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Armstrong vs Mars incident


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On 11/5/2021 at 2:43 PM, sutton said:

This punishment is obviously a slap on the wrist for Armstrong but not sure what else the PIHL can really do.  They could have sent a strong message that this won’t be tolerated and brought the hammer down but chose to take a safe approach and that’s definitely understandable.  
 

Armstrong is one of the better teams in AA this year and I for one will be watching closely if they get to the PIHL’s biggest stage in the finals and let the league have to deal with that after letting the team off the hook here.  
 

I hope this dies down for the players sake after Monday and thank anyone with true intentions to change this sort of behavior going forward.  All of this starts at home.

PIHL could have - SHOULD HAVE - made the game a forfeit and the future Mars/Armstrong game a forfeit. It’s completely ridiculous that hasn’t happened yet. 

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The Armstrong players were not the problem here. Poorly-parented students, adults in the stands, security, the Riverhawk board members and Coaches all have some responsibility that they failed to act upon. The players were/are to do what to satisfy you, Sutton. This is going affect them for a long time both on and off the ice. Maybe, just maybe it's time to stop the rhetoric and start the healing process? Not saying forget it and move on, saying find ways to bring the game back to together.

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3 hours ago, PUCKCOVID19 said:

No need to scores sheet and live barn show all. Started season playing subpar teams and just getting by. Met TJ last week went up 3 caught TJ sleeping. TJ woke up in the second and from there on out wasn't even a game..... So yea.  they are not very good just another average team at best 

Wow! What;s your beef with South Fayette?  At least they went from weak to average at best!  What do they have to do to be an above average team for you? Just wondering!

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1 hour ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Wow! What;s your beef with South Fayette?  At least they went from weak to average at best!  What do they have to do to be an above average team for you? Just wondering!

I have none, seemed like you where talking them up like their actually going to make penguin cup..... 

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4 hours ago, sadday4hockey said:

The Armstrong players were not the problem here. Poorly-parented students, adults in the stands, security, the Riverhawk board members and Coaches all have some responsibility that they failed to act upon. The players were/are to do what to satisfy you, Sutton. This is going affect them for a long time both on and off the ice. Maybe, just maybe it's time to stop the rhetoric and start the healing process? Not saying forget it and move on, saying find ways to bring the game back to together.

Regardless of whatever opinion you have on the matter, the team itself essentially came out of this with no punishment, aside from the suspension handed down to the player who baseball swung a Mars players head.  If they make the finals, you can bet this story will come up again and be all the conversation.  Some people will say they shouldn't be there, and others will say they should, but it will 100% be all the talk.

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Did PIHL have the ability to make the team forfeit the game? People throw around a lot of things that they wanted to see happen, without considering if they were possible. I think PIHL did what they could. Was there precedent for that in the past? 

You have to remember that there are layers of authority there, governing different aspects of things. The students are banned. PIHL can do that. The program is on probation  Also PIHL. Some of the posts indicate that students are being suspended. That is the school. Perhaps not in a timely fashion (football players able to play, some have said, and this is awful and teaches kids only that some people are more special than others...but hey, that is true in life, not that it is right, there is your lesson in life is not fair.) I think that may be all that can be done from PIHL's standpoint.

The hockey organization and/or the county, whoever hired the security guard, need to address the security failure. (Maybe they did.) I am also still appalled that the refs don't seem to have faced anything. (But we may not know if they did.) But I bet that the attention and the microscope that this program (and the criticism of the refs) is not going away anytime soon. I bet everyone will have stand behavior on their radar now. Maybe more will be done to address bad behavior all around. Maybe refs hear we don't want them to ignore such blatantly bad and harmful behavior, as well as schools.

I don't want to see a team punished for stand behavior beyond a bench penalty issued by a ref. (That would have been a good way to handle it... again, still looking at the refs.) For example, there are a lot of good kids trying to play with some horrible parents in the stands. That one just doesn't sit well with me. People have tried to impute the student section behavior onto the players, but that always comes across as a stretch to me. (They had to have heard it, they did nothing, they skated by and smiled at the stands, obviously they supported it!)  Particularly when the goalie said she knows many of those players and didn't blame them.

Kids! They are all kids. Freaking adults didn't handle this well and you all want the kids to have handled it better. Life is not an after school special. We could wish they all would have stopped play or done something....but they are still kids. 

Let's put all their heads up on a stake at the rink, maybe that will be enough.

The adults need to be the focus. You can say you want more to be done in the future. That you want PIHL to have more teeth or control in these situations. Those require changes in rules. But to keep calling for more to be done now, misses the mark a little. 

The hockey team is being punished. They now have a crappier rep to deal with (on a national scale). Every Armstrong team now does. I went to PAHL games this weekend where people whispered about the Armstrong teams on the ice. Nothing to do with the high school, but now they have that stigma and guilt by association.

This is going to follow Armstrong around for a long time. Rightly so.

Move the conversation now to either changes you want to see happen to punishment and/or prevention in the future. 

Better yet...correct your kid when he says he's glad he didn't make the team with the woman coach. When he says, 'That is so gay!' When he is upset that an all girls team beat his, and that shouldn't have happened' because they are...girls. A small amount of what I have seen and overheard just in the past year.

Hockey has a long way to go before it is truly for everyone. The kids are just taking their cues from the adults around them.

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15 hours ago, PUCKCOVID19 said:

I have none, seemed like you where talking them up like their actually going to make penguin cup..... 

Nope, Just don't think they are one of the weaker teams in AA.  I'm puzzled a little by Mars. Expected them to have a better record at this point. Maybe they will get started tonight. Good luck to both teams. Hopefully they will have a great atmosphere to play in. A packed house at UPMC Lemieux.

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49 minutes ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Not sure what you mean by that first sentence. I know it's really expensive and that sure doesn't change as you get older.

The NHL runs a campaign where they state, 'Hockey is for everyone.' With the amount of incidents the sport experiences regarding race and sex, my point is that it has a long way to go to get to the sentiment of that campaign.

And yes, it is expensive, which is another barrier.

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Quote

No need to scores sheet and live barn show all. Started season playing subpar teams and just getting by. Met TJ last week went up 3 caught TJ sleeping. TJ woke up in the second and from there on out wasn't even a game..... So yea.  they are not very good just another average team at best 

@PUCKCOVID19

TJ is nothing to write home about pal. Did you happen to catch the game against Shaler? I did. That's a subpar team this year and you barely snuck by them. Dial it down a notch and temper those expectations.

 

Edited by TurkeyTime
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55 minutes ago, TurkeyTime said:

@PUCKCOVID19

TJ is nothing to write home about pal. Did you happen to catch the game against Shaler? I did. That's a subpar team this year and you barely snuck by them. Dial it down a notch and temper those expectations.

 

Wow, Pa Hockey Rankings has TJ second in AA.  I guess they aren't ranked #1 so they do have room for improvement!!!!

Granted it's early in the season and it should all sort out after Christmas!

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3 minutes ago, TurkeyTime said:

Right, and South Fayette is ranked 4th..and according to @PUCKCOVID19, they are average at best. Sooo,I guess the AA rankings are only for "average" teams this year, TJ included b/c you can't tell me that there is that big of a gap in elite team talent between 2 and 4. 

OK how about we go with no elite teams in AA until the Pens Cup winner and call them Elite!  Sounds like the field is pretty wide open if you all know what you are talking about. I personally have not seen any of them play.

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I don't think anyone who has been around the PIHL for a reasonable period of time really expected them to act properly here.  The history of PIHL governance is spotty at best, and the usual order of business is for the people running the show to take care of their friends first, no matter what.  Either that happened here, or the board is made up of cowards.  This is a national story that has disgraced the league and the school, and essentially nothing was done except to not allow students to come and watch the team play for the rest of the year.  I assume also that the referees received no punishment in spite of their pretending that they couldn't hear anything on the ice.  So in essence, nobody is really punished.

It's very likely that the shenanigans that usually happen at that rink will continue in the future, as it always has since I started going there in the mid 90s.  It will all center around Armstrong/Kittanning, as usual, and nobody will ever be punished for anything, as usual.   Let's not be outraged or surprised the next time something happens there.

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Catching up with some folks & talking about this incident today - earlier this season Butler sent a letter to PIHL about the behavior at Belmont, so this is really strike two against armstrong this season in that rink. I also learned last year Armstrong had to forfeit a win to Moon for a roster violation, though unrelated to bad behavior, I’m not surprised. Get it together up there! Control your parents & students! 
 

PIHL should have done more knowing Mars was not the first incident this season. If PIHL would have handed out discipline for the Butler incident, this doesn’t even happen to Mars. 


 

the more you know. 

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Mars coach, Steve Meyers (Sutton), was a Slippery Rock Alumni from 2003-2006. Wasn't it YOUR class that started the hazing tradition at SRU 15-18 years ago?! You FAILED protecting this young lady as a COACH! As you probably did 15-18 years ago as a SRU player. Take a good look in the mirror, the blame and guild lies with YOU, Sutton, you were there! Why didn't you do anything?! My friend, who will you blame when your team ends up 0-19 this season? Armstrong or PIHL? You got your name out there. Now it is time for you to RESIGN! You should be banned from hockey!

- SRU Rock Hard Pride

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Great support for Willow last night at UPMC Lemieux. Heard there was a standing room only crowd and the local girls teams came out to support Willow.  Sutton, looks like you are being called out here by Rock Hard Pride.  But it is an interesting question.  If you were at that game why didn't you do anything and looking back on it would you do something if it happens again.   

Bottom line you are the one who brought it to this boards attention and it wasn't swept under the rug by Armstrong and PIHL.

Thanks

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Officating epidemic: Referees fleeing youth sports because of abuse, low pay, increased costs

This article was in the Observer Reporter today.  Behind a paywall but I'm sure it relates to Hockey as well.  Not a new problem but people should think about it before getting on the Refs at games.  Without them we don't play the games.

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