Wes

Here are the rest of your question - answers: Competitiveness Hardest team to make to easiest team to make 1) PPE AAA. Everyone thinks they need to try out there or their daughter will never make it to a college team. Biggest false thought of them all. Most PPE tryouts have tons of girls show up and very few open spots. Even if you are local unless your girl is one heck of a player it will be very difficult to make the 1st or 2nd lines on any PPE girls team. And if your daughter makes it as a 3rd or 4th line player they will rarely get ice during any important game or tourney. For this reason alone I would avoid PPE. 2) SCS AA. Easily the 2nd best team in town. If your player is good they will get a lot of ice time. They have a good program and good coaching and development. 3) Armstrong AA & Midstate Mustangs AA. Weaker girls teams than SCS and less player depth. Beyond their top lines talent drops off and they rarely win Mid-Ams and make it to nationals. 4) PAHL girls teams 5) PAHL boys teams # of girls teams in the PAHL. Go look at their web site for that info. If you are serious about girls hockey I wouldn't waste my time with PAHL teams. What happens at older ages for girls teams: Just like boys, the number of teams dwindles as you get older. If your daughter is 15-16 and is decent, and has never played AA hockey, gently nudge them toward AA hockey unless they are 100% recreational and have no desire to play in college. As the ages get older, the players remaining on those teams will be more serious and more competitive and want to win (speaking of AA and AAA teams). There are TONS of college hockey opportunities for girls at D3, ACHA D1/D2/D3 and they are all very good and competitive. I would personally skip "club" college hockey as that is basically recreational college hockey and there will be zero financial incentive to your player to play on a team like that.

I will give my take on this based on many years of experience with girls teams. in no particular order: if your daughter is serious about hockey, look at the Steel City Selects (SCS), or secondarily PPE (only if they are the next Miss Sidney Crosby). a very small percentage of even the best girls will make D1 hockey, so don't kill yourself trying to get your daughter onto PPE Consider the SCS as they are local to Pgh and if your child is good, they will get a lot of ice time and good coaching the SCS teams are all local most PPE teams have lots of girls outside the area and infrequent practices as a whole team, which makes learning how to play with your teammates difficult PPE nepotism and not always picking the best players (this has been beat to death many times in the past), but it is true PAHL girls teams should generally only be thought as fully "recreational" teams. if your daughter wants to play hockey in college, only play for one of the local girls AA or AAA teams. Yes, I realize most girls may start on a PAHL girls team when they are young, but like I said if your girl likes hockey get them to an AA program as soon as possible. Don't worry about trying out for the PPE, or "not making" PPE. I have seen girls who have not made PPE be tremendous AA players and get as many college looks as PPE players. I have also seen PPE players (multiple ones) who left AA to go to PPE and then only got a few shifts each game and were very unhappy. All in the name of the extra "A"... So PPE is not for everyone. Local Western PA AA teams (in order of my recommendation) Steel City Selects (most of their teams win Mid-Ams each season) The other two teams below struggle to compete against SCS. if your daughter is good get her to SCS tryouts. They play a lot of games and will develop your daughter. Armstrong Arrows (in general a step down from the SCS teams) Midstate Mustangs Local Western PA AAA teams: PPE Girls If your daughter is highly motivated and thinks they want to play college hockey at any level, get them in an AA program as soon as possible. It's not that hard for a girl to make an AA team if they have decent skills I highly recommend your daughter "playing with the boys" at least until around the end of Bantams. At that point boys become much larger and you may risk injuries. Playing with the boys will toughen up your daughter and in general make them a better play when playing against all girl teams. Don't fool yourself- girls hockey is physical... your daughter will take hits and needs to be able to absorb hits and bump back. That's why playing with the boys is important for their overall development. I have seen girls that have not ever played on boys teams, and some of them took hits and bumps by girls as a big problem, cried, got injured, etc. Like I said playing with the boys toughens up your girl. Skating ability is 100% critical for girls. If your player is a great skater that will open a lot of doors and catch the eyes of a lot of coaches Once your player hits age 15-16, start filming all their games, make highlight videos and post them to youtube Create a CaptainU account (or similar) recruiting profile for your daughter and fully keep it up to date

I would like to second @BLC I've been to the LAKEWOOD location of the Winking Lizard and it's located inside an old social hall of some sort... it's very cool in there and has plenty of space to take an entire team. Just call Ahead. We've taken full teams there many times and have never had a problem getting seated and they are super accommodating of large groups. This location is on the north west suburbs of Cleveland and is a few minutes from the SERPENTINI ARENA which hosts a lot of tourneys... (216) 226-6693 14018 Detroit Ave, Lakewood, OH 44107

I know for certain there were 02's on the 18u team in the first season 16-17. I presumed they did the same thing this past season. Don't know for sure and don't talk to those hockey parents much anymore. They don't post their rosters online so no way of knowing.

See @dazedandconfused post above. Wouldn't it seem logical that the PAHL should want a stable organization with an actual home rink? If parents from Erie want to drive down to Pittsburgh to play hockey I could care less. But an org without a true home seems risky. Secondly, if you go look at the Aviators web site there isn't a whole lot of info about the teams or org there either.

Why does the PAHL permit this sort of thing to happen??

That doesn't surprise me a bit about either Veng team. I know a few players/parents who tried out there the past 2 years and thought the tryouts were a joke to say the least. Last season (17-18) a TON of kids showed up for the 16u tryouts and pretty quickly it eemed pretty obvious during the tryouts a lot of the players had been pre-picked and that most of the other kids were wasting their time there. I wouldn't trust anyone in the Veng/SCIR hierarchy with my kids future so that goodness we've never played there. The last 2 years (prior to this year) they took all the good 02's and moved them to the 18u team, leaving the 16u team with smaller kids. And I know some of the kids who "made" the team certainly weren't the best ones who tried out either.

I smell something fishing going on up in BV...

That's ridiculous...! But thanks for the info. Here's a link to the Bantam AA standings last year. http://pahl.wttstats.pointstreak.com/players-division-standings.html?divisionid=87537&seasonid=17283

Does anyone know what group of kids composes the 16uAA Aviators? Last we heard a few years ago the org was almost out of existence (down to just a few teams and their rink shut down... then they moved to RMU(?), then last year we heard they were operating with kids from Erie. This season their rink is listed as Shadyside Academy. Just trying to figure out how they have enough talent to be grouped in 16uAA...? There is zero info on their website. There doesn't seem to be enough 16uAA talent in the area (see Viper Stars 16uAA folding), so I find it interesting this team can pop onto the radar in the AA preseason grouping. Personally I would have a hard time going to take my kids to a tryout at a team that has moved all over in the past few years.

SCIR (group 1) vs. Preds (group 1), SCIR 2-1 SCIR (group 1) vs. AHA (group 1), tied 2-2 Wrapup: SCIR dominated the first period, but AHA had the advantage for periods 2 & 3. SCIR outshot AHA by about 15 shots but this did not reflect the actual gameplay as the game had two parts, the SCIR dominate first period, then AHA winning periods 2 & 3. Random thoughts: SCIR goalie looked shaky. The AHA goalie that started was pummeled with shots early and withstood the first period and played well. The AHA goalie that started was injured and left the ice with 3 min left and the other AHA goalie came on cold and faced 6 shots in 3 minutes as SCIR tried to score on the cold/not warmed up goalie, but he played well and stopped all the shots. It looked like AHA's speed wore down SCIR in the 2nd and 3rd periods. Once AHA got their legs going it was a completely different game. AHA (group 1) vs. Indiana (group 2), AHA 7-2 Wrap: AHA dominated this matchup. Indiana's only goals were a fluke power-play goal flipped by the goalie from the side of the net up and over the goalie's head/shoulder and found the net (let's just say 99/100 times that shot misses the net), and the other goal was deflected by an AHA player past their own goalie. Otherwise could well have been a shutout. Shots were relatively even (low 20's) but AHA moved the puck really well and converted their scoring opportunities.