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North Catholic/Excel Hockey


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56 minutes ago, Chinstrap said:

The official word is that there will be a Varsity team at North Catholic next season.  Best of luck to the boys.

The Middle School program continues to grow and is a few skaters short of fielding two teams.

How many more skaters do they need for a second team?   It is my understanding that they can draw from pretty much anywhere for Middle School. Is that correct?

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1 hour ago, hockeyisgreat said:

How many more skaters do they need for a second team?   It is my understanding that they can draw from pretty much anywhere for Middle School. Is that correct?

The team is looking for a handful of 05/06 players to field a second team. At this point, the team, as well as a lot of other teams in pihl, are being handcuffed by the Mid-Am second year peewee rule. They can draw from anywhere, but generally draw from Catholic/private grade schools, and schools and organizations that are unable to field teams. If anyone is interested in playing, or knows anyone who might be, you can message me with questions, or contact   NCTROJANHOCKEY@GMAIL.COM

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7 hours ago, Chinstrap said:

The official word is that there will be a Varsity team at North Catholic next season.  Best of luck to the boys.

The Middle School program continues to grow and is a few skaters short of fielding two teams.

Good luck. More teams participating is a good thing!

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On 5/23/2019 at 11:25 AM, Bob Loblaw said:

The team is looking for a handful of 05/06 players to field a second team. At this point, the team, as well as a lot of other teams in pihl, are being handcuffed by the Mid-Am second year peewee rule. They can draw from anywhere, but generally draw from Catholic/private grade schools, and schools and organizations that are unable to field teams. If anyone is interested in playing, or knows anyone who might be, you can message me with questions, or contact   NCTROJANHOCKEY@GMAIL.COM

Can you elaborate on the Mid-Am second year peewee rule.  I have head rumors but nothing concrete.  Isn't it something like only 20% of the team can be second year peewee?

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56 minutes ago, AAAAleaguestarter said:

Mid am rule is that only 25% of your final roster is allowed to be 2007 birth year including goalies. It's hurting a lot of teams this year 

I'm pretty sure it excludes goalies from that number but yeah, it's a terrible rule hurting a lot of programs.

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22 minutes ago, powderfinger said:

I'm pretty sure it excludes goalies from that number but yeah, it's a terrible rule hurting a lot of programs.

It does include goalies unfortunately. Organizations now have kids who are able to play hockey in a developmental, nom-checking setting relegated to a practice squad, or even worse turned away because of their birth year. 

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So let’s get this straight.  Under the old rule 8 players could be on a roster of twenty that are playing up.  (40/60 rule, 40% second year peewee and 60% bantams)

Now the rule is only 5 are allowed to play up. (25/75 rule)

I’m now sure how a total of three players is that detrimental to a single program/team.  Trust me, I’m not saying that I agree with the rule change, but 3 total kids can’t hurt a program that badly.

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7 hours ago, PuckHead7 said:

So let’s get this straight.  Under the old rule 8 players could be on a roster of twenty that are playing up.  (40/60 rule, 40% second year peewee and 60% bantams)

Now the rule is only 5 are allowed to play up. (25/75 rule)

I’m now sure how a total of three players is that detrimental to a single program/team.  Trust me, I’m not saying that I agree with the rule change, but 3 total kids can’t hurt a program that badly.

Depends on the size of the program. 

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It’s 25% of your total rostered # of players - not the max possible roster. So if you have a small program it hits hard. For example, a 12-13 player roster only allows for 3 2007s. Several schools aren’t able to field MS teams this season due to the way the rule is now interpreted. 

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Is anyone really up to the challenge?  What does it mean to be in charge of a youth sports club?  Do volunteers board members do all that they can, putting 100% into their job?  Do parents of player do all that they can to support the club?  Blaming Midam isn’t the answer!  Yes, I disagree with the 25/75 (the rule should have stayed at 40%)..... but...

Maybe there’s a need to work a bit harder with recruitment??  My son graduated from an organization that only fielded a half full JV team and a half full MS team a few short seasons ago.  The current president and the board worked their asses off and now the organization has a fairly large Devo group, a Middle School team and a Varsity team.  The district is small!  There is no way they can field both a JV team and a Varsity team.  Point is, they worked their asses off to get the club into this wonderful position.  Growing the program from about 25 kids to about 45 now.  Their Devo group is their FUTURE.  Get them in now, keep them learning and happy and maybe they’ll play through 12th grade.

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4 hours ago, PuckHead7 said:

Is anyone really up to the challenge?  What does it mean to be in charge of a youth sports club?  Do volunteers board members do all that they can, putting 100% into their job?  Do parents of player do all that they can to support the club?  Blaming Midam isn’t the answer!  Yes, I disagree with the 25/75 (the rule should have stayed at 40%)..... but...

Maybe there’s a need to work a bit harder with recruitment??  My son graduated from an organization that only fielded a half full JV team and a half full MS team a few short seasons ago.  The current president and the board worked their asses off and now the organization has a fairly large Devo group, a Middle School team and a Varsity team.  The district is small!  There is no way they can field both a JV team and a Varsity team.  Point is, they worked their asses off to get the club into this wonderful position.  Growing the program from about 25 kids to about 45 now.  Their Devo group is their FUTURE.  Get them in now, keep them learning and happy and maybe they’ll play through 12th grade.

This is great, a development program is a great way to get the kids into the program. However, not all programs have the volunteers or the resources to do this and rely on the middle school program to be the developmental program. After all, that's what Mid-Am claims, that MS should be developmental and then proceeds to hamper programs that are trying to develop by limiting the number of younger players. 

I'm not exactly sure why Mid-Am has made this rule. Dropping it from 9 players to 25% of the total roster is a pretty dramatic change. Maybe this is their way of getting leagues like PIHL to drop the MS level and just have MS be truly developmental only?

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On 5/25/2019 at 10:38 AM, PuckHead7 said:

Is anyone really up to the challenge?  What does it mean to be in charge of a youth sports club?  Do volunteers board members do all that they can, putting 100% into their job?  Do parents of player do all that they can to support the club?  Blaming Midam isn’t the answer!  Yes, I disagree with the 25/75 (the rule should have stayed at 40%)..... but...

Maybe there’s a need to work a bit harder with recruitment??  My son graduated from an organization that only fielded a half full JV team and a half full MS team a few short seasons ago.  The current president and the board worked their asses off and now the organization has a fairly large Devo group, a Middle School team and a Varsity team.  The district is small!  There is no way they can field both a JV team and a Varsity team.  Point is, they worked their asses off to get the club into this wonderful position.  Growing the program from about 25 kids to about 45 now.  Their Devo group is their FUTURE.  Get them in now, keep them learning and happy and maybe they’ll play through 12th grade.

Absolutely, NC is lucky by their location and status (private/religious), they're in a pretty decent place to be able to do some recruiting. Right in the center of the hot Pittsburgh hockey-verse in the North near NA and PR. Several rinks close by. I'd be all over that if I were working with the NC program. 

If you can do some decent recruiting, with their in-house developed core, and maybe lure some good coaching personnel they could be consistently competitive in a handful of years. 

A little local self-promotion wouldn't hurt either. Sell the goal and program. 

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  • 2 years later...
2 minutes ago, RegDunlop7 said:

Looking for some updates/information on this topic.

1. Is EXCEL's high school program comprised of only North Catholic players? The website below states that EXCEL athletes attend classes at NC then head to UPMC for training, but I'm guessing some/most Pens Elite players (who don't attend NC) are also part of EXCEL's high school program?

https://www.excelhockeyacademy.com/high-school-program

2. Are all NC players required to join EXCEL's high school program?

NCHS players are not required to enroll in Excel, however I believe all HS players that play on PPE teams are required.

So if you have $15K for school enrollment, another $5K for Excel, then add PPE fees of roughly $12K per season your young superstar can get all of the best of everything for a paltry $32K or more per year. 

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1 minute ago, fafa fohi said:

NCHS players are not required to enroll in Excel, however I believe all HS players that play on PPE teams are required.

So if you have $15K for school enrollment, another $5K for Excel, then add PPE fees of roughly $12K per season your young superstar can get all of the best of everything for a paltry $32K or more per year. 

What a deal!

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38 minutes ago, fafa fohi said:

NCHS players are not required to enroll in Excel, however I believe all HS players that play on PPE teams are required.

So if you have $15K for school enrollment, another $5K for Excel, then add PPE fees of roughly $12K per season your young superstar can get all of the best of everything for a paltry $32K or more per year. 

The cost and politics of PPE have caused a number of players form Peewee to U18 to leave Pittsburgh and travel to Cleveland to play for the Barons.

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