Wes

So, so glad I'm not involved with this all anymore ?

Yes, the Keystone games go on every year. They are cover all age groups and sports, even senior citizens. There are tryouts and some regions get more kids to show up than others. The hockey part of this is bigger in the East so their teams are always strong. Basically in WPA, hardly no AAA (or many AA) kids try out, and usually out east half the team are Philly Jr. flyers and other AAA teams. In fact I can't remember on PPE kid ever playing on any of the 5 or so Keystone teams our son played on. The East doesn't always win but due to the fact the games are usually always player in the east, more kids tryout and play there. for kids in this area, it's not as fun to travel and pay for a weekend hotel and play in the eastern PA

Exactly my problem with PPE, who claim to be in it to build hockey in this area. Back a while ago when my daughter's team was the first PPE team to medal at Nationals, 2/3rd of the team were from a significant distance from PGH and never practiced. Practices usually had around 6-7 ladies on the ice. Most out of towners would show up for each tourney without practicing at all with the team, and play. There was no strategy, no work on special teams, nothing. Just show up and play. Most of the local girls who went to all practices, played on the 3rd and 4th lines no doubt due to the "deals" to get the other out of town players on the team. And this was after one of the big shots in the org told the parents only 3 spots will be for out of town players... LOL Nothing much has changed with PPE since that time.

Perhaps over in the Peters / USC area would be better, but that's relatively close to both Southpointe and Bethel. I agree that the route 70 area from new stanton to washington is an area that doesn't exactly need a hockey facility...

No idea, but that one smells WAY worse than any other zamboni. Instant choke/gagging when you inhale it and it stinks up the whole building, which is hard to do since the ceilings are so high. My guess is the gasses are heavy and stay low to the bowl.

As a side note, a long time ago my son had a JR high playoff game at Rostraver. That was the first time he played there (a few years AFTER the roof repair) The main thing that I remember was literally gagging at the gas exhaust from the Zamboni (pregame and then between periods). it reeked so bad I literally had to open one of the doors behind the stands and breathe fresh air. Just when the air finally started to clear it would be time for another ice cut. Not a very healthy experience. That smell reminded me (from the 80's, yeah I am dating myself) when the busses would all line up at my high school for afternoon dismissal (like 25 busses) and they would all be idling, and the disgusting exhaust odor would gag you while getting on the busses and until the busses started to move.

The more I think about this, with all the issues including the hard boards/bowl shape, and the high roof, one solution would be to fill in the bowl completely and build the rink and stands at ground level. That decision though should have come when the roof collapsed, and not now. But being that there is a long list of issues/needs for this rink as of right now, that would be WAY to cost prohibitive. I am thinking it would likely be less expensive (and more practical) to build a new building somewhere with 2 sheets, and a structure like Center Ice (steel beams that cover 2 rinks, low ceilings with insulation), than it would be sink another $1m into Rostraver on top of the purchase price. It does sound like re-purposing the building might be a more practical thing than trying to sort out all the hockey related issues, and believe me I don't want to see another rink close. I have been to MANY rinks around the country and for sure Rostraver (unfortunately) is one of the least desirable rinks.

double yikes.

A lot, meaning what? I call $3m a lot, but it's relative to the location, # of rinks, condition of the place, existing business income, etc.

Anyone know what Center Ice or New Ken sold for?

I'd be VERY interested in it, but not at $3m... that rink probably needs $500k of renovations immediately to try and get it to relatively decent standards. 1) new locker rooms 2) new bathrooms. ** bathrooms on both sides** 3) actual stands or seats, not wooden benches 3a) heaters over the stands 4) proper ventilation system (so that you don't choke each time the zamboni runs) and so that there isn't fog in there. Or perhaps a battery powered zamboni and improved de-humidifiers... 5) overhaul of both ends of the building 6) free wifi 7) livebarn

what other teams are those?

can someone post the scoresheet from this game?

In many years of youth hockey, sure, I've been ticked off at a player or two from time to time, but I would NEVER confront the player or parents about it. If you're unhappy about it approach your org president or the league office. Not worth getting in a boat load of trouble. Also can't believe it was a teacher (!) who was the center of this...

Now that I have had a chance to study the video, I know exactly where this occurred in the rink. This is on the far side of the rink and the player locker rooms are directly below. That is why the player had easy access to the stands. There are no restrictions for access to the stands/locker rooms in that area. The home team's locker rooms are directly down the stairs (slightly out of sight) in the video. The away team's locker rooms are down another set of stairs 80 feet town the rink. Both sets of stairs head to the same hallway under the stands. That hallway itself is rather narrow ~6 feet tops, and always forces both teams to walk by each other before/after the game which isn't the ideal setup. One main issue with this rink- and that has always been the case, is that the parents literally sit all over the place, and there are never any restrictions on "home team fans here, away there". A good example of that is Nevin rink in Greensburg, where they try to allocate one side of the small stands to home and one side to away and have markings in the stands (well, at least they did as of a year or two ago), which signals this. The fact that parents literally sit everywhere doesn't help at Alpha. We've played mainly PAHL and non-league games there and other than people wearing your teams' colors, you have no idea who is who. Even fans/parents from our teams would sit all over the place in that rink. The stairs/locker room layout there is a bit atypical of rinks in western PA. Most rinks, players do not enter/exit through the middle of the stands like it is at Alpha.

Here is the video from the stands. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UKKes4MinEWIv7iqTmlNpMKcbPLgkqJj/view?usp=sharing

Spot on. You can't hide video--- not good. Under no circumstances should a player EVER touch a fan, let alone enter the stands. The coaches should always be the last ones off the ice and be watching their teams. And to go a step further, the Shaler players should have immediately grabbed their own player the moment he stepped towards the fans.

Can you post the alternative camera angle- from the stationary camera view? This one is the "follow view", and give us a little more time on the before and after. Thanks!

Please post the entire clip for those of us who don't have livebarn. thx

Which teams to be exact?

Absolute tragedy. My son was one of his roommates and the whole team is devastated. The team is going by bus to his viewing on Sunday and to his memorial service in Hamburg, PA (past Harrisburg). Please donate to his scholarship fund (link was posted above) if you can. Branson was a really good person and it's super hard to have this happen to the hockey community.

Good luck on the current parking situation. "No on street parking". Which means a multi-block walk in the winter. I think parking should have been addressed FIRST, not as an afterthought.

Question about the incident - perhaps I missed this in an earlier post. Is there any accountability for the refs in all of this? If the goalie can hear the chants, the refs certainly can. I haven't seen a single quote from the referees from the game, on this subject. Will the PIHL have anything to say to the refs (or the refs face any sanctions) about why they didn't stop the game and handle this immediately? The whole incident could have been vastly different had this been dealt with mid-game, rather than letting the whole thing transpire and blow up on social media and in the forum.

It is also not surprising at all this happened at Armstrong. Going way back (nearly 12 years), the environment has been very chippy at the least at Belmont. The issues our teams (mostly PAHL AA level) had over the years were with both PAHL and PIHL teams, as also mentioned by other people here. But nothing ever happened and Armstrong is still Armstrong and these incidents will continue to happen. Most recently last season we had several run-ins with Armstrong at their rink, even involving one of their players punching one of our players while they were leaving the ice after the game. Refs were made aware of it, and there were witnesses, but again, nothing ever happened. No matter which org we played for, when we went to Belmont we'd tell our players to keep your heads on a swivel as multiple times in that building we had players receive head-hits and be knocked out of games. I'd say that happened 2-3 times in the last 2 years we played games there. Never one discipline hearing that I was aware of for the kids who committed the fouls. Seems like the older the teams get the more chippy and mouthy the players and coaches are. To make matters worse, one of their main people at Armstrong also sits on the Disciplinary Committee for PAHL and doles out punishments to teams that play his team(!) ** note: that was last season. Don't know if they're still on that committee.

Thank goodness our family is out of PAHL & PIHL hockey. We had problems mostly at 18uAA with both of those refs, and while they both are very veteran refs, they can get too much into the game themselves and off the tracks. It's no surprise to me that these 2 names were associated with the game in question. The worst part of this is Trego is either on or attends disciplinary hearings and for him to ignore this going on while he is calling the game is unacceptable. I agree with the other posters that the video of this game should go to Safesport and bypass the PIHL. I hope the parent of that goalie takes action.