Hello all-

It has been a while since I dropped an update but being that it's been a beautiful week, I felt it was time to update the community.

#1. @Pa Hockey

I have had productive discussions with @Pa Hockey and as a result I have decided to welcome him back. 

Due to a few events in my personal life I have re-evaluated things and decided that I am ok with @Pa Hockey posting tournaments.  After taking time to digest this all, I extended an olive branch to @Pa Hockey and invited him back as I think his informative posts/rankings/and his own "takes" are more valuable than not having him on board.  At the end of the day, I am for as many kids participating in hockey as possible.

Our dispute about advertising tourneys now falls into the "don't sweat the small stuff" category and I am moving on from that.

I will continue to maintain vigilance on the forum as far as ads go, but at this point I likely will be more lenient than before.  For the most part I try to stay out of the way of users and let them run with the ball in terms of what is posted here and I will continue to be mostly behind the scenes.

If you feel up to it, please welcome @Pa Hockey back to the forum.

#2. About me

After a LONG time of running this forum, I think it is time to clarify that I am not the "hockey player" Paul Baxter. 

My favorite hockey player was #4 Paul Baxter and that's why I use that as an alias.  I would attend Pens games in the late 70's (think Ron Stackhouse, Greg Malone, Rick Kehoe) with my Uncle when there were 4,000 people there.  We'd park "for free" on the street below the closed St. Francis Central Hospital and walk through the old parking garage to the CA.

By God's grace I was able to be at Mario Lemieux's first ever home game, Sid's first ever home game, I was also at the famous "five goals 5 ways game" on New Years Eve 12/31/88.  I was at the very first Pittsburgh Gladiators arena league game when the roof opened.  My parents took me to see Billy Jean King play men between 1974-1976. I watched the Pens defeat the Blackhawks in the miracle 5-4 win in Game 1 of the SCF 5/18/92.  I saw probably 50 concerts.  Truck and Tractor pulls.  High School hockey games.  Pitt-Duquesne, and I attended many Pittsburgh Spirit games.

I worked at the Civic Arena for Choice Seat as one of their 2 computer techs on their old Unix mainframe in-house ticketing system in the early 90's.  I literally have explored every single inch of the old Civic Arena building, as it was pretty much me, a security guard, and a refrigeration technician in the entire building when there was no event in progress evenings and weekends.

In real life, I'm Western PA resident that owns an IT business, and who was highly involved in youth hockey while my kids were active. Nobody who I interacted with in PIHL, PAHL and local hockey orgs ever knew that I ran this forum, and that is fine with me. I kept this on the down-low on purpose.

My kids aged out of youth hockey years ago but I enjoy providing this forum to the community on my own dollar.  I have covered the hosting, domain, maintenance and licensing costs of the forum software fully with zero donations.  Free information exchange is a valuable community service that I will provide via this forum as long as I am able to. 

#3. Open to ideas & Feedback.

Thank you all for participating and giving your time to this forum.  If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, feel free to reply.

It's a great day for hockey!
PB

 

1 hour ago, Paul Baxter said:

Hello all-

It has been a while since I dropped an update but being that it's been a beautiful week, I felt it was time to update the community.

#1. @Pa Hockey

I have had productive discussions with @Pa Hockey and as a result I have decided to welcome him back. 

Due to a few events in my personal life I have re-evaluated things and decided that I am ok with @Pa Hockey posting tournaments.  After taking time to digest this all, I extended an olive branch to @Pa Hockey and invited him back as I think his informative posts/rankings/and his own "takes" are more valuable than not having him on board.  At the end of the day, I am for as many kids participating in hockey as possible.

Our dispute about advertising tourneys now falls into the "don't sweat the small stuff" category and I am moving on from that.

I will continue to maintain vigilance on the forum as far as ads go, but at this point I likely will be more lenient than before.  For the most part I try to stay out of the way of users and let them run with the ball in terms of what is posted here and I will continue to be mostly behind the scenes.

If you feel up to it, please welcome @Pa Hockey back to the forum.

#2. About me

After a LONG time of running this forum, I think it is time to clarify that I am not the "hockey player" Paul Baxter. 

My favorite hockey player was #4 Paul Baxter and that's why I use that as an alias.  I would attend Pens games in the late 70's (think Ron Stackhouse, Greg Malone, Rick Kehoe) with my Uncle when there were 4,000 people there.  We'd park "for free" on the street below the closed St. Francis Central Hospital and walk through the old parking garage to the CA.

By God's grace I was able to be at Mario Lemieux's first ever home game, Sid's first ever home game, I was also at the famous "five goals 5 ways game" on New Years Eve 12/31/88.  I was at the very first Pittsburgh Maulers game when the roof opened.  My parents took me to see Billy Jean King play men between 1974-1976. I watched the Pens defeat the Blackhawks in the miracle 5-4 win in Game 1 of the SCF 5/18/92.  I saw probably 50 concerts.  Truck and Tractor pulls.  High School hockey games.  Pitt-Duquesne, and I attended many Pittsburgh Spirit games.

I worked at the Civic Arena for Choice Seat as one of their 2 computer techs on their old Unix mainframe in-house ticketing system in the early 90's.  I literally have explored every single inch of the old Civic Arena building, as it was pretty much me, a security guard, and a refrigeration technician in the entire building when there was no event in progress evenings and weekends.

In real life, I'm Western PA resident that owns an IT business, and who was highly involved in youth hockey while my kids were active. Nobody who I interacted with in PIHL, PAHL and local hockey orgs ever knew that I ran this forum, and that is fine with me. I kept this on the down-low on purpose.

My kids aged out of youth hockey years ago but I enjoy providing this forum to the community on my own dollar.  I have covered the hosting, domain, maintenance and licensing costs of the forum software fully with zero donations.  Free information exchange is a valuable community service that I will provide via this forum as long as I am able to. 

#3. Open to ideas & Feedback.

Thank you all for participating and giving your time to this forum.  If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, feel free to reply.

It's a great day for hockey!
PB

 

Thank you. 

Thanks for all you do for this forum!  Great place for Hockey people to agree to disagree! 

I really enjoy @pa Hockey rankings and all he brings to the Forum.  Hope to see him back soon!

Thanks to all !

Great post and that is quite a history of the Civic Arena. Glad to have you around!

On 3/12/2025 at 3:01 PM, Paul Baxter said:

I would attend Pens games in the late 70's (think Ron Stackhouse, Greg Malone, Rick Kehoe) with my Uncle when there were 4,000 people there.  We'd park "for free" on the street below the closed St. Francis Central Hospital and walk through the old parking garage to the CA.

👍