Corsi

14 hours ago, Rewster said:

There was a glitch in the reporting of the game scores this season for most of the year. You actually could click on the individual games and have access to the digital game sheets and summaries.

Nobody complained about it. It was actually pretty nice to see something other than just the final score of each game.

Once the league caught wind of their loophole of their statistical lockdown; they sewed it up for good. 

If there was any one person that complained about the score sheets being open to the public…well, it was the PAHL (obviously). Someone who monitors these boards and has the ability to remove the players’ individual competitiveness. The player statistics were obviously being tabulated and recorded. Why not be transparent about it? Hockey is a team game where keeping score is important. The Fair Play Points make a big difference down the stretch and sometimes it’s what makes teams more or less competitive depending on how aggressive they can be. The game sheets also show these penalties, minutes, and tabulations of the FPP. Without transparency, corruption has a haven.

That same "glitch" has appeared on and off on the PAHL site over the years.  While I'm no longer involved with PAHL, when I was, I was partially responsible with submitting an organizations preferred placement prior to placement games.  The first season I did this I questioned why when they asked for each team's roster they also requested what team and what level (B, A, AA, AAA) each player had played at the previous season (not sure if PAHL still requires this).  The reply I received was that it was mainly for players that were coming in from an organization outside of PAHL, because "they already have stats on every player in PAHL".  I then asked why PAHL doesn't post them anywhere and the response was "because they are afraid that other teams are going to start recruiting kids".  

52 minutes ago, Saucey said:

It's been a few years but we found it to be a giant waste of time. I am not the only one. I don't think it hurts to go, but to move on as a Tier 2 player is....the exception for sure.

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.

15 minutes ago, Jkersman01 said:

I'm just curious as to the rationale here. Not trying to be confrontational, just understand. Why is it acceptable for a player to miss a PAHL game/practice for PIHL, but not acceptable for a girl to miss a game for a girls team for example? I know you didn't say "girl" to be clear, but I think that's the root of the issue here with this rule that's causing some concern. The big argument against this from the girls side is that it is OK for boys to play on a PIHL team (non-PAHL) as their second team, but not OK for a girl to play on a girls team (non-PAHL) as her second team.

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.

1 hour ago, hockeyisgreat said:

1st I have heard of the "scouting book" does it also list the teams they played for last year?  If so why do they waste time on tryouts if the Pens Elite are supposed to be the best of the best?

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.

On 2/26/2024 at 8:21 AM, hockeyisgreat said:

Get Reps from the National Camp to run it! 

 Not allow any identifying equipment!  All the way down to Gloves and Socks!

But it will never happen!  Politics in Youth Sports is everywhere! Hockey is no different!

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.

15 hours ago, Icebucket said:

RMU will still be dramatically behind those programs, regardless of being on or off campus. Will it help, sure. But putting a facility on campus isn't going to turn moon township into grand forks when it comes to hockey 

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.

27 minutes ago, Icebucket said:

While I don't at all buy into the theory of an on campus arena making the team better and therefore drawing tons of outside fans, I can't certainly see the benefit of having easier access to get more students in the seats.

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).

13 hours ago, whatever said:

If they would get the grant and be able to build a new rink - I would guess they keep the current rink as well.  I believe the facility is profitable for the school.  

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.  

39 minutes ago, Jkersman01 said:

Interesting the impact this will have… I get this impacts only a small number of people but wonder why they felt it so important to address it. Are they really concerned about getting sued here? Curious if anyone has any context on this. 

"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.

24 minutes ago, Pucks11 said:

The "BETTER" teams get more picks. Coaches pick the kids from their team. They take WAY to many kids off the bat between Western PA, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. On top of that EVERY Midam team gets at least 1 invite plus some school teams as long as they are registered with Midams.

To answer your question NO, it absolutely should not go entirely on stats. It SHOULD go to kids that know how to play as a team and not the ones who's parents push them to put up 100 goals and 00 assists.

Like Herb Brooks said  "I'm not looking for the best players, Craig. I'm looking for the right ones."

Unfortunately with Midams that isn't always true either when it comes to the 2nd round. 9 times out of 10 ALL the yellow helmets with get the call back, usually ALL the red helmets and then the coaches kids or kids who's parents know someone at USA hockey and then the best kids to fill the open spots.

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.

On 2/21/2024 at 3:44 AM, nemesis8679 said:

Absolutely a coach has the right to question a call and the referee has an obligation to explain it. If the ref can't explain the call, then it shouldn't have been made. 

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.

22 minutes ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Does a referee truly "owe" an explanation for a call? My gut says no. If you had to explain every single call, you would never finish a game. I feel like people who say that a call wasn't "explained" really just want to yell at the referee to either get the call overturned or intimidate the official into not making the next call. That's not to say that there aren't officials making terrible calls, but, let's be honest, there are plenty of players making terrible plays too and they don't have to hear about it from everyone else in the rink.

I haven't looked at a rulebook in years, but when I did, I remember reading something along the lines of the referee only has to talk to the team captain who is marked with a "C" on the scoresheet. The official can talk to other people as courtesy, but the official only has to talk to the officially designated captain.

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".

2 hours ago, Icebucket said:

Most refs are over paid already. The good refs earn their pay, but when thinking about the horrible ones it's almost aggravating how much they make. If they were to do that poorly at any other job they'd get fired or be stuck working for minimum wage. Last I checked the hourly rate for refs was well about that mark.

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.

On 5/6/2023 at 12:22 PM, RJUSHL said:

Great player. He wasn't at MidAm tryouts. I only noticed one 08 or 09 SHAHA AAA kid at tryouts. The one I know was selected to advance.

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.  

1 hour ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Based on them buying Rostraver it doesn't seem like they are real worried about it being a good investment or not!

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?  

18 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the Beaver Badgers had some of their teams at Airport. If I remember correctly, it was mostly the AA teams. Having the teams at Airport gave them a little more reach for higher end players. That was before the A level had 6-8 different sub-classifications and more teams were AA.

I think Allegheny has always been at Delmont, but I believe both Badgers teams are named after "Badger" Bob Johnson. Definitely an iconic coach, but maybe not as prominent a name today.

The Predators name might be a little older (I think their first jerseys were Nashville Predators jerseys), but they have definitely kept up with the times as far as jersey design.

 

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.  

19 hours ago, Lifelongbender said:

SHAHA has new jerseys now - it started last season. They updated their logo and have new jersey patterns and socks. There are probably some players still wearing the old stuff, though.

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.  

31 minutes ago, aaaahockey said:

This is a great topic in and of itself.  Badgers, SHAHA, Preds all come to mind.  

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.  

17 hours ago, RJUSHL said:

I get the sense that they're paying attention at all the big CCM tournaments like Detroit, Chicago, Notre Dame, Boston, etc. If your team isn't playing the in the "AAA Elite" division and is playing in the "AAA" or "AAA/AA" in those tournaments, no one is paying attention and an invite is unlikely. 

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.