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Exhibit A, B, and C on why officials keep quitting


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People wonder why there’s an official shortage not only in Western PA, but across USA Hockey as a whole. Especially after Pennsylvania Ice Hockey Officiating (PIHO) Officiating Director Zachary Roberts can’t even respect his own officials. An absolute disgrace to youth hockey. Over charging organizations for scheduling services to schedule officials, and then abusing the very guys who skate for him. Amateur hockey Christmas tournament and Roberts goes awol on this young official. Throwing sticks and gloves onto the ice like a 2 year old when mommy doesn’t buy him a pack of gum at the grocery store. To the organizations that have contracts with PIHO, take a look at how your officiating director treats people. Don’t renew those contracts. Find someone within the organization to schedule. It will save you mountains of money, and you won’t be associated with this disrespect. To the new officials coming on, do you wanna work for this guy? Absolutely not! 

Edited by happygilmore97
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2 minutes ago, RJUSHL said:

Are you saying that the coach on the bench that tossed the goalie stick onto the ice is in charge of officials in some capacity?

And then the young ref (rightly) tried to toss him and he didn’t leave?

And then the older ref didn’t back up the younger ref on his decision?

This is terrible on multiple levels.

What teams are playing here?

Correct. Roberts, who is the PIHO Officiating Director, is the coach on the bench. Allegheny Badgers. He tossed the goalie stick and gloves on the ice. He is ‘in charge’ of the officials for most organizations (including the Badgers) in the Pittsbrugh area. And I use the term ‘in charge’ lightly, as I’m sure you can clearly see why 

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I have to give it to the kid reffing though. He kicked him out and stuck to it without trying to hear his lip.

On the other hand this is very clearly LOW level hockey being played and 2 kids ran into each other while going after the puck. It was a good no call by the refs too.

 

Over the years of my kids playing the Badgers have easily had some of the most classless coaches around.

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RE: the hit.  At that young age unfortunately this happens quite often.  large range of kid sizes and it was an unfortunate hit. 

RE: The dummy on the bench.  Clearly needs to be removed from being coach and being the officiating director.  That was horrible.

 

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37 minutes ago, Wes said:

RE: the hit.  At that young age unfortunately this happens quite often.  large range of kid sizes and it was an unfortunate hit. 

RE: The dummy on the bench.  Clearly needs to be removed from being coach and being the officiating director.  That was horrible.

 

Couldn’t agree more. The kicker here is, Roberts’ company, PIHO, is supposedly focused on development of new officials and helping them out. He did absolutely none of that here.

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11 hours ago, Pucks11 said:

I have to give it to the kid reffing though. He kicked him out and stuck to it without trying to hear his lip.

On the other hand this is very clearly LOW level hockey being played and 2 kids ran into each other while going after the puck. It was a good no call by the refs too.

 

Over the years of my kids playing the Badgers have easily had some of the most classless coaches around.

Seems to fit. Roberts and PIHO have become some of the most classless people in officiating. Ripping off amateur hockey organizations with high scheduling fees and using a buddy-buddy scheduling mindset. 100% guaranteed this kid will never skate for him again, if it’s up to Roberts. 

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Wow!

This type of behavior is unacceptable at any level. The video shows a clear SafeSport violation as well--snatching equipment from a youngster's hand and chucking it on the ice. One would hope that this gets submitted to them as well as the USA Hockey discipline people.

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This incident of the coach throwing the stick and gloves reminds me of an incident in 18uAA last year at PIA, where the Preds and Huskies teams got in quite a heated game, culminated by cheap shots by the Preds onto a Huskies player (hit to the head/boarding) which resulted in a shoving match.  (Read below)

The HC of the Huskies stood up on the bench and was holding a water bottle, and did not do anything other than yell at the officials that they aren't calling the cheap shots.

Huskies HC - who was not penalized during the game - gets a hearing with the league (Which I attended as the team manager), and they accused him of improper behavior for "thinking about" throwing a water bottle.  Remember - thought police!

In the meeting were PAHL staff from Armstrong and Indiana, and those personnel - who either coached and/or had players on competing 18uAA teams - threw the book at our coach and suspended him for 10 games.  He didn't throw the bottle!!!  We were VERY unhappy that personnel from teams we were in a battle with in the division wouldn't recuse themselves.  They didn't and they screwed our team over.

I questioned the PAHL personnel during the meeting about their rules and how they can find someone guilty of "naughty thoughts". 

PAHL= deer in the headlights look to me.  Couldn't answer me.

So fast forward to this coach throwing a stick and gloves on the ice.  

If we go on the basis of what happened to the Huskies HC, this coach should at minimum be gone for the year, if not permanent.

My guess is he won't be hit hard due to his position with PIHO.

Buddy-buddy at it's finest.

 

Edited by Wes
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1 hour ago, Paul Baxter said:

@happygilmore97  Thank you for your original post.  I guess we will see what code of integrity that the PAHL/PIHO and Badgers will live by.

Unfortunately I don't have much confidence that he will be removed from his positions.

He will not be removed from his PIHO position, as I believe he owns the company.

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2 hours ago, Offsides said:

Wow!

This type of behavior is unacceptable at any level. The video shows a clear SafeSport violation as well--snatching equipment from a youngster's hand and chucking it on the ice. One would hope that this gets submitted to them as well as the USA Hockey discipline people.

I was trying to figure that out myself! I’m pretty sure it’s a safesport violation as well. 

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1 hour ago, sadday4hockey said:

Pretty sure PPE uses this PIHO organization as their ref scheduling partner. I wonder how they will react to him littering their rink with sticks and gloves?

Correct. Hopefully not for much longer however, especially after seeing this. I have heard word that this video has also been sent to the Allegheny Badgers organization, as Roberts and PIHO schedules for them as well. 

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He has been removed from his position by the PIHO.  

 

Fyi, Ed Miller does the scheduleing for Badgers, and PIA and Nevin, maybe a couple others.  

I am not an official, but my child is and this is the email that was sent out to officials just minutes ago.  

Screenshot_20221231_163113_Email.jpg

Screenshot_20221231_163139_Email.jpg

Edited by 2muchAAAinWPA
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3 hours ago, sadday4hockey said:

This falls on the MidAm hierarchy and like most things in our District, they will sit idly by as he also gives Jim Weaver who is the District Ref-In-Chief all the games he can skate.

It's just your garden variety quit pro quo.

Submit it to MidAm, where the person in charge will make sure it winds up in the garbage because its the Badgers?

I can't think of a bigger garbage organization in PAHL than the Badgers. From top to bottom. 

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3 hours ago, Wes said:

This incident of the coach throwing the stick and gloves reminds me of an incident in 18uAA last year at PIA, where the Preds and Huskies teams got in quite a heated game, culminated by cheap shots by the Preds onto a Huskies player (hit to the head/boarding) which resulted in a shoving match.  (Read below)

The HC of the Huskies stood up on the bench and was holding a water bottle, and did not do anything other than yell at the officials that they aren't calling the cheap shots.

Huskies HC - who was not penalized during the game - gets a hearing with the league (Which I attended as the team manager), and they accused him of improper behavior for "thinking about" throwing a water bottle.  Remember - thought police!

In the meeting were PAHL staff from Armstrong and Indiana, and those personnel - who either coached and/or had players on competing 18uAA teams - threw the book at our coach and suspended him for 10 games.  He didn't throw the bottle!!!  We were VERY unhappy that personnel from teams we were in a battle with in the division wouldn't recuse themselves.  They didn't and they screwed our team over.

I questioned the PAHL personnel during the meeting about their rules and how they can find someone guilty of "naughty thoughts". 

PAHL= deer in the headlights look to me.  Couldn't answer me.

So fast forward to this coach throwing a stick and gloves on the ice.  

If we go on the basis of what happened to the Huskies HC, this coach should at minimum be gone for the year, if not permanent.

My guess is he won't be hit hard due to his position with PIHO.

Buddy-buddy at it's finest.

 

That sounds like an absolutely ridiculous situation, and with no penalty called on the coach or an ejection, how do you even have a hearing against him?? Let alone a a 10 games? For what, yelling? 

Edited by nemesis8679
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This site never ceases to amaze me.  You have nay sayers claiming nothing will be done, some saying its not enough, one trashing the Badgers org.....  some of you amaze me.  And more to the point, you show just why "parents" are the biggest problem in youth sports.  Im sure this is being looked at by every org he was apart of and there is a system to hand out the right disclipline.  He was removed from his position, so PIHO looked at it, which means they sent it to PAHL and the hockey org he is from.  Let the system work, speak in facts, and show some patience. Too many of you go into riot mode (pitchforks and torches) and blame anything and everything you can for the actions of one person.  Again, parents are the worst.

Edited by 2muchAAAinWPA
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10 minutes ago, 2muchAAAinWPA said:

This site never ceases to amaze me.  You have nay sayers claiming nothing will be done, some saying its not enough, one trashing the Badgers org.....  some of you amaze me.  And more to the point, you show just why "parents" are the biggest problem in youth sports.  Im sure this is being looked at by every org he was apart of and there is a system to hand out the right disclipline.  He was removed from his position, so PIHO looked at it, which means they sent it to PAHL and the hockey org he is from.  Let the system work, speak it facts, and show some patience. Too many of you go into riot mode (pitchforks and torches) and blame anything and everything you can for the actions of one person.  Again, parents are the worst.

While I agree with you here 100%, Roberts, a ‘parent coach’ has been an issue for years. Ask any official, and 98% of them will tell you, within 30 seconds of the games he’s coached, there was constant verbal abuse towards those officials. Just another dad coach who wanted a front row seat to the game. However you are absolutely correct. Things seem to be moving along and it is definitely getting looked at by many! AC6AA875-251B-44DA-87EF-A91BD889EFC1.thumb.jpeg.5d9c9a4c3e4a42b93835fc10ae1ec297.jpeg

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