'm shocked how big 14u is myself.

Tier 3 juniors not Div 3 NCAA. Just making sure everyone is on the same page.

Yep back to my original point. Don't pay to play juniors. Play local and save a lot of cash.

I feel like this one is easier though. Basically any junior hockey you are in a pay to play model is faux.

Now you have come up with a great money making idea. Let's get about 30 different "Championship" games together in various warm weather places and have everyone with a winning record from AAA play in one at the end of the year ?

It fluctuates a bit - Icemen have some teams, Vengeance, sometimes Steel City and Allegheny Badgers have AAA teams, Erie even has one but I can't remember what level maybe 08? Southpointe tried it with the 10s last year but I don't know that they have any this year.

I'm going to revisit this when the ratings come out at the 06-09 levels. Curious to see if any of the AA PAHL teams are rated ahead or close to any of the AAA teams this year. All that being said, if 6 faux AAA teams all played each other suddenly PAHL would have a better top end and it would bump some of the AA teams down to single A, having a trickling effect all the way down.

Also, and sorry to keep double posting, the irony of it all is they all refuse to play each other. 07 Pens, Vengeance, Esmark, Icemen, Preds, SHAHA could make a league. Even if you took Pens out, that's a strong AA. But, as much as MyHockeyRankings is helpful, they wont play each other because oh my god we might lose 10 spots in the rankings.

I think you are 100% right except I think 09 Preds have always been bad AAA. SHAHA is new but Preds have been pretending for several years. At the 09 level to my knowledge only Vengeance and Pens are legit. I think Esmark, Preds have always been bad and we will see with SHAHA next week when the rankings come out but I assume they will all three be in the 100s.

See the new thread I made. I'm happy, if we can agree on a definition, to figure out who are legit AAA.

Adding: The first team that I see that calls themselves AA shows up at 64 but they don't really start showing up until after 100. The Pittsburgh Vengeance are the only local team ranked below AA teams (Shaha, Allegheny, and Arctic Foxes) and they came in at a whopping 182. Everyone should clearly be able to agree they should have played PAHL. I also don't see a Preds 07 AAA team. Their top team was ranked 207.

Since the Pens post is leading us in this direction, I decided to do the work. I only looked at 2007 (Bantam Major) last year in the MyHockeyRankings. As most of you know, the rating tells you how many goals you are expected to beat another team. If we are saying to be "legit" AAA you shouldn't get blown out at the top, we run into a pretty immediate problem as there are some truly elite teams out there. Shattuck St. Mary's is a 99.99. #3 Pens elite should lose to them by a goal every time, on average. That is insane talent and a huge dropoff. Consider much lower in the rankings a 1 goal difference goes from 182-224. By the time we get only to #19. the Flyers, they should lose to Shattuck by 5 goals (and Pens by 4) on average. Not very competitive. The Flyers, however, at #19 could play everyone down to #47 and only win by 2 goals on average. And #47 could play basically anyone in the top 100 and have a 2 goal average win but still lose to Shattuck by 7. That means #100 could have a roughly 4 goal, on average, game against #19, which depending on your perspective is a blowout or not. In fact, for the Flyers at #17 to beat a team by 5 goals or more, they would have to play teams below 146. All that to be said, trying to pigeonhole who is AAA is silly. What we can all agree on is that having too many AAA teams waters down the local competition (PAHL). Sometimes I wish it was more like lacrosse where you had travel teams in a completely different season (maybe before or after the local clubs).

I can't imagine someone buying it to tear it down and build a new rink if they paid anything close to what I heard Murphy was asking. There is a lot of land out there in the middle of nowhere that would have to be cheaper unless there is something else to salvage in the building.

Thanks for the update.