St Joseph's Prep Hawks

What does the future hold and what is the price?

       It was interesting the other day watching the Inauguration of President Obama and the sheer joy of seeing a great success story for a gentleman that had a dream of change and is driving the young people in this country to believe that anything is possible. It took a great deal of courage for this man to stand up to the establishment in this country of what the preceding government did to put the greatest nation in world at peril financially and the security of the world in even worse shape. My admiration for President Obama is that this man did things peacefully and joined Black, White, Hispanic and all nationalities together and while there is plenty of work ahead of him, began on day one to change this country as he promised to do.

       I was struck by the comments of Vice President Joe Biden, who is his wisdom chose to address the Presidential Inauguration luncheon to address Senators, Congressmen, Supreme Court Judges and the media and state, that “the United States of America is the greatest country in the world and among him were the most talented people ever assembled and working together they could accomplish anything and bring the USA back to greatness”. I agree with the Vice President and you all probably wonder what this has to do with Interscholastic Hockey, so please read on.

       As the Obamas saw former President Bush, who in my opinion set this country back 50 years, into the sunset of the helicopter, I couldn’t help remind myself of the images of ex-VP Cheney sitting in a wheelchair smirking about all of the money his company Haliburton stole from sending our young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan, with thousands who came home in body bags to supposedly defend our freedom. And how the price of gas mysteriously went from $ 1.50 a gallon when Bush took office to nearly $ 4.00 and made the Bushes Oil refineries a nice Plantinum Parachute for him to retire in Texas. None of this will ever be investigated nor will either of these people ever be tried for what I consider a crime.

       So why should any of us ever think that Interscholastic Hockey, headed by people more stale than the Bush Administration should change. Similar to Bush’s victory over Al Gore in the general election, where Gore had more votes, this guy remained in office. The PIHL administration has developed an election process that will keep people whose children have been out of hockey for over 15 years in control of over $ 1 million dollars a year and have never had an audit in 10 years and continue to hemorage the member schools into extinction.

       Programs in business for 20-30 years like Penn Hills, North Catholic, Steel Valley, Forest Hills, Butler, Indiana, Cathedral Prep and more have failed to field a Varsity team in 2008-2009 and the PIHL just keeps jacking up the price to keep their administration in command, holding a spell over a powerless and useless Board of Governors at bay with their lack of planning and shot gun approach to running the sport. To make things even worse the 22 team Open Division of Co-Op schools stretching from Altoona to West Virginia has less than 15 Developmental Teams [Junior Varsity and Freshman] to build the future and will even get worse as the years go by. Class AA, once a stronghold of the beginnings of the PIHL will more than likely lose 3-time State Champions Thomas Jefferson, last years Penguins Cup finalist Franklin Regional and long time AA power South Park over the next two years in extinction.

        If there is a Barack Obama out there ready to lead the PIHL, don’t be fooled that this organization does not discriminate. A lot of people have commented to me that I haven’t been to many games this year and there is a reason for that. For one thing I have been busy promoting developmental Grade School programs and Learn to Play Hockey initiatives and really don’t want to waste my time promoting the PIHL.

        I still maintain the Pa Hockey Websites, with scores and highlights and Post Gazette rankings and run the Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase and National Invitational Scholastic Showcase Tournaments, but an incident at Mellon Arena last spring changed my approach. You see I was banned from the Mellon Arena by the PIHL [as part of my duties with the Post Gazette] from reporting the Penguins Cup last spring and I was threatened to be arrested by a Dick Cheney look alike who was more interested in collecting $ 5 he could divvy up later that night than promotion of their failing league.  I wrote the Penguins with my concerns and they really had nothing to do with it and as PIHL Secretary Ginna Sonnik said in the April Executive Board Minutes ‘that Jeff was singled out’ yes discriminated against by the PIHL, a 501 c 3 non-profit organization, the same PIHL that I was President of and founded from 1996 – 1999.          http://www.pihlweb.com/pgm-download_media.php?name=EC_MEETING_4-3-08.pdf

         The PIHL needs change and they need it NOW! And there is an election in April, the PIHL is hoping sweeps under the rug and re-elects themselves for another two more years of Bush and Cheney extortion. They didn’t have a January Board of Governors meeting because people are starting to ask questions, so they cancelled it!

         People, I really like hockey and as you all know I am pretty passionate about it. I am really not going waste any more of my time promoting a losing proposition. The PIHL Executive Board, Administration and Commissioner are real LOSERS and they can tell everyone all the stories they want about everything they are doing for hockey, but they aren’t doing anything but holding the sport back. Don’t ask me to get involved because I am busy working on the future of hockey through our developmental programs and hopefully in 2013 when these kids reach High School Hockey there is a league left to play in?

   Every year Pa Hockey searches high and low for the former Pennsylvania Interscholastic talent that has moved on to play Junior A in the USHL, NAHL, EJHL and Collegiate Hockey in the NCAA Division 1 in the Atlantic Hockey, CCHA, College Hockey America, ECAC, Hockey East,  and WCHA.

     We found 95 players from Pennsylvania including 51 from Western Pennsylvania and 44 from Eastern Pennsylvania who made our coveted list. Now we know some of you have the inside information that we may have missed a couple of players, so please let us know.

      Onward and Upward we go for 2008-2009 and enjoy the list ! 

GAME OF THE WEEK - Week 9  

NEW KENSINGTON –

      Pine Richland (13-1-1) is the defending Penguins Cup AAA champions and hopes to defend their title in March, which could set up a meeting with LaSalle, who pummeled the Rams 9-1 in last years State Final. You’d think a program that has won three straight Penguins Cup including two consecutive State Championships in Class AA in 2006 and 2007 would be hungry to prove themselves against the best and keep the streak of Penguins Cup going. The truth is that many of the players who could return didn’t and some opted to move on and play for less than stellar AAA and Junior Programs where the likelihood of advancing their hockey careers is not the greatest. So hard core are some of these Rams that two of them had a mandatory practice in Youngstown for a AAA team with a handful of wins against a couple dozen losses. This Pine Richland team that COULD have returned over a dozen starters returns around a half dozen, but still is good enough to be ranked # 1 in the Post Gazette and the favorite to win the Penguins Cup for another crack at LaSalle, who appears to be the Flyers Cup favorite.

      The mediocrity of Class AAA has been quite a discussion amongst the hockey ranks in 2008-2009 and I don’t know if that is the case or maybe some of the perennial front runners have come back to the pack. The Plum Mustangs (7-3-4) had an abysmal 2007-2008 and our old friends Stu ‘the Pizza Pub is no More’ Rulnick and Jerry ‘Dr Evil Vigilante’ Bass were on hand to see if the Mustangs could knock off the Rams and keep pace with division front runner Shaler Titans. The Mustangs have a mix of good looking underclassmen along with some veteran players and have competed well in Class AAA this season winning some key games and dropping a couple of games to the Homeless Foxes of Fox Chapel, who now call Valley Sports Center home, since their deportation and exile from Harmarville BladeRunners. Plum, also moved to Valley, which helps the home crowd as a nice turnout of ‘Concerned Mustang Citizens’ was on hand.

        The opening period was pretty mundane as the teams traded shots from the perimeter and the Mustangs had the period’s best chances at 7:21 but did not score. Plum goaltender Shane Leonzio stopped freshman Nolan Trombetta at 4:31 to keep the game scoreless. The game appeared head to the intermission when the Rams Eric Febert whipped a forehand from behind the net that glanced off Leonzio and spun like the eight ball headed for the wrong pocket in billiards for the Mustangs and behind him to give Pine Richland a 1-0 lead with just 4 seconds left in the opening period as the Rams outshot Plum 11-9.

      On to the 2^nd period and the Mustangs had several power play opportunities and 19 shots but the Rams goaltender Dan Szymanski was spectacular stopping them all. The PR keeper stopped Ben Hanus at 14:39, David Smith at 10:53, the Freshman Hunter Brett at 7:33 to provide solid goaltending and keep Plum off the board. Pine Richland’s Eric Febert scored his second goal of the game from the slot on a nice pass from Luke Wagner from behind the net to make it 2-0 with11:20 remaining in the 2^nd period.