Corsi

The $40k number I have does not include travel for PPE. I have some friends that still have kids in the sport (16U and 18U) and they have shared that the expectation is that "AAA" with an academy, billet, coaches, and travel fees you should expect $30k on the low end and $50k+ on the high end. Most of that depends on the academy cost. They also mentioned that some organizations now include "travel" as an upfront cost. They said that the team books all travel (bus, airfare, hotel) for the players and then you are refunded what is left following the season. As far as Pittsburgh goes, PPE is the only program with an academy. Within MidAm, Blue Jackets and Barons have both billet programs and are associated in some way with an academy.

Pure Hockey in Canonsburg... Some of the best staff in the area.

I have been told that is in upwards of $40k...

This is 100% correct, especially if you are in home school district that is very strong academically.

Speaking of 16U, does anyone know why 16U is the only PPE team that doesn't have a roster posted for the 25-26 season yet?

Team officials (coaches, team managers, association officials, etc) submit a list of "nominated players" to MidAm. The deadline is usually at some point in January. After that a group from MidAm reviews the nominations and comes up with a list of players who are then offered spots at an evaluation camp (tryout) in May. In the past they have stressed the point that teams with higher rankings in MyHockey will receive more spots in the camp. Traditionally the vast majority of spots have gone to players on Tier 1 teams with a handful of Tier 2 players sprinkled in. I didn't do a deep dive, but I believe this year at the 2009 camp there weren't any Tier 2 players invited or in attendance.

There are far more players in travel programs between ages 14-19 (approximate ages to play varsity) than there are in HS programs. The player pool gives the travel programs an advantage over the PIHL teams.

MyHockey has 5 "AAA" teams listed at Tier 1 for Illinois at 15O & 16U for last season. 5/5 are in or near Chicago.

I wouldn't say "Not a soul...", remember, you always have the players that are handpicked by the coach, as well as the multitude of out of town players that have been brought in, as well as the players with the parents that have the largest checkbook... but beyond those groups, "Not a soul..." is correct.

There has always been a level of bias at Mid-Am and most of it has been based off of what organization has the influence in a given year. By having the influence it allows you to get more of your team's players to be selected. This is also something that organizations use as a selling point to get players to switch teams (or at least it has in the past). It has been stated on here over and over that Mid-Am is a "old boys club", and it truly is when it comes to the camp selection process. I also understand that it makes sense that the highest ranked teams should get the higher percentage of players selected, that makes sense, but having entire teams invited or moved on through the process is where you really see the politics of it.

The interesting part of this whole conversation is that I would guess that there are hockey people having this exact conversation in other cities all over the US. Has anyone ever asked why players went from a PAHL team to a "AAA" team? Please also remember that unless you want to advocate for a governing body putting geographic restrictions on what team a player MUST play for, you are going to end up with groups of players and their parents banding together to form teams. I feel like this is just "shouting at clouds" at this point, the genie is out of the bottle.

I have been involved with youth hockey at all levels over the past 35+ years and the 1st thing I would stress is the players age vs. the expectations of both the parents and the coaches. I am going to ask what do the coach's practices look like? Are the staff practicing things like a PP/PK system, regrouping, forechecks, or are they practicing skills via "small area games"? I know that at such a young age the players need to develop skills, which will help with the concern about the passing ability. Kids at that age are going to get better practicing, not by playing games.

Beyond the financial considerations with paying to play for a "higher ranked team", we also need to consider the age and maturity level of the players we are talking about. Those players are somewhere in the 9th to 11th grade range right now (2008 and 2009 BYs). Even if families are able to afford to pay to have a player play for one of the teams, the other question is if the player is mature enough to move away from home to live with billet family and also what are the academic options open to them if they were to move to play for one of those teams.

What you are saying in the highlighted quote is not accurate. For every player that is on a "top 25 ranked AAA team" there are probably a minimum of 2 players on each team ranked 26-75 that could play on one of those top 25 teams. From a Pittsburgh perspective, if you are not playing for Pens at "08" or Pens or Preds at "09", just pack it in, right? I'd like to site Florida Alliance North 2009s, currently ranked 29th, have a player that has consistently been ranked as one of the top 5 2009 players in the US for the past few years. Would someone please notify that player and his family that he's just "playing for fun" and they should hope that he's one of those "VERY few exceptions". Rankings are great when pulling a season schedule or putting together tournaments but to make a broad statement like was made above fails to address the roster makeup of teams outside of that range.

My feeling that is less that players from Russia and other Eastern European countries are being "recruited" and more that they are in the US and probably Canada for reasons that are much more geopolitically related and less directly youth hockey related.

My guess is that the score referenced above is the 11-3 score between Greensburg Salem and Meadville. The system for selecting the all star teams is the best way to do it, considering there are not people who have seen every player at a given division play. There are always going to be players that there could be a debate made for and against, but having the coach nominate selections from their team and then have the other coaches choose seems to make the most sense in my mind. Also, I would suspect that there would be some consideration given towards taking an upperclassmen over a younger player with similar season totals or in the case of goaltenders, similar records.

I believe in the past that hearings were held monthly. I also feel like in the past they have made "offers" to players to take "time served" in exchange for skipping the hearing. I cannot believe that such an offer would be made in the case of an "abuse of official" incident where the official was physically assaulted. There's a big difference, as noted in the quoted rule, between "abuse of an official" and "assault on an official".

That is correct, but keep in mind that the majority of these types of occurrences happen after a whistle, so on top of the 12 on the ice, the official needs to breakup the altercation, keep track of players involved, the call they are going to make, keep alert for players becoming involved during the post whistle line change, all while also making sure they are looking out for their and their partner's safety while in the altercation. What I'm trying to say is that there is more stuff going on than just getting the players apart and in the box/locker room. Honestly, with some of the stuff I've seen/heard about some PIHL games the past few seasons, I'm unfortunately surprised there haven't been more incidents of players going after officials.

From the accounts that I have followed on here, it seems like the officials were in the process of breaking up a series of altercations near the end of a lopsided game. As one player from the losing team was being escorted off the ice, a teammate attempted to intervene and while the official was attempting to keep him from becoming involved he reacted by striking the official, let me know if that is incorrect. I have officiated in the past and have had to breakup a number of fights all the way from 8U up to adult league games. It is impossible to breakup an altercation at any age without physically engaging the players that are involved, regardless of age. It gets exponentially more difficult to do as the both the physical size and intensity level both ramp up. For anyone to think that officials in a high school hockey game would not have a level of physical contact with the players involved has obviously NEVER officiated a game. If an official is doing his or her job correctly, there will be physical contact, so if a player reacts to that contact by striking or making contact with an official in an aggressive way the issue is with the player and not the official.

Yes, PSU was a powerhouse in ACHA prior to making the jump to D1, but while they did have a campus rink, it's most local comparison would the be Mt. Lebanon in terms of actual seating capacity and amenities. The donation from the Pegula's was for the new building, and was not originally used as part of the endowment to fund the teams and that was funded through Athletics and outside donors. It was the building of a rink to get to "NCAA standards" that got the program off the ground. Currently they have a pretty good number of PA guys on their roster, but without looking back at the history of the roster makeup, I would think that this is probably the most PA players they have ever had since the move to D1. This is a nice trend, but I think you are going to see less of the 19 yr old freshman, and start seeing more of the 21-22 yr old freshman. The 18-19 yr olds are going to have to spend additional time in junior due to the aged out CHL players coming in at that 21-22 age.

The Pegula donation ended up being right around $102 million, $88 was the initial donation. Illinois had multiple discussions and actually completed a 5 year study to see if D1 hockey could be successful. The study confirmed that D1 would "flourish" on campus, but dropped their attempt after the pandemic due to the inability to secure the needed funding and also what they estimated as a 30% increase in the construction cost of the new arena due to the pandemic. I agree the that growth in the number of D1 programs is going to come from SEC/ACC schools, but keep in mind, all that it takes is one BIG10 university to have a very well off alum, with a passion for hockey to make something happen. I wouldn't be shocked to see one or more of the PAC12 schools that just joined the BIG10 explore programs in the future. I'm sure there's enough alumni money at USC, UCLA, and Oregon (looking at you Nike), to get the gears moving.

Ultimately, in my opinion, you are going to see more schools add D1 men's hockey teams. There is always the question of having facilities in place, but I will guess that you are going to see 7-10 teams added in the next 5-10 years. Using PSU as an example, the men's hockey team is one of the only teams on campus that even comes close to breaking even... Schools that have alumni that are "hockey people" and have the money, will endow programs moving forward. As far as opportunities, there's already players in the NCAA from Canada and also Europe, teams are going to take the best players regardless of where they were born or played travel hockey. This seems like the same people complaining because PPE takes kids from outside of Western PA because it "isn't fair" to the local players.

I think it is interesting to look at the schedules and see Seneca and Lebo don't play each other until the end of January. Should make for an interesting end of the season if both teams continue to play well. It is also worth noting that both games are on Monday nights, which hopefully eliminates having players missing due to tournament travel obligations on a Thursday.

Thank you!!!

From the PIHL perspective though, if this region went down to 2 "AAA" teams, it wouldn't just have an impact on the 2007 BY but down to 2010 and up to 2006. Even if a handful of kids at each of those BYs left it would have an impact on the product on the ice because in theory the players leaving because of a lack of "AAA" opportunities would be the higher end players.