High School Tryouts vs Amateur

[PowerPlay]

Do all western PA High School teams have tryouts and determine their varsity teams in the spring?   I seem to remember this being done in the fall (August) prior to the season.  I understand Amateur teams trying to secure players (customers' $$) for the following season, but why do High schools?  If you don't make your high school, it's not like you can go somewhere else??

 

Also, several years ago, someone posted a presentation about making PIHL/amateur split seasons like MN and Western NY and I can't find the post.  Wondered if that was ever presented to PIHL / Rinks and why it obviously wasn't considered.

[Jack Handey]

1 hour ago, PowerPlay said:

Do all western PA High School teams have tryouts and determine their varsity teams in the spring? 

Most are spring.  Some are summer/early fall.

1 hour ago, PowerPlay said:

Wondered if that was ever presented to PIHL / Rinks and why it obviously wasn't considered.

Oh that was a long long time ago - several years ago and pre-dating this instance of the message board. 

It was presented to PAHL for sure, not sure about PIHL.  Most everyone likes the idea.  Unfortunately, the rink ownership group saw that it meant less revenue to them, so they shut it down.  The current model, regardless of how inconvenient to consumers, makes the rinks more money.

 

[Danner27]

It seems to be changing to spring more & more for varsity tryouts (what I see posted around). 

[Saucey]

Hockey season starts so quickly, I can see doing it in spring. And the programs have ice to use.

[Corsi]

Yes, I believe Saucey is correct.  Most of the contracts the organizations have with rinks extends until the end of April or early May so they use the ice when they have access to it.  I also, believe some varsity programs have Summer conditioning/lifting programs for the players, so it allows them to have those players and numbers in place.  I do wonder though, what happens if a player moves into a given school district in July or August, would the teams have a spot available, especially if the player in question is a good player?  My instinct is to say that no coach is going to to turn down a player that could help their team, especially at the varsity level.

[mrfreeze]

39 minutes ago, Corsi said:

Yes, I believe Saucey is correct.  Most of the contracts the organizations have with rinks extends until the end of April or early May so they use the ice when they have access to it.  I also, believe some varsity programs have Summer conditioning/lifting programs for the players, so it allows them to have those players and numbers in place.  I do wonder though, what happens if a player moves into a given school district in July or August, would the teams have a spot available, especially if the player in question is a good player?  My instinct is to say that no coach is going to to turn down a player that could help their team, especially at the varsity level.

Most Varsity teams will roster between 10-15 players and rotate dual rostered JV players though the open spots against teams as the season goes on. So if a kid does move in to town, they also have the flexibility. For the armature team, it is harder as they set their rosters and typically they don't have the space to add the kids. This is why you will sometimes find a top level kid on a team that had an open spot or missed the tryouts and they move on the following season. At the higher older levels, the kids typically stay behind till end of the season or will reach out and tryout before moving to a market.

[Spear and Magic Helmet]

20 hours ago, PowerPlay said:

Do all western PA High School teams have tryouts and determine their varsity teams in the spring?   I seem to remember this being done in the fall (August) prior to the season.  I understand Amateur teams trying to secure players (customers' $$) for the following season, but why do High schools?  If you don't make your high school, it's not like you can go somewhere else??

 

Also, several years ago, someone posted a presentation about making PIHL/amateur split seasons like MN and Western NY and I can't find the post.  Wondered if that was ever presented to PIHL / Rinks and why it obviously wasn't considered.

I think a lot of teams do spring tryouts to determine their numbers. At the lower end, where programs are struggling, the spring tryout will determine how many teams they will have and how much ice they will buy.

The split season thing is hard for a number of reasons. I don't see it happening and personally I don't see any good reason to try to make it happen.

#1, there are a lot of high schools that don't have teams. What are those kids going to do? It's a LOT of players.

#2, in many places, the split season only further divides the high school/amateur split. There will be a lot of teams that are not bound by that agreement. In Western NY, the junior teams don't play split season, for example. I think some of the midget teams play full season now too. And good luck getting PPE and Esmark to adhere to a split season. I'd bet many of the affectionately named "faux AAA" teams also will not be bound by split season. Money issues aside, I don't see how any kid would pick playing for a terrible high school team over playing for PPE. Back when I was paying attention, around 2005-2015, many kids in Western NY were opting to play Jr hockey instead of fully-funded high school because Junior was "better". Like the old saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

#3, the PIHL season is way too long to accommodate split season teams. Tryouts in the spring, on ice starting in July or August, games starting in October and going through March or early April - none of this works for a "split" season. PIHL would have to be November to February, just like other winter sports. They just aren't interested in doing that.

[stickboy]

I agree with the above.  #3 brings up an interesting point. Is hockey season (PAHL/PIHL/Indy) too long?  The Aug/Sept start through April, overlaps with both fall and spring sports and makes it difficult for multi sport athletes. Does hockey season need to be 7 months long?  Is it dictated by rink income/operations?  Nov-Feb seems good, so there is an actual off season. 

[twoboys]

I would think for the split season to work a lot of the high school teams would need to  increase their ice time.  Maybe go to 4-5 practices a week.  Like all other high school sports.

[Saucey]

1 hour ago, stickboy said:

I agree with the above.  #3 brings up an interesting point. Is hockey season (PAHL/PIHL/Indy) too long?  The Aug/Sept start through April, overlaps with both fall and spring sports and makes it difficult for multi sport athletes. Does hockey season need to be 7 months long?  Is it dictated by rink income/operations?  Nov-Feb seems good, so there is an actual off season. 

There are so many teams playing and not enough ice. That is what was explained to me about the length of the season.

Split seasons have their issues, too. Travel programs end up playing their season in a compressed time frame in order to play enough games to qualify for Nationals.

There really is no perfect way to do it.

 

 

[PowerPlay]

2 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:

#3, the PIHL season is way too long to accommodate split season teams. Tryouts in the spring, on ice starting in July or August, games starting in October and going through March or early April - none of this works for a "split" season. PIHL would have to be November to February, just like other winter sports. They just aren't interested in doing that.

This is probably the easiest fix.  Agree High School should only be 4 months long.  amateur teams would just have to lose a few practice slots along the way in those months.  You could bounce mid-school to spring.  still buy same amount of ice, and amateur teams could have more ice for early season prep, and more practice and prep for playoffs/nationals.