Corsi

Without being familiar with the make-up of all of the PAHL/Independent Tier 2 teams, I'm not sure how many players from non Tier 1 teams even received evaluation invites... Yes, if their is a limited number of spots for Tier 2 players, then that alone makes it difficult to advance.

PAHL vs. PIHL is probably a bad example because PIHL plays during the week, while PAHL is on weekends. Missing PAHL practices for PIHL games (during the week) has traditionally been where there's a conflict. Beyond that it is if there's a PIHL game on a Thursday night and the PAHL team is leaving for an out-of-town tournament that requires them to leave on Thursday. The issue that is being raised here is playing on multiple teams that both play the vast majority of games on weekends, thus leading to conflicts.

Yes, my understanding is MidAm asks for... Name, Height/Weight, Stats (GP, G, A, Pts), Prior Team, and Future Team (if known). PPE is the highest ranked team in the District, but that doesn't mean that the other programs don't have individual players that can play at that level. Making a blanket statement about it being a waste of time doesn't make any sense.

I get the idea about having people from outside MidAm run the camp, but the gloves, socks, helmets argument doesn't matter. At each age group they distribute a "scouting book" which identifies the players, gives vitals (height/weight), as well as stats. I know the statistics are not guaranteed to be accurate, but players are already able to be identified based off of what MidAm provides to those in attendance. Worrying about helmet and glove color is irrelevant at that point when all relevant identifying information is provided/available.

Yes, they probably will be behind the programs that I mentioned (except maybe Niagara) but as was pointed out by other members, D1 hockey is the one sport that is not as divided into "have's and have not's". The Michigan's, Minnesota's, BU's, and Denver's are going to be the programs that recruit the 18 year old's that get drafted in June, but because of the role of junior hockey, teams like Quinnipiac, Union, and Providence can compete and win by bringing in players that are 20-21 years old and compete at a championship level. RMU could and can compete with those teams, and having better facilities would help with attracting better players.

Being on campus is a huge recruiting tool for the teams, as well as having a "state of the art facility". If you go to PSU, ND, Denver, even Niagara University their facilities and RMU's are not even in the same class. RMU is dramatically behind when it comes to where they are playing. As far as what will happen to the the current complex when the on-campus facility opens... Even if the Island Complex is currently profitable, I would wonder if the cost to staff and maintain two separate facilities would force a sale to Black Bear (or another group).

The statement in the Trib explicitly says the following, "The 100,000-square-foot development also would house enhanced training and locker room facilities, offices, plus regional amenities to meet the needs of youth and amateur hockey players." As soon as this building would open, I would think Black Bear would be waiting with their checkbook. If I remember correctly they had, at some point, made an offer or had reached out about the current rink during the controversy when the Men's and Women's teams were dissolved.

"Are they really concerned about getting sued here"... that should answer your question about the context, of course the fear is that they would get sued.

Yes, the MidAm site states explicitly that "higher ranked teams will receive more spots at evaluations", which makes sense. I believe the 09 group will be split up into 8 teams, which does seem like too many kids to evaluate in such a short period of time. You cannot chose who is attending based off of stats, because of the discrepancy in the level of play across teams. In theory, the harder the schedule the more difficult it will be to put up numbers and vice versa. The kids on a team that faces stiffer competition should not be penalized because of that just as a players on a team that plays a weaker schedule should not get a boost. Evaluators won't be able to see who the "right ones" are in that short of a time period. The evaluation is normally very, very game heavy, so they are looking for the kids that perform the best in game situations. I like this format because it eliminates the players that focus only on what they learn in skills clinics and are great at stick handling through cones, but don't know how to really play in a game situation. Nothing is going to be perfect, but at least this format makes sense.

A coach can ask all kinds of questions, but that doesn't mean that he will always get a response or an explanation. The game needs to be kept moving, so taking time to have a conversation every time a coach has a question or wants an explanation for a call is impossible to have. The majority of questions coaches have are not of the "why did you make that call" sort of thing, they are of the "the other team just did the same thing a period and a half ago and didn't get called, so why are you calling us for it now" type of question. That is a conversation where there's no good outcome for either the coach or the official. No one is going to get an answer that they like in that situation.

Yes, an official has the authority to tell a team that he is only going to talk to one of the designated captains or only the head coach. In my coaching days, I had a number of officials tell me and my other coaches that they would only be speaking with the head coach. This was their way to keep the amount of grief they heard from the benches to a minimum. To answer your first question, a ref has NO obligation to explain a call to a player. I've had coaches get on me because "I didn't explain the call to the player". My response back to him was "that is called coaching and that is what you are here to do, I'm just here to call the game". I will always clearly say what the call was, but I'm not going to have a 5 minute conversation rehashing the play and why I made the call. I'll also only discuss calls if the coach is doing it in a respectful way. If they are screaming at me or my partner, I just ignore them and tell them that we will have conversation when they can do it at a "normal volume".

Lowering the amount officials are being paid would only make the ref shortage worse. I don't think you are going to find people to take time out of their day to do games, especially at the hours many of these games occur. For me to do a 7AM game, I need to be at the rink no later than 6:30 to get ready, and then we add in travel time, I'm probably getting up at 5:30 to do that 7AM game. The amount of money officials make is to give them an incentive to do the games. I would venture to say that by lowering what officials make, would lead to no coverage for games with start times before 9AM and as I stated before... If the officials don't show up, nobody gets to play.

Nothing has been posted as of yet and according to some friends who officiate games, there has not been any dates/times sent to prospective referees yet to gauge availability.

The reason we have a shortage of officials around the country is due to the post calling out the official by name. I have done games for 20+ years and the behavior of coaches, players, and fans has gotten progressively worse over that time period. Please DO NOT take this as me "calling out" everyone. There are some coaches and players who simply want an explanation and, agree or not, are respectful during the conversation. There are also players, and coaches that decide that they know the game better than everyone involved and thus refuse to have any kind of discussion and simply resort to shouting and swearing until the official has not choice but to impose a penalty for the behavior. That is on the coach and player, not on the official. Unfortunately, this behavior has led to the situation where you have no choice but to take whatever official you can get because no body else will do it. Also, this also isn't exclusive to just hockey, there's a shortage of officials across all sports because of the behavior exhibited by parents, coaches, and players. The simple answer to this is to say "if you think it is so easy, do it yourself", but the earlier post indicates to me that LGP13 probably wouldn't have the temperament to successfully cover a game. There is not a single official in any sport at any level that can say they have never made a mistake on a call or a rule interpretation and that is called being human. I would suggest being appreciative that these men and women are willing to get up at 6AM on a Saturday/Sunday morning so that little Stevie or Sally are able to play their 7AM 10U B game after working their "real job" all week or cover your adult league game at 11PM on a Wednesday night and then get up to go to said job. Always remember, if the officials don't show up, nobody plays.

MidAm site shows boys at UPMC and girls in Columbus.

Carter Hart Dillon Dube Alex Formenton Cal Foote Michael McLeod These are the players who have taken "leaves of absence" in the past few days. Foote and McLeod just took theirs this afternoon after the report that the 5 players were asked to report to face charges. Obviously, we don't know if this is why they are taking leaves, but like Mark Madden said yesterday after Dube and Hart took theirs, it is suspicious that they were all on that team and their were rumors that something was coming down soon.

I just came across this thread, and messaged someone at SHAHA about the lack of 08s and 09s at MidAm's this year. Apparently the organization missed the deadline for nominations and the top 09 players never recieved the "invite email" from MidAm. The story I was told by someone involved in those teams was that at least on the 09 side there were multiple familes who were not happy and had they been nominated they would have participated. I'm speaking of the player referenced before as well as the teams 2nd leading scorer from the past season as well as their top defenseman.

You are probably correct that the rink is not he investment for them, but having another local rink available to host AHF showcase weekends in the future is probably more of the idea.

Has there been any word on BB moving toward a second ice sheet at Rostraver?

That is partially true... Beaver County kept their teams out of Brady's Run, and were using the Airport Rink to buy ice as needed. At the time there were a bunch of high school programs in Beaver County (Beaver, Ambridge, Blackhawk, Center, Quigley, etc.) that were buying ice at Brady's Run in addition to running figure skating, and men's leagues out of one sheet of ice. If my memory is correct, while all of this was going on, a disgruntled Beaver County parent was working at the Airport Rink and started an organization out of there that they named the Badgers. At the time, the jerseys and logos were almost identical only with different the colors. I'm not a 100% sure if this the same organization that is now at Delmont, but I am sure there was another organization out of that rink called Badgers for a period of time.

SHAHA did update their jerseys last year for the entire organization. The "AAA" teams all have their own jersey designs though, they include a 3rd black jersey that is modeled after the Stars 3rd jersey with the green on black look. They are really cool to look at, but according to some people I know in the organization, really, really difficult for the referees and the scorers to see jersey numbers (apparently the green just blends into the black). I'm pretty sure that the '09 "AAA" team is still wearing the same white and green jersey as the rest of the organization and just added the 3rd black jersey because they had all purchased the white and green setups a season ago, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Yes, Badgers have had pretty much the same branding since they played out of the old Airport Ice Arena across from Scally's. I'm pretty sure that SHAHA, and Preds have begun to go with different jerseys for their "AAA" BY teams, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

This is probably correct, unless a player in the lower "AAA" or "AA" lights it up at the evaluation camps they hold over the Summer and performs better than the "AAA Elite" players that are also there. Keep in mind though, they hold evaluation camps all over the US, so even if a player looks really good during the one at UPMC, they are being compared to the kids at the camps in Minnesota and Michigan as well. The odds are pretty long.

I know multiple players that have done it in the past. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

I have said for years, that education should start at the "Learn to Play" level and continue through 8U and 10U. I was fortunate enough to grow up around the game, and understand how things work, so my son had a point of reference as far as those things worked. With some many organizations and chances for people to make money, there's more and more people who will just tell parents what they want to hear in order to get the player to commit to playing there and the parents commit to writing the check that goes with that commitment.