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When did it change from playing hockey because you love the game or your kid loves the game or you shared your love of the game with your kid to the dumpster fire we have now? In the mid 1990's we had ~130 or so HS varsity programs between West Penn, South Hills and Lake Shore HS leagues , one tier 1 org and PAHL teams were fairly competitive within their divisions.

and to be totally fair:

When did it go from officiating to give back to the game to skating for the money?

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2 hours ago, GrumpyOldPucker said:

When did it change from playing hockey because you love the game or your kid loves the game or you shared your love of the game with your kid to the dumpster fire we have now? In the mid 1990's we had ~130 or so HS varsity programs between West Penn, South Hills and Lake Shore HS leagues , one tier 1 org and PAHL teams were fairly competitive within their divisions.

and to be totally fair:

When did it go from officiating to give back to the game to skating for the money?

When hockey became to expensive for the average person to play and it became a rich kids game only. When sticks went from $20-$40 a piece in the 90's to $300-$400 nowadays.

That is also the same time that reffing became about the $$$ and not just giving back. These rich kid parents don't like to waste money and to them time is money and money is time so if you are going to ref and they are paying your salary you better be perfect and see EVERYTHING!

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16 hours ago, GrumpyOldPucker said:

When did it change from playing hockey because you love the game or your kid loves the game or you shared your love of the game with your kid to the dumpster fire we have now? In the mid 1990's we had ~130 or so HS varsity programs between West Penn, South Hills and Lake Shore HS leagues , one tier 1 org and PAHL teams were fairly competitive within their divisions.

and to be totally fair:

When did it go from officiating to give back to the game to skating for the money?

There are lot's of officials out there giving back to the game.  The question is do you want those guys working your game?  People don't sit in the stands and appreciate that the official is giving back his time.  Gas was also $1.15 in 1990, I assume skates and uniforms were less then to.  Drive an hour to get to a game the $45 they pay you suddenly looks like a loss and not really time well spent.  I would also guess that in 1990 you were paid with an envelope of cash, now your "additional income" is recorded online and you receive a nice fresh 1099 at the end of the year.  People are not necessarily in it for the money but the money sure is nice when you eliminate the tax man and are arguably fairly compensated.

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15 hours ago, Pucks11 said:

When hockey became to expensive for the average person to play and it became a rich kids game only. When sticks went from $20-$40 a piece in the 90's to $300-$400 nowadays.

Hockey has ALWAYS been too expensive for many to play. This isn't a new situation. 

Sadly the fact is that every sport is expensive now, and about the money. Even baseball is expensive nowadays if you want to do it "right". There are schools and clinics and tutors and skill instructors and hyped-up overpriced equipment in every sport. We have reached the point where, instead of the obvious good policy to play many sports and have fun, many - if not most - parents think that if their kid takes the summer off from hockey to play baseball, their kid will fall behind the others who are taking clinics and going to camps and paying private instructors. This has been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere on this board.

There is plenty of fault to go around, including the parents who think they can somehow buy excellence for their players, to the instructors and schools who stir up that hype, to the organizations who encourage players to play year round or they'll lose their edge. USA Hockey officially encourages players to play many sports, but how many times do they actually encourage it out loud? The same goes with every coach I know - they'll tell you that your kid should play many sports to ensure well-rounded development, but then they schedule drylands and skates and try to get their kids to go to schools.

The truth is that to some extent the idea that sports of any kind used to be about the kids was NEVER true, and on the other hand every sport has become saturated with money and people who will gladly take that money for dubious results.

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Once adults figured out that there was money to be made it was all over. It's every sport, happening for decades. 

https://changingthegameproject.com/the-professionalization-of-youth-sports/

Parents want their kid to play on the same teams as the other kids their kid started with. Their kids want that. So they jump onto the hamster wheel of lessons and summer hockey and AAA. It is hard not to give in to the peer pressure. 

Parents also think this is all leading to college scholarships, too. Most don't really think their kid is NHL material.Many have no idea that NCAA D1 is the only place this happens. I have a pretty good hockey player. People assume my kid is going to get a scholarship to play hockey and when I explain that we are likely going to continue to pay lots of money for him to play because like 90 percent of the hockey kids playing, he is not D1 material, and they are so shocked... because their kid is not playing at my kids level, so if my kid isn't getting anything, then guess who else isn't? People really do have some vague idea that this will lead to money for school.

Grades. Grades and high SAT scores may get you money for school. (School is test optional? Well, that SAT score, if good, may help get merit money.)

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1 hour ago, Saucey said:

People assume my kid is going to get a scholarship to play hockey and when I explain that we are likely going to continue to pay lots of money for him to play because like 90 percent of the hockey kids playing, he is not D1 material, and they are so shocked... because their kid is not playing at my kids level, so if my kid isn't getting anything, then guess who else isn't? People really do have some vague idea that this will lead to money for school.

Grades. Grades and high SAT scores may get you money for school. (School is test optional? Well, that SAT score, if good, may help get merit money.)

So much this. Have been through it with a kid and about to with another.  Trust me keeping your grades and test scores up are the best way to get a scholarship.  So much time and money wasted chasing an almost impossible dream of division 1 full ride.  Not to mention put that money towards college and they will have a full ride to begin with. 

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In the 1990s, there were 3 triple A organizations - Steel City/Pittsburgh Stars, Mt. Lebanon/Pittsburgh Hornets, and Amateur (later Junior) Penguins. I believe the Amateur Penguins was the only one of those three to be AAA in the 1980s.

A lot of things hurt HS hockey in the area. It hurt when the PIHL started to require things like minimum grades and students being enrolled in the school they played for. All of a sudden, there was some off-ice accountability. I am sure there was a lot of rule-bending that all of a sudden ended, and in some cases probably resulted in the death of some teams. Even mighty Meadville, who dominated the 1990s, was a victim around 10-15 years ago when it came out that half of their players were enrolled at Cochranton HS and not Meadville (their justification was it is the same school district, and technically there was some precedent with Armstrong Central in the 1990s). Then the new wave of rinks in the 1990s and 2000s hurt because they increase ice fees to cover the cost of their newly constructed facilities. Somewhere around 2000, the Easton Synergy stick came out and normalized paying $100 for a stick, and about the same time, the top end skates starting increasing in price $50 or $100 every year. Top end skates were around $250 in 1995, and by 2005 they were double that. The other equipment crept up as well. Being more organized also drove up costs. Players had to have matching helmets and pants, nicer jerseys, etc. They look much better on and off the ice for sure, but it's not cheap to do that. So while hockey was always expensive, it got much more expensive. The number of new rinks also had a bit of an unintended consequence of increasing the difference between bad and good HS teams. If you watch one of those old games in the 1970s or 1980s, there are about 5-6 kids on the ice who can skate forward and backward and turn both ways , and the rest look like guys who started playing when they were 13-14. Nowadays, there are many more kids who started playing at an early age. I'm sure you all know, an average player can skate circles around a bad player. If you are a good player, but live in a district where your HS team is terrible, is it really any fun to get pounded 11-1 every game? It's no longer like the old days where you could at least be competitive with 3-4 average players. Plus, with kids at cyber schools, charters, and other alternative schools, and with kids jumping organizations at younger ages, representing your high school or community is just not as important to them. So anyhow, a whole lot happened, and I don't think you can blame any one thing. More like a death by 1000 paper cuts. I do think that the programs that have survived are generally much stronger today, and it does seem to have settled out over the last 5-10 years.

The whole NCAA thing makes my head hurt. Someone here probably has stats on this, but there are around 60 NCAA teams, and each team has a maximum of 18 scholarships. A lot of teams don't grant 18 scholarships, and it's often more like 9-10 total scholarships they split up among the 25-30 players on their roster. On top of that, something like 35-40% of NCAA D1 hockey players are foreign, and I sort of assume that the scholarship dollars go much more in their direction. So anyhow, hardly any NCAA roster spots compared to the number of kids playing, and many of those people on those rosters are not scholarship players....oh and scholarships are only a 1 year commitment anyhow. Coach thinks you're not working out? He'll give your scholarship to another player and cut you. Just nothing like football, which is 130 teams in the highest tier of D1 and 85 scholarships per team. Or basketball, which is only 13 scholarships per team, but over 350 teams. In both cases, very few foreign players, certainly nowhere near what hockey has.

https://www.ncsasports.org/mens-hockey/scholarships

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Bottom line!  If you are in Youth Hockey to get your kid a scholarship you are plain and simple wasting your time and money. Probably a better chance to hit the lottery!  It's hard in all sports but almost impossible in Hockey for all the reasons stated above!  I've got eyes wide open now and hope mine are just playing for the love of the sport.  Although I would probably still let mine try to play Juniors if he really wants to try.  I've wasted far more money on far less endeavors.

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46 minutes ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Bottom line!  If you are in Youth Hockey to get your kid a scholarship you are plain and simple wasting your time and money. Probably a better chance to hit the lottery!  It's hard in all sports but almost impossible in Hockey for all the reasons stated above!  I've got eyes wide open now and hope mine are just playing for the love of the sport.  Although I would probably still let mine try to play Juniors if he really wants to try.  I've wasted far more money on far less endeavors.

Well said!

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3 hours ago, hockeyisgreat said:

 Although I would probably still let mine try to play Juniors if he really wants to try.  I've wasted far more money on far less endeavors.

I have zero issues with this, so long as you know. It is becoming pretty common to take a "gap"year or two before going to school. If you don't know what you want to study, have the money and maybe you need to see what life is like, go play more hockey, why not.

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9 minutes ago, Saucey said:

I have zero issues with this, so long as you know. It is becoming pretty common to take a "gap"year or two before going to school. If you don't know what you want to study, have the money and maybe you need to see what life is like, go play more hockey, why not.

Take some JuCo or Community College classes instead of a freshman year and you might come out even

Edited by Lucky17
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Just now, Lucky17 said:

Take some JuCo classes instead of a freshman year and you might come out even

Some Junior Colleges even have hockey programs. Absolutely, I would have my child explore what they want to do in addition to the hockey through either classes or a part time job or both.

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5 hours ago, Spear and Magic Helmet said:


The whole NCAA thing makes my head hurt. Someone here probably has stats on this, but there are around 60 NCAA teams, and each team has a maximum of 18 scholarships. A lot of teams don't grant 18 scholarships, and it's often more like 9-10 total scholarships they split up among the 25-30 players on their roster. On top of that, something like 35-40% of NCAA D1 hockey players are foreign, and I sort of assume that the scholarship dollars go much more in their direction. So anyhow, hardly any NCAA roster spots compared to the number of kids playing, and many of those people on those rosters are not scholarship players....oh and scholarships are only a 1 year commitment anyhow. Coach thinks you're not working out? He'll give your scholarship to another player and cut you. Just nothing like football, which is 130 teams in the highest tier of D1 and 85 scholarships per team. Or basketball, which is only 13 scholarships per team, but over 350 teams. In both cases, very few foreign players, certainly nowhere near what hockey has.

https://www.ncsasports.org/mens-hockey/scholarships

Pretty on with the ncaa thoughts - most schools average around 8 full rides the remaining 10 scholarships get split in half, smaller programs will split them into quarter’s. Most don’t know the 3rd goalie gets nothing. They usually won’t even get in a game during their entire ncaa career. Teams have their 1 & 2, when one of these kids move on they bring in another that will play. Number 3 is the same kid for 4-5 years (until they graduated, drops out or quit). 

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