Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

The State of Interscholastic Hockey in Western Pa Address “Will this be the last year of the PIHL? ……as we know it or will have known it”? Now all of you out there who have been inquiring about the editorial that never happened obviously lack patience or you just have nothing better to do in the summer! Or maybe you are still waiting for your Junior Varsity or Freshman schedules AFTER the season has started….well if you want the Varsity Schedule ….good ole’ PA Hockey has it and has had it up for over a week and a half for Class A, AA, AAA and the Open Division. The annual State of Interscholastic Hockey is here! With the 2004-2005 season now under way, beginning the 34th consecutive season of Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey dating back to the beginnings at the Alpine Ice Chalet in April 1971, there are many questions about the future of Interscholastic Hockey in Western Pennsylvania. With our great example, the National Hockey League, in lockdown between the owners and players, we all should maybe ponder why the professional sport or hockey is in serious trouble. The answer revolves around money and greed and those two items should help us to begin to understand the state of Interscholastic Hockey in Western Pennsylvania and why it is in the shape it is in at this point in time. Just to give a little history lesson, for all of those who don’t know the story, that the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League was founded in 1999 and was the result of a merger between the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League [48 schools], South Hills Interscholastic Hockey League [27 schools] and Lake Shore Hockey League [7 schools] with 75 Varsity Teams. The Unification talks began back in 1996, when myself and a few other members of the preceding league with varying interests in High School Hockey submitted a proposal to merge all of the schools west of State College into one Interscholastic Hockey League [Interestingly NOT ONE ELECTED person on the current Executive Board was a member of the Unification Committee, but the SELF-APPOINTED PAID ones now sit in the Commissioner’s office]. After nearly four years of negotiations and development of rules and alignment in May of 1999, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League was formed. This is when certain people became MORE focused on MONEY AND GREED and NOT ABOUT the state of Interscholastic Hockey in Western Pennsylvania and the welfare and growth of the sport, by using politics and unethical practices to work their way into power. So it has taken just about the same time to BEGIN to pull this league apart as it has to build it! The results after five years are just amazing as 24 of the 75 Varsity Teams that existed at the end of the 1998-1999 season are either out of business, out of the PIHL or playing in the ‘Glorified Junior Varsity’ PIHL Open Division, leaving the PIHL Varsity in Class AAA, AA and A with just 55 schools to play for 36 playoff spots for the Penguins Cup. Connellsville, Woodland Hills, Penn Hills, Allderdice, Jamestown, Greensburg Salem, Highlands, Knoch, Beaver, Chartiers Valley, Keystone Oaks, Ringgold, Harborcreek, Conemaugh Valley, Ligonier Valley, Jeannette, Shady Side Academy, Carrick, Center, Hopewell, Seton LaSalle, Wheeling Park, Trinity, Mercyhurst Prep, and LAST MONTHS near casualty Deer Lakes are the schools who competed just six seasons ago in Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey and will now be included in the ‘Teams that aren’t here anymore’ graveyard section of the Pa Hockey Team Websites. And you wonder why Eastern Pennsylvania swept the State Championships at RMU Island Sports Center [and then were charged a $ 1000 deposit apiece to take the trophies back to Philadelphia] ? Penn Hills and Allderdice, which have fielded Varsity teams for 34 consecutive years since the inaugural season in 1970-1971 are relegated to playing in an impure division of developmental hockey called the ‘Open Division’, which allows players from non-league schools to play for member schools. Chartiers Valley, which fought hard just to get a Varsity back last season is WASTING their time in this classification and should be playing Class AA. The Colts beat or tied at least three Class AAA and AA teams in the pre-season. Penn Hills returns 3 of the top 15 scorers in Class AAA from the 2003-2004 season, who will be wasting their time and money in this classification. If ANY of these schools CHOOSE to play ANY players on their team who do not attend the school, this is NOT High School Hockey. Basically, folks, these are amateur teams playing in a high school league!! High School Hockey has gotten so bad by the effects of the ‘Open Division’, that defending AAA Penguin Cup Champion Mt Lebanon has a player on its roster who is from Erie, who has been declared ineligible and now attends Mt Lebanon, Meadville has a goalie who just happened to move in from Ohio and now attends Meadville [which is ironic since Danny O’Sharuk’s heir apparent Mike Liscinski is not playing for the Dawgs], and Bethel Park has a player, who played three years of Varsity for South Park and moved in with a relative just to play hockey for Bethel Park. What ever happened to athletic intent for transfers? High School Hockey is in major trouble and is more like Free Agency in the National Hockey League or closer to home in the PAHL or the way too many Midget AAA teams in Western Pennsylvania!! The League reported 48 Transfer and/or Foreign Exchange eligibility cases filed with the PIHL and ONLY the Mt Lebanon case was INELIGIBLE. The tally includes only 18 for Private / Parochial schools [Cathedral Prep had 9 cases & Serra Catholic had 4cases ] and displays an alarming trend in public school. This situation makes the 1977-78 season pale by comparison, which was coincidentally the year there was NO State Pennsylvania Championships and the year before the formation of the South Hills Interscholastic Hockey League, which was founded based on purity and now these same schools are recruiting in Erie and South Park….which is pretty hypocritical if you ask me, since there are definitely blood lines from the SHIHL today! Now the effect has its cause, which is the next part of the discussion and the major part as well. When I left the PIHL at the end of the 2000-2001 season, as President of the League, I made a statement at the time that the PIHL was a ‘self-serving’ organization, which has proven to be true and is not a Service Organization. The PIHL is chartered to be under the Internal Revenue Code 501 [c] 3 Non-Profit Status, which was the original WPIHL Charter. As it currently stands, the PIHL is a non-profit organization trying to make a profit, not for Interscholastic Hockey, but for themselves and to keep paying themselves and all of the people they need to keep the in office through preferred treatment to CERTAIN schools, almost like the mafia and then they call their favors in when they need a vote or favor. The people running the PIHL are more interested in raising fees THAN raising money for players to play hockey, as evidenced by the per Game Fee increase from $ 10 per game in 1999 to $ 83 per game in 2004 or referees fees from $ 35 per game in 1999 to $ 60 per game in 2005. This is the tip of the iceberg with the Junior Varsity and Freshman playoff fundraiser [requiring EVERY team to participate], Varsity playoff fiasco at the Mellon Arena [when associations, despite bringing well over 1000 fans to the game were billed thousands of dollars for the games], Norwin [who was made to pay over $ 4000, which was originally over $ 50,000 for an ineligible player, they didn’t file paperwork on] or whatever they can charge for scheme of this administration. Now the $ 105,000 that they lost in unused ice costs in 2000 pails by comparison of the laundering of this over $ 1 million dollar organization. Where is all this money going? A State playoff Financial Statement is due by May 31st has NOT BEEN ISSUED since 2001? An audit, which is required by the State of Pennsylvania for 501 [c] 3 organizations using over $ 25,000 in raised funds has NEVER HAPPENED IN FIVE YEARS OF EXISTENCE? The most amazing thing is no one questions anything about this organization including the missing Frank Black Scholarship money over $ 15,000, which the Tri-State Area Hockey Association [which is now defunct] is supposed to be administrating. Inquiries by the Black Family have gone unanswered? Maybe the new Pa Attorney General could help us find out the answers to these questions? As I walked into the rink at Harmarville the other night, I was greeted by some people at the annual St Margaret’s Fall Face-Off, which raises a lot of money for a three-day event to help medical research and to buy medical research equipment. This is a great example of what can be done to promote hockey and raise money. Myself and a few very interested people in Western Pennsylvania are in the process of developing the Pa Hockey Foundation, which will raise money to help kids play hockey and this is all I will release at this time [BUT A PRESS RELEASE WILL BE COMING SOON], but believe me we have something special in the works, which involves all of you and will cut down the nearly $ 1500 – 2000 to play Varsity hockey! Richland Cambria’s School District is now FULLY funding the ENTIRE ice hockey program and had to, for the first time, turn players away at tryouts. This was a result of some real nice work by a group headed by Dave and Denise Layman, Kathy Berkible, among others FOR the BETTERMENT of Interscholastic Hockey and is the EXACT OPPOSITE DIRECTION than that of the PIHL, who is squandering in their ‘Open Division’ Long Range planning committee, which s more clueless than the Executive Board. The next day, I received a call from someone, who started to explain that there is a new league on the horizon in Western Pennsylvania involving a dozen or so of the remaining 55 Varsity programs in the PIHL [I have since received a formal letter]. My first question to this person is why? I knew the answer and it has been outlined above and people are just tired of the lip service, tired of the BS and tired of raising money for a good cause, Interscholastic Hockey, and handing to a nameless, faceless organization, who is more interested in ‘Raising Fees and Fines’ than raising money for a good cause, like lets say a Foundation, who has volunteers and NOT PAID GROUNDHOGS, who are not paying our mortgages [nor theirs] or for hockey either, but are interested in paying themselves. People, if you are sick of the PIHL as its stands, its time to band together and get rid of the CANCER. In the twisted By-Laws of this organization, there is a caveat that allows the ‘Board of Governors’ to call a special meeting and requires ALL of the Executive Board to attend and the Board of Governor’s may have a representative under ‘Roberts Rules of Order’ who may take the floor and call for a motion on the floor to ask for ANY and ALL members of the Executive Board to resign, except for the President, who must stay on as Past President, which I understand was also eliminated from the By-Laws. Then the Board of Governors needs to elect new officers and fire the Commissioner and his entire staff, which will save the league approximately $ 125,000 a year. Then the League will rest with the member schools and not with a handful of people. Then the league can restructure itself and start to rebuild and develop some of those 25 missing organizations aforementioned and maybe even more of them. Eastern Pennsylvania NOW HAS TWICE AS MANY VARSITY TEAMS AS WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. At this time, I would happy to provide FREE consulting services for the league and help in anyway I can to get this league back on its original purpose. Otherwise, “the PIHL may be in its last year, as we know it or will have known it “! Check out this editorial on Pa Hockey at www.eteamz.com/pahockey