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MIddle School HIgh School Hockey


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It is my understanding that Franklin Regional and Shaler pulled out of the PIHL MIddle School HIgh School Hockey. Are there other schools that have pulled out as well and if you know of any who are they ?  Will they be scheduling independently ? This could be interesting as the cost will be a lot cheaper than the PIHL and will attract more kids to play hockey and maybe help save the smaller programs struggling for numbers ? 

 

 

Edited by Pa Hockey
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1 hour ago, Pa Hockey said:

It is my understanding that Franklin Regional and Shaler pulled out of the PIHL MIddle School HIgh School Hockey. Are there other schools that have pulled out as well and if you know of any who are they ?  Will they be scheduling independently ? This could be interesting as the cost will be a lot cheaper than the PIHL and will attract more kids to play hockey and maybe help save the smaller programs struggling for numbers ? 

 

 

QV no longer has a MS team and I believe it was more due to the new PIHL rule that first year MS players ( 07's for this year ) cannot occupy more than 25% of the total roster.  Stupid rule, as you are telling a quality 07 player that may have a better skill set than a 06 or 05 player that they cannot play because of this.

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22 minutes ago, fafa fohi said:

QV no longer has a MS team and I believe it was more due to the new PIHL rule that first year MS players ( 07's for this year ) cannot occupy more than 25% of the total roster.  Stupid rule, as you are telling a quality 07 player that may have a better skill set than a 06 or 05 player that they cannot play because of this.

They can now field a team and play independent with other schools per above 

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7 minutes ago, Pa Hockey said:

They can now field a team and play independent with other schools per above 

I understand that, however let's not dismiss the fact that this is a stupid rule.  And playing an "independent" schedule means no playoffs and I heard most kids that were left without a MS team have already moved on............

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North Hills has a PIHL middle school team, but also has an independent middle school team comprised mostly of 07 by with some additional 08 by to round out the roster. I guess different organizations are taking different approaches based on the what suits their program best. 

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yep this rule hurt a lot of teams. i just don't understand the reasoning behind it.. i could if checking was allowed in middle school, but it isn't.  its just anther gimmick for mid am to try to eliminate middle school hockey so more kids will play pahl and thus more money for somebody's pocket.. 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, rock said:

yep this rule hurt a lot of teams. i just don't understand the reasoning behind it.. i could if checking was allowed in middle school, but it isn't.  its just anther gimmick for mid am to try to eliminate middle school hockey so more kids will play pahl and thus more money for somebody's pocket.. 

 

 

 

It has to do with the premise of first year peewees playing up to checking bantam. Since mid-am and USA Hockey don't recognize  non-checking middle school hockey, it all falls under the  same umbrella as checking hockey.

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Just so everyone knows.  The rule was there before this year.  Not that I agree with it.  I think that it should have stayed the same.  Last year and prior years, play-up players could not be more than 40% of a roster.  This year, 25%.  The difference, 3 players on a 20 person roster.  I can see it hurting a few programs, but not many.  Again, I think that it should have stayed 40/60.

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21 hours ago, rock said:

yep this rule hurt a lot of teams. i just don't understand the reasoning behind it.. i could if checking was allowed in middle school, but it isn't.  its just anther gimmick for mid am to try to eliminate middle school hockey so more kids will play pahl and thus more money for somebody's pocket.. 

 

 

 

I don't know any middle school players who are only playing school hockey. I don't think that is common.

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1 hour ago, hockeyisgreat said:

Any idea as to when the schedules will be out?  Last year they were out August 22nd.   The St Margarets Tournament starts next week. Is Pine Richland the favorite to win it again?  They should have a preseason tournament for Middle School. Nice way to get the season started.

Franklin Regional has had a JV / Middle School Tournament for 20 + Years 

The schedule has been posted to the PIHL Site or will be over the weekend 

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26 minutes ago, Pa Hockey said:

Franklin Regional has had a JV / Middle School Tournament for 20 + Years 

The schedule has been posted to the PIHL Site or will be over the weekend 

Where would I go to find information about the Franklin Regional JV/MS tournament?  I checked a few sites and found nothing.  Must be a pretty well kept secret!  Also why is there a lack of any current news on the PIHL site.  Last year they had some nice news articles. Seems that no one is doing any promotion of HS hockey except Hockey Digest and they don't even have an article about the St. Margarets Tournament.

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1 hour ago, Pa Hockey said:

PM me and I will put you in touch with FR Contact. I think they have a full tournament and it starts soon !  

No problems, I'm just a fan and like to look at results and tournaments to see how everyone is doing. I wonder if there will be any way to find the results for the tournament.

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1 hour ago, Lifelongbender said:

I don't either. I think it's very uncommon. Most kids at this age would want the additional ice in preparation for JV or varsity.

 

Some kids use MS as their intro into ice hockey.  Over the years I have seen such a wide disparity of talent from smaller schools that field only one MS team and need all of the bodies they can get, and in many cases you have inline players taking the ice for the first time while you have other players on the same team that have skated since they were five.  With schools that have enough players to form two teams like SV and PR, their #1 teams are usually quite good with a relatively solid talent across the board.  

That is not always the case for some of these smaller schools fighting just to get one goalie and three lines.

Edited by fafa fohi
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5 hours ago, Saucey said:

I don't know any middle school players who are only playing school hockey. I don't think that is common.

they are out there, trust me.. there are more than you think, just cause you don't know them, doesn't mean they aren't there. 

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6 hours ago, Pa Hockey said:

The schedule has been posted to the PIHL Site or will be over the weekend 

Hopefully they will at least post the home openers for the JV and MS divisions like they did for Varsity if they don’t have the full schedule posted soon.

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this weekend, i heard  that 38 middle school teams folded this year because of this rule. i have not fact checked that, i do not know the schools or the locations, but it came from a boards president. i tried finding a list of teams last year but i couldn't find standings anywhere seems that pihl site does not let you look back at past years.. i counted 39 teams this year.  not even sure if that 38 teams is all pihl.. just passing along info i heard. 

 

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5 hours ago, rock said:

this weekend, i heard  that 38 middle school teams folded this year because of this rule. i have not fact checked that, i do not know the schools or the locations, but it came from a boards president. i tried finding a list of teams last year but i couldn't find standings anywhere seems that pihl site does not let you look back at past years.. i counted 39 teams this year.  not even sure if that 38 teams is all pihl.. just passing along info i heard. 

 

Just looked at old PointStreak site from 2017-18, there were 58 MS teams then.

 

 

 

Edited by powderfinger
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I don’t like the rule and was curious about the impact as well, so I looked at the MS Comparative Formula file and compared it to the MS divisions for the year. Don’t hold me to my quick glance calculations, but it appears that last season there were 58 middle school teams. This season there are 50. 11 schools that had teams last season don’t have teams this season, and a few of those were a school’s “team 2”. This season there are 3 new teams - Avonworth, Knoch and North Catholic 2. Some may not think a loss of 8 teams isn’t that bad, but that’s still over 100 kids not playing MS hockey. 

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