Carl Racki

Here is how I have seen the 2009 story go this tryout season. Players of the 2009 Vengeance pretty much all decided to jump ship. Most of their top players seemed to go to the Preds tryouts. Some made it some did not. I think then some went to Esmark tryouts after getting cut from other places. Now you have the left overs from all the tryouts that have been cut probably several times looking into Vengeance. People are nuts. Then you have some that were cut from several teams looking for prep schools. It never ends.

Entertainment purposes only!

So if you brought the "good" players from the AA Renegades you might have a good AA team not a AAA team. I am not sure how many actual AAA caliber players were at the vengeance tryouts. Same thing happened last season to Esmark. At least Esmark didn't still have a team and folded as it would have been bad.

Sounds like a great way to waste money!

There is some solid men's league games most Saturdays as well.

That is why a lot of the 2006 group left and 2007 group left.

I would guess PAHL. I would hope not AHF since they are not a BB rink

Honestly once you hit 2nd year Bantam teams are always a mess through Midget. Kids jumping around, teams disappearing, ..... Its just hockey. I could give you many examples from 2006-2010.

I disagree, play pickle ball

Is that an actually to be paid as a salary for the coach or is that like a team fund which also usually pays for travel expenses like hotels, food, gas,...

Some kids do not go to North Catholic but I believe all of them do Excell once they are in 9th grade. Pretty sure

Agree, lots of top players that could make the Pens roster that are from Pittsburgh choose to not play there for different reasons. Some because they don't want to spend the money on Excel, North Catholic,.... Not sure what the total cost would be for a year with everything including travel costs but would guess around $30,000. It is a great program with good coaches but costs a lot of money. Look at their 2007 birth year team. They lost a lot of their top players for that reason. Not bottom players. They are still a great team. If you take away the top 3-5 players there is not much difference between the rest and top AA players. I have seen this for years. Believe me. Mommy's and Daddy's that are spending lots of money don't want to believe that though. It is a great program but does cost a lot of money. If you could get the next best group of 15-17 kids in Western PA all on the same team I think they would usually be competitive with great coaching. The problem is it is tough to find parents of all the top players that are crazy enough to drive past 5 rinks to build a team like that. Most people that crazy are willing to remortgage their house to play Pens, Prep,.... Some teams have done it. 2006 SHAHA team, 2008 Vengeance team.

I think the lower level travel teams are great as long as the play PAHL and only do 2-3 tournaments that are 2-5 hours max away. Then maybe one to two local tournaments. The kids really enjoy doing those trips and it is great bonding for the players and families. No reason to take that experience away from the kids. It's not like they are charging $7000 plus team fees and selling a bs product like some other programs. As long as people truly know what they are getting and enjoy it I think it is great. It is when orgs. try to make people believe it is a "PATH" to the NHL or D1 college yet they send very few players to play tier one or tier two juniors, (I don't count tier 3 pay to play as there are over 100 teams and literally anyone can play) that is a far bigger problem. I think players of the lower level travel teams all just enjoy playing the game. I don't think anyone is telling them it is a path to anywhere and do all these extras/spend more money. They just enjoy the game and the families they play with. I think that is great.

That's hilarious. No, its not like AAA amateur hockey but the depth of the top ten players on the top teams in AAA or AA would smoke the top 10 from teams in the d division or A. The AAA schools just have a lot more hockey players to choose from giving them more depth most seasons. There may be some rare instances where that would not be the case but I think they would be rare.

You are correct it was pretty bad in the late 90's through the early 2000's as they would only place teams by school size. I asked for years about changing that. If I remember correctly, they finally allowed teams to move to the open division if they couldn't compete in their current one. That led to a bunch of teams in the open division. They do a much better job now getting teams in a division that they can compete in. It will never be perfect but it is a Ton better