News and Announcements
Moon breaks open Montour in 3rd period with 4-1 win.
Posted by Jeff Mauro at Nov 21, 2006 4:00PM PST
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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.
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2006 - Pa Hockey Editorial ~ Have the Travel Programs in Western Pa out lived their usefulness ?
Posted by Jeff Mauro at Nov 20, 2006 4:00PM PST
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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!
18th Annual Central Catholic Invitational
Posted by Jeff Mauro at Nov 16, 2006 4:00PM PST
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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 !
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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
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Help Center Ice with Earl Bugaile on WJPA !
Posted by Jeff Mauro at Nov 15, 2006 4:00PM PST
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Top 5 Fan for 5 years running needs our help and PA Hockey answers !
For many of you who have followed the sport of Interscholastic Hockey over the past ten years, we have all followed or at least been exposed to the Center Ice Report by Earl Bugaile. Earl does a tremendous job in covering hockey at the Interscholastic level and in addition reports on the progress of all players at the Junior and Collegiate level, which is a great service to our hockey community.
UPDATE 11/25/06 - The 'Concerned Citizens of Gotham' have spoken and we have raised enough $$$ to keep Earl on the air, details and a story will be upcoming only on Pa Hockey !
The phone rings during the Pa Hockey Season countless times during the season and more times than not its a game report or score or to talk about what team has what and how they stack up in the Penguins Cup chase or Flyers Cup chase as the season works its way toward the Pennsylvania State Finals each March.
This time the phone rang and a call for help was fielded and it was answered by the 'Concerned Citizens' of Western Pa Hockey. An e-mail chain was started and in one day we raised over $ 2,500 to keep 'Center Ice with Earl Bugaile' on the air for the 2006 - 2007 season, which is a great grass roots show for folks tuning into the 95.3 FM radio station in Washington. Why did this happen ? Becuase people care about the interest and passion that Earl brings to their car radio's every morning throughout the hockey season at 7:30 AM and 5:30 PM with his report and they also understand because Earl is a volunteer of his own time and really enjoys bringing us the news of the day.
While the cost of hockey continues to skyrocket to unreasonable rates secluding the masses of people, who may be interested in the sport, into other choices thanks to the Villans who promote themselves more than the sport. Isn't it interesting that NOT ONE DIME came in from the PIHL to help a person who selflessly promotes all of hockey and came out of the pockets of the people of Pa Hockey. Earl is moving toward an unprecedented 6th consecutive Pa Hockey 'Top 5' Fan and its because of his generosity to us as a hockey community to promote the sport we all love. In a passing conversation with a few of the donors the response was something like 'Hey, I had to help Earl because he does a great job of promoting hockey for FREE'.........and our way of thanking him was to keep it going......thanks Earl !