St Joseph's Prep Hawks

Quaker Valley 4 Bishop McCort 2 Coraopolis – The last time a Bishop McCort started the season with no wins after three games many of the current Crusher were not even born yet and in fact the last losing season for McCort was in 1991. So head coach John Bradley isn’t used to such dilemmas for his club and its safe to say that even after an 0-2-1 start, the Crimson Crushers should rebound and make the Penguins Cup playoffs in 2007, which admits anyone who wants to play hockey in March as 8 out of 13 schools in the depleted Class A Division will move on. More important at hand is the seeding that McCort could face if they dig themselves a hole at the beginning of the season, which will be a little more important this season as Mars, Freeport and Beaver look to join the Penguins Cup chase. So a 4th or 5th seed for the Crushers and an all important home game in the 2nd round of the playoffs could mean the Bishop McCort may have to pick up a big win along the way against a team like Quaker Valley and there would be no better time to start than this evenings match-up. Ah ………..State Champions………….sounds nice and has been a long time coming for Kevin Quinn and Quaker Valley, who after they eliminated Sewickley Academy in the semi-finals never looked back in pounding Serra Catholic in the Penguins Cup and then Penncrest in the Class A State Finals to capture their first ever State Championship. Through all of that, the Quakers have developed quite a following with a nice crowd on hand at the Airport for tonight’s matchup. The Quakers are off to a decent start at 2-0-1 and looking to repeat their feat from a year ago. Bishop McCort had the first opportunity on the power play and converted as Jordan Jaco took a Todd Thomas pass and beat Zac Zinger over the glove hand side to give McCort a 1-0 lead. At 6:39 of the opening period, the Crimson Crushers were whistled for too many men on the ice, but QV couldn’t score. Mikail Lemieux had an opportunity on a breakaway with 1:57 left but Danny Mock made the save on the backhand attempt. With less than a minute to go the Crushers went back on the power play and force another penalty in the waning moments of the 1st resulting a minute of 5 on 3 to start the 2nd period. It took only 19 seconds for the Crushers to convert as Shawn James scored to the far post on a give and go with Todd Thomas beating Zinger on the ice to give McCort a 2-0 lead at 14:41. The hole got deeper for the Quakers with another penalty at the 14:00 mark and another 5 on 3 for the Crushers. QV killed off the first minute and the lamp lit on the other side as Mikail Lemieux took a picture perfect pass from Colin South and buried a wrist shot in the upper corner at 12:06 for a shorthanded tally and huge momentum swing with the score 2-1. With 8:47 left in the 2nd period, the Quakers got their chance to tie the game on the power play, but was nullified by a even up call. With 50 seconds in the 2nd period, Colin South threaded a tremendous head man pass to Mikail Lemieux who was behind the Crusher defense and beat Danny Mock on the backhand to tie the hockey game at two apiece. Thrd period. QV goaltender Zac Zinger made two real nice stops in the opening minute of third period. On a four on four at 12:07, Jason Moisey scored on a slap shot from the right point, which snuck behind Cory Mock to give QV their first lead 3-2. With 4:27 remaining in regulation McCort went on the power play and QV would be without Lemieux and South on their way to the important Hornet’s practice, but the Quakers stiffened and killed it off. Greg Dyer closed it out with an empty netter with 14.8 ticks left and the Quakers captured a 4-2 victory over McCort, leaving the Crushers winless on the season at 0-3-1, while QV moved to 3-0-1.

Moon 4 Montour 1 Coraopolis – Moon is off to a 3-2 start after dropping a close 5-3 decision to Kittanning last night and to Cathedral Prep 4-3, but are right in the thick of the Class AA race and for coach Craig Bioni knows that the Tigers will have to make hay against teams in front and behind the to elevate the playoff seeding. Moon came on at end of 2006 and looks to be a team who could spring an upset or two in the playoffs with a core group of seniors. Montour has opened with a 3-1-2 mark and stands alone in 1st place in the West Division. Head Coach Dan Siegel’s club looks to be in the Penguins Cup AA mix although dropping a contest at Indiana last week. The Spartans are ranked 4th in Class AA, but face a very challenging schedule where every night will be important to decide the playoff seedings in March. The Spartans will face the toughest part of their schedule in December with Moon twice, Franklin Regional and defending Class AA Pa State champions Pine Richland in that stretch. The rivalry between Moon and Montour drew a standing room only crowd at the Airport Landslide Landside rink. After a scoreless opening half of the first period, at 7:14of the opening period, the Tigers took a 1-0 lead as Cedric Brazeau snapped a wrist shot over the stick side of Matt Skoff. On to the 2nd period and after a delayed penalty call and an apparent whistle, Montour scored as # 11 scored on a slapshot and it was ruled no goal, so the Tigers maintained a 1-0 lead but would be facing a penalty kill as Montour would have the man advantage. Greg Clarke scored on a rebound with 2:18 remaining to knot the score at one apiece. The Spartans went on the power play with 11:51 to go in regulation but was nullified by a Montour penalty with 10:49 left. With 9:16 remaining Moon’s Matt Reese beat Matt Skoff on a lazy slap shot from the right hand boards, which eluded the Montour goaltender and gave the Tigers a 2-0 lead. Montour went back on the power play moments later but failed to score. The Tigers came back at 6:12 and scored a huge insurance goal as John Davis shot and Misha Kleynjans scored on the backhand to give Moon a 3-1 advantage. With 2:05 remaining, John Davis hit Dan Clark on a long lead pass who eluded the Montour defense almost beat Matt Skoff, but Joe DeNardo was there to bang home the rebound and give Moon a 4-1 lead and victory.

It’s time for some major changes in Amateur and High School Hockey…maybe some people and organizations have outlived their usefulness? Many of you that follow Pa Hockey know that I have been pretty critical of the administration of the Villans and the philosophy of the OTHER Villans of Interscholastic Hockey, which is the AAA AND Junior B coaches who hold themselves to higher esteem to anyone else in the hockey community, who are FORMER high school coaches who couldn’t survive Interscholastic Hockey or found their egos satisfied by the extortion of young people through making them miss high school games and making them drink to vanted ‘Kool Aid’ and sign ‘Mr Haney’s’ contract. Now this may seem like harsh words or bitterness from someone who supports High School Hockey and ALL Hockey in this area , but this continuous ring in my ears about ALL of the Division 1 Scouts and Junior A Scouts at these tournaments is great exposure for our young people, if true, but I find it hard to believe that we have 6 AAA Midget Teams in this area and all of them are going to DIFFERENT tournaments and at these six DIFFERENT Tournaments, there are loads of NHL, NCAA Division 1 and Junior A Scouts at EVERY DIFFERENT tournament. In addition, this philosophy is now being sold to kids that are 9 and 10 years old by these organizations, not to help them secure a future hockey career, but to get their money into the organization to fund all of these out of town trips. And many of these players going to Junior B camps are being asked to fork out bigs bucks in exchange for a chance at ‘the Dream’. Supposed High School friendly organizations, namely the Junior B Penguins and North Hills Vipers, who say ‘yes….we support High School Hockey and we don’t want you to miss your high school games’ are talking out of both sides of their mouth and telling their players that the consequences are THAT THEY WILL SIT AT THEIR JUNIOR B OR MIDGET AAA games on the weekend, if they miss practice during the same times as High School game and tournaments. Now I have been and will be the first to admit, I have been very critical of the Hornets organization for their policies and contracts, but they encourage their players not to play high school and play one team, which I still don’t believe is the right thing, but it is not as hypocritical as the other choices. Especially given the amount of money families are bring asked to fork out to mortgage their children’s future. At the National Invitational Scholastic Showcase in November in Jamestown, I had an opportunity to meet and discuss Interscholastic and Amateur Hockey with people from places like New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Indiana and Eastern Pennsylvania and the overwhelming sentiment was that a National High School Tournament would be a great event and an overwhelming majority, if not all of the twelve teams will return to Jamestown on December 7-9, 2007. Maybe Bethel Park will have their Junior B players so they can better compete with Buffalo St Francis or Holy Ghost Prep will have their 4 midget AAA players or possibly Summit Christian Academy from West Palm Beach, Florida will have a full bench to compete with the best teams in the country. New York and Illinois have Split Seasons to allow their players to ENJOY both High School/Prep and Midget /Amateur Hockey. Locally, the Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase in late December will have the best tournament field ever, but who knows what players will disappear under threats of duress from AMATEUR coaches, not just at the Midget level, but now at the Bantam and even Pee Wee levels because of some great whipped up tournament in Columbus or Harrisburg or Virginia or some other hockey scout hockey hotbed. Folks, the Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase is now in its 11th year and is one of the premier events in the country and its fun and most importantly ITS LOCAL and an opportunity for these kids to play in front of their peers and families and showcase their talents. Plum’s R.J. Umberger played in it, as did Seton LaSalle’s JB Bittner, as did TJ’s John Zeiler, Seton LaSalle’s Louie Garritan, BP’s Denny Kirstein, Central’s Bernie Chmiel, Lebo’s Robbie Hammel, Peter’s Christian Minella, Indiana’s Casey Haines, Peter’s Matt Schwartz, Peter’s Chris and Matt Clackson, and many more who have gone onto Division 1 hockey. I was watching a division 1 game between Maine and Boston College the other night and the captain of Maine is 26 years old. So my question is why is this hockey community so in a hurry to push 13, 14 and 15 year olds in travel hockey instead of letting these kids mature and enjoy the process. The answer is the self-serving greed and egos of the coaches and the travel organizations! The result has been that the AA midget programs that were the backbone of the PAHL for many years and serve the majority of the high school programs in Western Pennsylvania has disappeared. Replaced by half baked AAA Midget Teams, that are AA teams with a handful of AAA players, the infrastructure of the development of hockey in this area in shambles. In addition, Developmental Hockey players in learn to skate programs are being pushed into Mite A and AA programs, leaving the Developmental In House programs bare to the bone with little or no players. I know this because I have been approached by several organizations already and my 7 year old is still learning the fundamentals of skating and hockey in Allegheny Hockey Association’s tremendous program. The by-Product of this at the Interscholastic level is the PIHL Open Division, which is a mix of Co-Op Impure Schools, Recreational hockey teams of players who have the money to play and afford the extortionist PIHL Billing system and schools who have stacked teams to play down from their Enrollment level to clobber bad teams and glorify themselves in a league that can only be known as the re-birth of ‘the South Penn League’, which was a league developed for schools that no one else wanted to play in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but was a great way of collecting USA Hockey Team Registration Fees and today is keeping the overpaid and under-qualified commissioner employed. People the answer to all of this is Split-Season, which Bethel Park’s Jim McVay is doing and to another extent has been done at North Allegheny and will be adopted very soon by other organizations locally. This is the first step and the second step is to pare down the number of AAA Midget [including Junior B] programs to 2 or 3. The third step is to start putting together some Developmental programs, like the Pa Hockey Developmental Clinics [we now are approaching 150 players in the Murrysville Dek Hockey Program built from scratch] to rebuild the infrastructure of the PAHL and the fourth and final step is to rebuild the PIHL with cooperation from the Amateur and Travel organizations to play on the weeknights on Monday through Thursday, while the Amateurs play on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The other agreement will be to set the marquee High School Tournaments, such as the St Margaret’s Fall Face Off [October], Kittanning Invitational [October], Central Catholic Invitational [November], National Invitational Scholastic Showcase [early December], Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase [after Christmas], Meadville Invitational and Bethel Park MLK [Presidents Day weekend] dates a year in advance to allow travel coaches the opportunity to NOT schedule their out of town tournaments at those times. Out of the 20 odd weeks of the hockey season, the Interscholastic Hockey community would only be asking for a half dozen weekends to play and promote these great events and more importantly the BEST players would be afforded the opportunity to play in these events and showcase their talents. And maybe, just maybe all of these Division 1 Scouts and Junior A Scouts at these tournaments would COME TO PITTSBURGH FOR THE FIRST TIME CAUSE LEGEND HAS IT NONE OF THEM HAVE EVER BEEN HERE. Before we think that every Division 1 program, Junior A program and NHL team is looking at OUR players, we ought to think about cleaning up our ENTIRE philosophy and infrastructure of hockey in this area and maybe get some coaches who really care About the players and the future of this sport who are now sitting on the sideline waiting for the smoke to clear. It’s time for some major changes in Amateur and High School Hockey…and MOST OF THEM HAVE outlived their usefulness in OUR Hockey Community!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH BETHEL PARK 6 MONTOUR 1 THOMAS JEFFERSON 10 MONSIGNOR BONNER 1 HIGHLIGHTS: BROCK HEINAUER SCORES 4 GOALS NORTH ALLEGHENY 5 CENTRAL CATHOLIC 4 HIGHLIGHTS: NA BUILDS A 4-1 LEAD AND CC RALLIES TO TIE BEFORE TIGERS SCORE GWG SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18TH THOMAS JEFFERSON 3 NORTH ALLEGHENY 2 HIGHLIGHTS: TJ goals were scored by: A.J. Parkinson (2 goals) (A.J. is a freshman) and the other TJ goal was scored by defenseman Corey Joseph. Brock Heinauer assisted on all 3 TJ goals. Wes Waldschmidt for NA BETHEL PARK 9 MONSIGNOR BONNER 4 CENTRAL CATHOLIC 5 MONTOUR 3 BETHEL PARK 4 NORTH ALLEGHENY 1 CENTRAL CATHOLIC 8 MONSIGNOR BONNER 1 MONTOUR 3 THOMAS JEFFERSON 2 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19TH Semi-Final Game - Central Catholic 7 Montour 3 Semi-Final Game - Bethel Park 6 North Allegheny 3 Championship Game - Bethel Park 5 Central Catholic 4 (2 OT) Congratulations to Bethel Park for capturing the CC Invitational !

The IceLine Complex in West Chester, Pennsylvania annually hosts a terrific hockey event for High School Teams from the Northeastern United States and this year on December 28-31 Iceline will once again host the 2006 IceLine Extravaganza. 2006 HOLIDAY TOURNAMENT VARSITY AAA DIVISION Malvern Prep 5 Cardinal O'Hara 2 Hershey 5 Malvern Prep 2 University School 3 St. Mary's 3 St. Mary's 4 Hershey 1 Cardinal O'Hara 4 University School 1 Malvern Prep 2 St. Mary's 4 Cardinal O'Hara 8 Hershey 7 University School 2 Malvern Prep 3 SEMI-FINALS Hershey 2 University School 1 St. Mary's 4 Cardinal O'Hara 3 FINALS St. Mary's 4 Hershey 0 2006 HOLIDAY TOURNAMENT VARSITY AA DIVISION Conestoga 4 LaSalle 2 Penncrest 3 Downingtown West 1 West Chester East 0 Neshaminy 1 Bayard Rustin 8 Landon School 3 Henderson 1 Pennsbury 4 Haverford High 3 Downingtown East 1 Springfield 3 Kennett 3 Downingtown West 10 Conestoga 2 Neshaminy 2 Penncrest 3 LaSalle 3 West Chester East 3 Landon School 0 Haverford High 4 Downingtown East 3 Bayard Rustin 3 Pennsbury 7 Springfield 2 Kennett 6 Henderson 3 Conestoga 4 Neshaminy 2 West Chester East 2 Downingtown West 3 Penncrest 2 LaSalle 2 Springfield 1 Henderson 2 Kennett 5 Pennsbury 2 Bayard Rustin 2 Haverford High 2 Landon School 3 Downingtown East 1 QUARTER-FINALS Haverford High (1st) 6 LaSalle II (8th) 0 Downingtown West. (4th) 0 Pennsbury (5th) 1 Kennett (2nd) 2 Conestoga (7th) 5 Penncrest (3rd) 0 Bayard Rustin (6th) 3 SEMI-FINALS Haverford High 6 Pennsbury 3 Bayard Rustin 3 Conestoga 2 FINALS Haverford High 4 Bayard Rustin 0