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2022 Keystone State Games - Central Region TRYOUTS


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2 hours ago, fafa fohi said:

Why is this event always held in eastern PA?

Difficult to lure top WPA talent when it is structured that way year after year after year.

It's part of the Keystone State Games, which is a non-profit that puts on the event.

In a lot of other sports, teams are entered rather than having a separate tryout. The real question is, why isn't hockey one of the sports entering teams? That was rumored for years, but hasn't happened. There are plenty of teams practicing over the summer and you could really up the ante with real teams playing.

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13 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

It's part of the Keystone State Games, which is a non-profit that puts on the event.

In a lot of other sports, teams are entered rather than having a separate tryout. The real question is, why isn't hockey of plenty of teams practicing over the summer and you could really up the ante with real teams playing.

Spear 

       Nice Idea but does not work for KSG. It actually happened this year as the East 18 U had 14 players from the WBS Junior Knights participate. They went 0-3 and didn't medal, but saved the KSG from not having just three teams. Same thing happened in the Girls Division with Central as 6 of 10 girls are Liberty Univ recruits and they went 0-1-2 good enough for 4th place. 

        KSG needs a new ideas, venue and format or it will die as Philly Region owns the competition with their hand picked teams from 6000 USA Hockey Registered players as opposed to less than half for all other regions. The mentality of the KSG organization will kill it. 

Edited by Pa Hockey
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8 hours ago, Pa Hockey said:

Spear 

       Nice Idea but does not work for KSG. It actually happened this year as the East 18 U had 14 players from the WBS Junior Knights participate. They went 0-3 and didn't medal, but saved the KSG from not having just three teams. Same thing happened in the Girls Division with Central as 6 of 10 girls are Liberty Univ recruits and they went 0-1-2 good enough for 4th place. 

        KSG needs a new ideas, venue and format or it will die as Philly Region owns the competition with their hand picked teams from 6000 USA Hockey Registered players as opposed to less than half for all other regions. The mentality of the KSG organization will kill it. 

I don't agree at all. The team picking process is chaotic and inefficient, team entry events exist, and new sports are changed to team entry every year. Your examples don't show the weakness of a team entry, but rather the weakness of the current system. Things were so bad that the host region couldn't even field a team? That's either an argument for team entry or it's an argument for cutting hockey from the KSG. Either way, the event has fallen significantly from what it was in the early 2000s. 

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7 minutes ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

I don't agree at all. The team picking process is chaotic and inefficient, team entry events exist, and new sports are changed to team entry every year. Your examples don't show the weakness of a team entry, but rather the weakness of the current system. Things were so bad that the host region couldn't even field a team? That's either an argument for team entry or it's an argument for cutting hockey from the KSG. Either way, the event has fallen significantly from what it was in the early 2000s. 

Correct and not going to get any better and the Games will probably go by the wayside as you suggest 

As you know I have been a part of the Central Region for a long time that struggles year after year with numbers and quality of players. This year we had 48 kids tryout for Bantam 14 U and had excellent coaching (VOLUNTEER) and struck Gold. 

Getting coaches to volunteer is not easy and getting good ones is even more challenging. You are right the systems is  not great which is why you disagree. Oh well.  

 

 

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There really is no incentive for the best players to participate. Been said for a long time that the best players avoid it as they either don't want to risk injury or are flat out not permitted to play by their actual teams. It's been a few years since I skated the games, but I can tell you that back then the JR's (and sometimes midgets) would usually devolve into a fight fest and kids trying to injure each other. I truly hope this has changed, but you still have the elephant in the room in that the keystone games don't really serve any purpose other than a couple game tournament over the summer.

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  • 11 months later...
24 minutes ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Keystone State Games were last weekend and not even a single mention here. Given how much discussion there is of all other minutia of local hockey here, how far has this event fallen?

Didn't even look into it this year but I had sticker shock last year. 

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On 8/6/2023 at 5:27 PM, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

Keystone State Games were last weekend and not even a single mention here. Given how much discussion there is of all other minutia of local hockey here, how far has this event fallen?

Pretty sure it’s a very low level event these days. I did hear they moved it to state college this year, one would think that alone would help attract players. I assume since the hockey has really fallen off over the years, nobody cares about it. 

Edited by Danner27
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