I’ve been keeping an eye on the comments and it was time for a new post for the ongoing discussion.
From a competitive standpoint, combining the varsity and modified teams from Clarkstown North and Clarkstown South would give the section another strong team. Now here comes the bad news. A number of kids will be prohibited from representing their school on the ice. It’s also doubtful the programs will ever go back to the way things were if and when the budget crisis eases.
School districts cannot afford to make temporary fixes.
John Orlando passed a long a few notes yesterday … We already know about Eastchester-Tuckahoe-Bronxville shrinking to Eastchester-Bronxville. Some league alignments will also be changing. Somers/North Salem and John Jay are going from Conference 3 to Conference 1, while Ossining is going from Conference 1 to Conference 3.
Can we please name these divisions?
I also confirmed that Iona Prep is looking for a new coach. Tim Turnbull is leaving for personal reasons. He says the time demands became too much.
429 Comments
http://www.uscho.com/news/college-hockey/id,18618/NotreDamesPalmieriSheahanArrested.html
not good press for our area
palmieri is from bergen county (st. peter’s prep) and is an anaheim ducks draft pick
Clarkstown becomes a State hockey power player within a couple of years.
Two large high schools (both class AA for football) and the right demographics for supporting hockey.
A merger like this is unprecedent in the section. Typically, it’s the small schools (Eastchester-Bronxville) or the struggling programs (East Ramapo, Nyack-TZ) that have combined.
Lohud, statewide are there any other school combinations this large you are aware of. I somewhat remember the Greece, NY school district had a strange way of configuring there hockey program, including the 2 year ago championship team.
Al, Any predictions as to who coaches the clarkstown teams?
Greece has 4 high schools.
They have 2 hockey teams. Thunder and Lightning.
At least this merger is legit. Its being done for economics, unlike most other mergers which are based on talent or picking up travel players.
Al, let’s not award them the section 1 crown too fast my friend. Big numbers does not a great team make. Let’s also remember that this legit merger is going to cost at least 20 kids per year the chance to play varsity hockey for their high school. The merger may be necessary but it shouldn’t be celebrated.
CLARIFICATION
John Jay and SNS have been moved from Conference 3 to 1.
Ossining from Conference 1 to 3.
Greece at one time had four high schools and 1 team.
They cut 80 players one year.
Section 5 made them play an independent schedule but could not keep them out of the sectional playoffs.
Sectional and parental pressure made them go to 2 teams a few years ago.
Conference Three just got weaker. Rye and Suffern should manhandle everyone in their respective Conferences. At least with one less team in Conference Three and SNS not around to demand a home and home series, Rye gets two more games to work with. Hopefully, this means a second game with Pelham and a match with Suffern. Suffern also gets one more game to work with due to the Clarkstown merger.
The combined Clarkstown team will be better than any separate North or South team, but, at leat for the coming season, not a Section power.
Does anyone know when Empire tryouts start? Who from within the Section will make the team?
OSM,
I’m not celebrating the merger. I’m only a lukewarm supporter because of the financial crises the CCSD got itself into.
Rather, I believe that once the district gets its budgets in order they should go back to 2 teams. This is afterall 2 large high schools with a 25-30 year history of 2 well respected hockey programs.
In recent years the programs have been competitive and popular (fully rostered modified and varsity teams), the logistics are in place (rink access), and the school district demograghics are higher-end income families.
The result that 20-25 kids, maybe more, will not be playing hockey for there school next year is not good, very bad for local hockey.
To “at least this merger’s legit” and anyone else that could answer the question:
exactly what merger in the last 14 years , approved by Section 1, was not legit ?
I cannot think of one merger that was not done for either saving the school from not having enough players to field a team, or for economics.
I can not think of one merger that was done and approved for the purpose of picking up travel players or forming a power team.
Agree on the merger thing. Has a merged team ever won the Section? The closest might have been last year with L/P in the D I finals. And those two teams play as a merged team for several sports. And I wouldn’t yet call L/P a DI hockey powerhouse. Maybe SHI last year as the Rye/SHI semi was more like a Section final with the other side of the DII bracket being what it was).
well lets see. ETB was definately based on travel along with Sleepy Irvington. Rye Town Harrison was to. Mt Pleasant was also. At the on set of those mergers many of those players all played travel together. Its obvious when establsihed schools merged with teams that had extrodinary travel players in their school. The mergers should have limitations on how many years they can have them
Maybe that was then, but mergers today are economic driven.
I give credit to the small schools that go it alone. Rye and Pelham are clear success stories. But how long does Pearl River and schools like Byram Hills hold out, especially if they are always playing combined schools.
We even saw medium sized schools like Yorktown and Horace Greely suffer low numbers and a few years of that will have the accountants questioning the cost effectiveness of the programs.
mergers….you don’t know squat.
all of those mergers were created by schools that needed to combine to have enough players (much like swimming and track does), and then the combination of schools were created out of geography (i.e. put the Mt Pleasant schools together, the Hudson River schools together, etc.
there was never any consideration given to what schools have travel players and can we make a stronger team.
What will the new merged Clarkstown team name be and will their new uniforms incorporate both school’s colors or will it be a new look altogether?
Old School…..They don’t even have a coach yet. I think they’ll probably take care of that first.
The Empire State Games tryouts for Hudson Valley team are at the ice Hutch on May 29, June 4, June 5 and June 11th. The Finals are in Buffalo July 21-25th.
Clarsktown – Understood…Uniforms and team name are the least of their worries. Just mindlessly pondering the next season which is still 6 months away.
Yellow and Brown and Purple and Gold would make for a very ugly uniform.
Look closely at the ESG web site
The tryout dates listed are for the GIRLS team. The Boys is always a secret thing
ESG boys hockey tryouts usually at Ice Time or Brewster. Think the coaches usually come from those areas. Wonder if the ETB kids who went prep will try out? They might be too old, though. I think you have to be 17 or under on Sept 1 of this year. Also Pelham’s Harms who went prep. Usually a lot of Section 9 public school, Section 9 club HS and prep kids at the boys tryouts. Gotta figure Jaeger, Baker, Fuchs, Stark, Prunesti, Pesce, Lawrence give it a shot.
Christiansen, Mamaroneck trying out should make it
Has anyone been invited for the ESG tryouts yet?
These changes again are stupid. Conference 1 did not need an additional team so now this conference has 9 teams. the rockland conference will now have 5 with the Clarkstown merger. If the a.d.s get their way then conference 1 will be forced to play 16 league games and everyone else will play 5 or 6 insane. Teams like Mahopac,and L/P have tried to play a better schedule this will cripple that unfortunatly their a.d. makes the call not the coaches.Not to start the power league thing all over again ,but at least with 28 teams in the section we should have 4 even conferences with 7 teams each, either 6 games or 12 games for the league titles. Nice and neat and every team would have at least 8 non league games to get battle tested for the play-offs.
8 non league games is not enough for top state playoff contenders that happen to play in weak gegraphy based leagues (Suffern, Rye). Home and home within conference for those two teams in particular would be a complete waste of time, energy, money, ect. and put them at a significant disadvantage to their main competition within the Section (Mamo and Pelham) who happen to be grouped in a geo conference that has a bunch of solid teams.
Well FOTG it worked in Ryes favor last year as Pelham had the much tougher schedule and was unable like was to to clean up a bunch of wins in a weaker division. Rye got first seed and never really played anyone in the playoffs that was nearly as good as them. Theres a positive and a negative to it.
George- Fortunately for Rye, last season SNS was the only Conference Three foe that required Rye to play home and home. The Garnets (10 state ranked opponents plus others like RCDS and Fordham) ended up playing a very similar schedule to Pelham’s (11 state ranked opponents plus WP), which was one reason the Garnets like the Pelicans were “playoff ready” by the end of the regular season. The two teams ended up attending several of the same tournaments. And Rye did play SHI in the semis right after Pelham lost to the Legends in the quarters.
Pelham’s problem was not their tough schedule. They were probably a true 3 seed who would have been fine with any playoff seed that put them anywhere in the bracket opposite Rye and SHI (the other 2 state ranked DII teams). They could have been a 3 seed if they didn’t lose to some weaker upstate teams (Nisky and Salmon). And, in the end, it was being seeded too high (moving up from 6 to 5 in the final days) that got them on the same side of the bracket as Rye and SHI. If Jay and Pawling had not decided at the last moment to schedule a playoff warm up which Jay won, Pelham would have been a 6 seed and on the side of the bracket opposite SHI and Rye. If Pelham had not scored the late goal to tie Rye in the regular season, the Pelicans would have been a 6 seed. That would have been a perfect situation for the Pelicans that just didn’t work out. I would have preferred to see Pelham at West Point. More drama. And Rye would have loved the chance at payback for the year beore when a loaded Pelham team that never led a Rye team over a 3 game set until the third period of the Sectional final (I know, when it counted most) came away with the hardware. Maybe the fans will get that matchup this coming season.
North and South both started their programs in 1973. North actually won the Old HVHL Championship in their 2nd year of existence. It used be a great rivalry, it will be a shame to see that end.
Strong points FOTG. I mean``t to say this. I looked at Pelhams regular season record and with maybe a few more wins the seeding for them would have made sense. Pelham shot themselves in the foot with the losses to Nisky and ETB. If they won those and had a few more easier games they would have been seeded higher. I just had a problem with where Pelham was eventualy seeded. Not that I was rooting for Pelham but I was rooting for a Pelham Rye finals. I gather I felt the seeding was faulted. Pelham was a much better team than some of those seeded higher. Pelham and almost Rye were hurt by going out and scheduling the best teams they could which I didnt think it was right
I think we can all agree the 3 top teams in order in D. 2 were
1) Rye
2) SHI
3) Pelham
Any objections?
Alumni,
What is being portrayed as the permanent end for both teams is both curious and abrupt. The financial crises in Clarkstown is real of course, in other districts too, as North Rockland is in the midst of probably a more serious budget situation.
2 competitive teams, fully rostered, both still competing separately as North and South in spring leagues. It’s sad, are there kids now playing Spring who may be cut. I am not convinced that a little more creative budgeting could have helped save both teams.
For example, one less practice a week for all 4 teams (varsitys and modified, most varsity’s practice 2 times a week)or split-ice once a week. Good coaching can utilize split-ice effectively, as is done with many travel teams. Concessions from the mall on ice price, perhaps they’d do this to avoid losing a whole high school program and the revenue that brings in.
I would hope that other interim measures could have been done to preserve the 35 plus years of very good North and South hockey.
That is ..”I am convinced that a little more creative budgeting could have saved helped save both teams”.
classic- if the seedings went that way, you would still have had the Pelham/SHI matchup which the Pelicans lost. It would have been a semi as opposed to a quarterfinal. Then, the Rye/SHI semi match would have been a Sectional final at West Point. And the inexperienced Legends would have had difficulty keeping the faster Garnets close on the big sheet.
Al-
There are many things they could have done, but unfortunately it appears the school board didn’t give a you know what about trying to salvage a second Varsity and/or second Modified team.
You mentioned scaling back on practice, which would work. As I had mentioned in previous posts, they could have started charging admission to the games to help cover the costs. Have the parents chip in some (or some more, still not sure if they were made to pay anything) towards the program. Sell raffle tickets at the games, have some off-ice training once a week in lieu of an on-ice practice. Other ideas that could have saved money:
Alumni games – I was at the North Alumni game this past year. They got about 30 guys to show up and there wasn’t much of a crowd. It was a glorified mens league game with North alumni against other North alumni. I don’t believe South even has an alumni game (although I could be wrong). This has been such a huge rivalry over the years, why not have the alumni game be North Alumni vs. South Alumni and treat it seriously. Get real refs, sell tickets, brand it as a fund-raiser to help save the program. Many people from this area still live in the area and would use that game as a high school reunion of sorts. Even if its an excuse to meet up with some old high school friends and go out drinking afterwards, as long as you pay your $5 to get in, we’re happy.
Elimnate busses to the mall – The modified teams need them, yes. Those kids are 12 years old, but the Varsity does not need a bus to get to and from the mall for practice or games (debatable whether they need one for SOR, but lets start with just the home ice first).
Eliminate upstate trips – I love that North has joined the group of Section 1 teams travelling upstate over the past decade to get some better, and new competition, but the fact of the matter is, these trips cost money. If it takes a few years of not going up in order to save some dough, then so be it. Try and get them to come down, otherwise, schedule against the best that section 1, section 9, and northern NJ have to offer until the financial crisis is over. At best, a day trip to Albany on a big yellow cruiser (instead of a coach bus) for an afternoon game is the farthest you travle. No hotel, 2 hours each way, much money saved.
Lastly, this may be a little outside the box, but both schools have outdoor tennis courts that are not used during the winter months. Get permission from the school to freeze them over come late November and practice there once or twice a week. You still want to make sure to have at least one practice a week on the actual rink to work on more realistic game situations, but with ice time at a premium, some water and some time to freeze over the tennis courts can’t really cost too much, especially when compared to $400 an hour to rent the ice.
Bottom line is there is a lot the people (moreso than the district) could have volunteered to do, but from what I have been reading online, it appears that any suggestions that were contrary to the CCSD school board’s ideas (even if they were good suggestions) fell on deaf ears. Now we have one Clarkstown Varsity team, one Felix Festa Modified team, and 40 kids in the Clarkstown Central School District who are not able to represent their school on the ice (some of whom have been on the Varsity/Modified teams for 4-5 years already).
Lohud,
I like your thinking…but freezing the tennis courts is WAY out of the box! I say freeze the Felix Festa pool..
I blame the AD’s of each school who should never so easily give up sports team.
Unfortunately AD’s rarely ever have hockey backgrounds, or they’d know that you can run a team with one full sheet and one-half sheet of ice practice per week. Off-ice training could be increased, and supplemental strength and agility training is often better to get through the rigors of a season. Also lots of modified teams only practice once a week.
This is not the optimal way to run a team, but it could serve as interim savings while the district gets on firmer finiancial footing. There are enough travel players in the schools that the level of hockey could be maintained respectable.
The Board cut all freshman sports. What about the hundreds of kids that can’t make Varsity or JV? We are talking about a lot more than 20 kids that will be sidelined because of these cuts. It really sticks. Maybe the freshman in both schools can get together and do pizza nights or car washes to save all the freshman sports?
Al-
No way on the pool. That thing is the prize posession of the school district. But no reason they can’t practice outdoors on the tennis courts once a week. The Suffern Hockey program started out practicing on the frozen tennis courts in the 60’s and 70’s, and I’m sure many of these kids grew up playing pond hockey so they are no strangers to the outdoor game on unorthodox ice surfaces. Plus, it’s not THAT out of the ordinary, I mean Pearl River’s modified team practices and plays their home games at Bear Mountain, which isn’t very much different than a frozen tennis court. Chain link fence instead of glass, no benches, penalty boxes, game clock, or locker rooms. The only difference is the boards, lines on the ice and a zamboni.
travel kid-
I admitedly don’t keep up on the other sports anwywhere near as much as hockey, so you may be able to help me here.
In the sports where they cut out the freshman teams, do they still have modified teams? Assuming they do (although I don’t know if they do), then the freshmen who are not good enough for JV are still eligible for the modified team. Once they are in 10th grade, they would be ineligible for the modified team, but they would have been ineligible for the freshman team anyway, so either way it would be sink or swim with JV/Varsity or nothing. There are no limits on roster size, so to take the better half of the freshman basketball team and move them up to sit on the JV bench and the lower half to get in the mix with the 7th & 8th graders on modified isn’t a huge deal (inconvenient, and upsetting, but still doable).
The difference between this and hockey is that there is no bridge between Varsity and Modified. So with 17 returning seniors and 9 returning juniors in the district (not to mention a couple of returning sophomores who were among the league leaders in scoring as freshmen in 09-10), there will be many sophomores and even some juniors who will not have the JV option that you have in pretty much every other sport and since they can’t play modified (which is grade 7-9), they are SOL.
It will have an effect on the modified team as well since now you will have an influx of freshen who would have been varsity benchwarmers as the top of the modified roster, there won’t be room for the 7th graders or weaker 8th graders unless you carry 40 kids. And the 7th graders and weaker 8th graders are the ones who really need the modified team so they can develop their skills enough to contribute to the Varsity team down the road. If your modified team is not getting those kids on the ice, it will have a negative long-term effect on the Varsity team.
One issue with these fundraising suggestions that I believe is important…the rinks usually require that the School sign contract for ice time at the end of the summer…that means that in August, the school has to commit by contract to pay that amount (say $25,000). The school is obligated regardless of how much comes in from the mall gate, alumni games, chuck a pucks etc. Realistically, the Board of any school will not commit this amount unless it is budgeted for or is in hand as a “gift” from the Boosters/community etc at budget time…$$ cannot be on the “come.” Thus, unless parents make the contribution upfront and then try to recoup with fundraisng, it won’t fly. Agreed, bussing is a huge cost that can be eliminated from most programs to save $$$. Some schools have done so, but others balk at this because they fear liability/insurance issues from having teenagers going in their or their friends’ cars.
Sometimes the bus issue is silly. Especially for a school like Clarkstown South where someone living next door to the mall would go to South. Now their practices are generally after school. So lets say a senior who lives a stone’s throw from the mall drives to school at CS every morning. Then after school he is forced to take a bus to the mall for hockey practice, only to then have to take that bus back to the school so he can get his car and drive essentially back to the mall since he lives right next door. Ridiculous to have bussing for that. Even better example is if they have a game on a Saturday evening when there was no school, that kid, who lives next to the mall has to drive from the mall to the school to catch the bus back to the mall, then back to the school on the bus only to go back to the mall in his car.
If the school is liable for a kid getting into a car accident on the way to the rink for the game, then they are just as liable for that same kid driving to the school to catch the bus to go to the game. So if liability is really the issue when it comes to driving to the rink as opposed to taking the bus, the only way to avoid it is to have the bus pick up every kid at his/her house like it would on any weekday morning before school.
Case in point, the horrible tragedy that happened to the two Suffern students last month. They were on their way to baseball practice when it happened. Is the school being held liable for the car accident? Not that I know of.
Next year in Section 1:
DI-
1. Suffern- maybe the best in the state, no matter who is between the pipes. Return 3 All State players and a few more who have a shot at that distinction next year.
2. Mamo- wants to make ammends for the way last season ended. Hagan and Christiansen will lead a deep team with good size.
3.WP- The baby goalie will be a year older. Lose McGee, but return a solid core at forward and on the blue line.
4.L/P- Lost a lot of depth at D, which was their strength. 5 Hole’s kid can come up big, but needs to be more consistent to be ranked among the elite netminders in the Section. Caffrey and Belger should score in bunches.
5. Pac- big drop to here from the #4 spot. Fatone gone. Not a lot of depth.
6. Clarkstown- Combined team will be competitive with all but the top 4 in DI.
7. RTH- Some younger talent matured during the prior 2 trying seasons.
8. North Roc- always puts together a competitive team.
9. Carmel- Might be Jackie Barnes’ breakout season. Who will replace Glaviano in goal?
10. New Ro- Some young talent, but with Pru playing Jr A, it could be a long season for the Huguenots.
DII-
1. Rye- very deep team. Return all but 3 players. Rix is the best goalie in the Section. All State candidate. Need to find scoring chemistry to replace the departerd first line.
2. Pelham- Witz/Kelly will find something that works between the pipes. Pelicans always have good positional D and play hard in their zone. Will this be the year the then jr class starts to score?
3. Eastville- This now smaller merged team and thus DII newcomer should be nipping at the heels of the perennial DII powers listed above. Have some exciting young players. Not sure of the situation in goal, though.
4. SHI- really depends if Pesce plays for them. With him, they are a top 4 DII team. Without, they drop a few slots. Also is the young goalie sticking around?
5. Scarsdale- Lost the talented Olivario, but return everyone else. Not a bad squad.
6. Jay- New coach righted the ship last season. Graduated the golaie, but there is another who had good stats. Graduated some skating depth, but return some young talent.
7. Fox Lane- Williams is gone, but they return some solid players. The Foxes’ new coach has this once proud program back on the right track.
8. Brewster- I think the Bears will be fun to watch next season. And they have a girl in goal.
9. Pearl River- Good goalie and some solid support.
10. Byram Hills- Their fate, like SHI’s, depends on whether their strong skating Dman (Basmajian) returns.
If not sorted by size, my overall preseason top 10 for the Section would be:
1. Suffern
2. Mamo
3. WP
4. Rye
5. L/P
6. Pelham
7. Eastville
8. SHI
9. Scarsdale
10.Jay
It drops off a bit after #7.
Nice breakdown FOTG. My thoughts are similar. In D 1 I like New Ro higher as even losing Pru they some young solid players who will be a year older. I wouls also move combined program of Clarkstown much higher, two schools that have good skaters will produce one very strong team.
I think RTH is a toss up could be average or could struggle big time.
In D2 I think the Foxes are a bit higher up and Scarsdale slightly lower than your projections.
In not sorted by size category I believe White Plains has never beaten Pelham ever so I will go
Suff
Mamaroneck
L/P
Pelham
Rye
WP
ETB ooops Eastville
Scarsdale
Jay
Shi
George- Looks like we both see the Rye/Pelham matchup closer than the Suffern/Mamo one. And, in DII, I think EB could be in the mix if they shore up the goalie position. They did beat Pelham last season. Don’t see either WP or L/P getting between Suffern/Mamo next season (like they have the past 2 seasons). The Mounties are too good and Mamo learned its lesson (about taking an opponent for granted) last season.
Hockey Players Doing Lacrosse
Hey just thought I’d throw in some color that hockey kids can actually play lacrosse!!
SORRY. I know I’ll be leaving out names but some that come to mind:
Suffern: Jaeger +others
Lakeland Panas: Belger, Caffrey +others
Scarsdale: Oliverio
White Plains: McGee
Town: Bonitatibus
Mamo:Weiner,Conley
Scarsdale: Oliverio
Fox Lane: Williams
WP has McGee, Broderick, Peeples and Warager playing lax
what school(s) is Eastville?
a lot of people always leave pac out of the bunch of top teams but they still play hard every game out there because their coach is a great motivator. i think even with the loss of fatone they will always put up a fight
?-
With Tuckahoe dropping out of the ETB merger, people are trying to come up with a new name for them. Eastville seems to be the front runner. Personally, I prefer Bronxchester.
hockey love-I think Pac is the best in the second grouping of DI teams (after Suffern, Mamo, WP and L/P). Don’t think the Indians have the firepower or depth to knock off any of those top 4. Pac used to be a regular in the DI semis. Just a notch below that now. Agree they play hard and can give all but the best a good game. You are right that they could play with Scarsdale, Jay and SHI. Not sure they could beat any of the top 7 on my best in Section list above, unless Eastville/Bronxchester/EB has goalie issues.
So I’ve heard through the grapevine that Mt.Vernon has a sudden interest in hockey and is going to merge with new ro. Anybody else hear this?
Doubt it. very much.
I wish it would happen.
My dissapointment with the Clarkstown merger is that 40 kids (the high-end number) won’t be playing hockey for there school next year.
I don’t know New Rochelle’s hockey numbers, they looked okay, but if Mt Vernon could bring say 10 more kids to the modified and varsity, hey thats 10 more kids playing hockey.
The Mt. Vernon school system struggles every year to fund their athletic program. I don’t think they could justify spending a dime to contribute toward a combined hockey team so that a few kids could lace em up and have some fun learning the game.
As far as the North – South merger debate, maybe that would explain why so many kids have been at sporto powerskating and stickhandling this spring. My guess is that anyone on the bump will be looking to improve all they can in order to make the team. The travel tryouts this year were well attended. Kudos to those kids for making the comittment to improve in the off season. I guess some will argue that this puts the kids who choose not to work on improving their skills at a disadvantage. Let the debate begin…
even as a combined team suffern will pound us next season. we just lost to suff modified team last night in spring league . most be something in that suffern water that creates hockey players. The future is bright over there for a long time coming. A few brothers of past stand-outs.
Hey C-Town,
You really sound like a proud Clarkstown athlete. I’m sure you are. If you look at spring leage as an indication of next season you are a little off base. That team Suffern beat was a mix of modified and varsity players with a low level goalie. It’s a 4 on 4 league and Clarkstown utilizes it as a way to develop the youngest talent. They have a 7th grader on the team. Hey, but thanks for coming out.
I would not worry to much about spring results the game is coached very differently. Like Clarkstown said it is supposed to help develop talent. I would guess that a lot of the players on the ice will not be out there when the games really count. The other thing about spring hockey is you never know who will be there from 1 week to the next. There are plenty of other things going on this time of year.
LT getting suffern in the news
Heard a rumor that Santini(Kennedy #16 9th grade def.) committed to Boston College. Can this be true? Didn’t know colleges can commit to 9th graders.
The concept of Spring hockey is to just keep your skills from completely rotting away while you gain space from long hard seasons.
Of course Spring Hockey at the Ice Hutch league is also a good way to practice you self defense skills as you get some goons delivering the old time hockey experience.
In most cases the benches are rag tag thats players and coaches, the refs could care less and if you get out of the building with a smile on your face your ahead of the game.
Indian Fan-
Clearly there is some truth in the rumor:
http://www.selectshockey.com/news-read.php?news_id=204
clarkstown – that suffern modified team also has a few 7th graders and is made of mostly freshmen-to-be… i heard it was 5-1 clarkstown and then 18-5 suffern win in that game…
For those who may be interested, North Rockland coach Gary Dworkowitz arranged a one-day Goalie Clinic run by Stephen Valiquette at SOR on Sunday 6/6/10 for 7th through 11th grade goalies (and their coaches if the coaches want to get on the ice as well). There is a pamphlet with details, application and other info here: http://www.section1hockey.com/images/GoalieClinic.pdf
How about some Travel Team talk..
What are the local midget clubs looking like. Are the Saints U18 and U16 stocked with Suffern players and what level ar they at?
Will the Mariners midgets remain as strong? Vipers? Are local players instead going to the NJ Avs or Long Island teams?
Brewster juniors? Or who looks like they may be foregoing to HS to focus on juniors only?
Ramapo Saints 18AA have alot of Suffern kids plus picked up 2 good dmen Byrns(CN)and Marinelli(MTP)from the Mariners.Stark in goal
Who made the first cut at Empire tryouts? Don’t they whittle it down to about 40 kids by now and run an 8 week camp to pick the final team (20 plus a few alternates) by mid July for the end of July games?
fanotgame
fanotgame
It’s been very quiet this year. In 2008, the initial selections were made on the weekend of May 17. This year, not a word.
Fanotgame,
Tryouts for the empire state team are in two weeks, and there are only 3 tryouts, or so it seems…
Thanks Icky. Sounds like a pared down version of what it used to be. Sign of the times. At least they are having the Games this summer after last summer’s cancellation.
saw on the baseball blog that Mamo’s Hagan hit a prodigious bomb HR off the clock on the 4th floor of the high school. Someone else estimated it travelled 470 feet.
I guess the Hagan’s are just all amazing at everything they do…
I saw the hr it actually went over the clock and off the 4th floor. It was probably around 470. Both hagans are amazing athletes. Too bad they never played football they could have helped
connington is going to north next year
whos connington?
Connington is the Suffern goalie wh was replaced when Stark “moved” to Suffern. Clarkstown does not need him and he’s not moving there.
thats just a rumor i heard at sportorama
is he going to prep next year or staying at suffern?
Stark is staying put.
Who is in the running for Iona job?
Pat Scanlan has got to be considered for Iona.
The downside of the merger is simple, yes it will save the district some money, and yes it will create a stonger single team, than the 2 seperate teams now are…. but in the long run… I will destroy clarkstown high school hockey, by limiting the number of kids playing in the system. Clarkstown Central School district needs to look at different options to deal with North/South hockey…
Scanlon? Why? Not a chance
My son was informed that Tim Collins is the new varsity coach at Iona. We couldn’t be happier, he is a no nonsense guy who we have played for before.
If Tim Collins is tne new Varsity Coach at Iona that is a great move and great fit . Tim is a first rate Coach .
NorthHockeyFan,
Could not agree more. Two very popular and succesful programs have both been North and South hockey. Why a plan to save, but cut costs, could not better constructed is a thought provoking question.
Even the E. Ramapo school district, with all it’s financial dysfunction, has not yet gone down the road of merging it’s 2 very popular football programs (hopefully), despite the easy money that could be saved.
(Before people argue that E. Ramapo has other merged teams like baseball and hockey, before it was discontinued, these programs were merged due to lack of participants, which is clearly not the case with Clarkstown hockey.)
Went to empire tryouts yesterday and it looked like there was some pretty good talent the top fowards there had to be Prunesti and Belger and the top D had to be Santini and Basmajian anyone else have an opinion?
The top players will be at Chowder Cup which is the same weekend. The 4 players you mention will probably go there instead. Look closer at how much depth you got if your scouting talent at those tryouts.
What about all the prep kids who usually show up at the Empire tryouts? Just a few years back, the Sec 1 superstars were the third line guys and kids from national prep programs (Founders League, Shattuck St Marys, ect.) whose parents live in the Hudson Valley were getting all the playing time. Patrick Kane was playing for the Western team (and only averaging about a goal a game). Has last year’s cancellation really changed things that much?
I heard Santini’s dad is involved in Empires, so maybe he plays there instead of Chowder Cup.
Empire Tryouts? Usually all of that is top secret. Does anyone know where and when the next tryout is and how you get an application to try out?
Congrats to both coach Collins and Iona. Tim will do a super job in replacing the other Tim who is also a good one. Solid hockey background. Played at Northwood Prep (where Dzenis is now), coaches travel at Mariners, college club at Fordham and the NYC Empire team. Good luck Gaels.
CIA
Empire games application should be on their website (empirestategames.org). The deadline is usually the end of Dec for the summer games in July. This leaves time for them to evaluate you in person or by some other means. I assume next year will be the same.
without being rude I have to say evaluate in person? I doubt that ever happens.
Being a Pelham parent- i cannot remember last pelham player who made empire team- they say its political
Pelham’s Duffy made it the last time the games were held (Summer’08). Didn’t think the process was that politcal for Hudson Valley’s Bronze Medal team. Suffern’s Norwin and Rye’s Mundinger (both just completing their sophomore years) were the two alternates that year. Coaching staff didn’t have any political or other ties with those Section One players. Kids like ETB’s (and now Choate) Hagan made that team. Iona’s Molinaro. Scarsdale’s Gluck. Suffern’s Hiller. North Roc’s O’Conner. Yorktown’s DiMaggio. Plenty of Section One kids in addition to prep kids and Section 9 guys (many who played NJ Hitmen Jrs)
FYI….ETB’s Alex Hagen accepts a full ride deal to St Lawrence University for 2012.
Its appears that the ESG team is based and core is with travel teams. As the coaches and admin has changed its bounces back and forth. Many good players have been passed over because they did not play with the right travel teams. We can only hope that the tryout is run without basing it on travel team affilation although it rarely has happened.
I played Empires for 3 years, alternate in ‘98, player ‘99-’00 and in trying to be impartial, I can say that it was somewhat political. A guy like Chase D’Agostino was passed over for players who were certainly not as good as them. However, some section 1 guys who had left for prep school came back and took spots, some deservedly so, others not so much. I would say the players reputation(ie. prep school guy, 80-100 pt. high school guy, stud travel team player) had a lot to do with whether they made it or not. I would venture to guess that a half to a third of the team was picked before tryouts started so everyone else was trying out to fill the rest of the roster. Just a former player’s perspective…
For Empires, there is also the issue of multisport players picking just one sport to play at Empires. Mamo’s Hagan never laced them up for Empires hockey because he was busy pitching in the baseball competition. JoJo Marasco was on the Empire hockey team the summer after his sophomore year, but then opted for LAX the next Games. This year, players like L/P’s Caffrey (hockey/LAX) and Mamo’s younger Hagan (hockey/baseball) might have to make similar decisons.
Lets face certain obvious facts, if the coaches running the team are travel coaches and run travel programs they probably think that a travel kid of equal ability is always better than a player who does not play travel. Someone posted above about a player making it from a specific school and I remember that. That player was a travel player but was certainly not the best player on that specific high school team and he made ESG although did not play much. Maybe the better players on that high school team did not tryout? Either way they probably would not have made it anyway if they were not in the travel players circle.
I have always felt that factors in hockey can not always be measured in your typical tryout or while running players through a drill. Some kids have more heart and a bit less skill and I believe heart wins out every time. When your picking your team you look at the skill, you look at the talent but in the end you choose with knowing the players game sense and his desire to win the battles. Thus there are times that a player who a coach has seen will make the squad over a player with skill. Funny how this subject was brought up by a Pelham person. Pelham is a political a program as any.
How close are they to finalizing the teams?
Are they taking 30 kids to start?
Are there any Mamaroneck Tigers in the mix?
In years past, they had a series of tryouts that reduces the original pool of invited players to about 30 skaters and 4 goalies. Those guys work out together for a 6 week “camp” at the end of which the coaches choose 18 skaters, 2 goalies and two alternates- 1 forward and 1 dman- (in case anyone gets injured or sick right before the Games). My understanding is that they have that 30 skater plus 4 goalie group picked and are now running the camp. Have heard that Christiansen and maybe Harwood are in the mix for Mamo.
Does anyone know the Hudson Valley roster?
Fanotgame has it right on Empires. The roster for the training camp is at http://www.eteamz.com/hvesghockey/
That looks like a pretty decent team. Should at least be competitive. Nice blend of forwards, Defensemen and goaltending. Will all of those kids go to Empire and miss Chowder Cup I wonder.
Any reason why the young Basmajian (BH Dman) and WP’s Lawrence or Broderick are not there? Maybe Chowder Cup instead? Or are those guys ‘92s who are too old?
Looks like very good Rockland representation—lots of Suffern players. And good to see a Clarkstown name on the roster in Byrnes.
Hagan plays baseball
Basmajian and Prunesti Chowder Cup thats where the college coaches will be.
Basmajian and Prunesti both absent from ESG team practice last night. I guess both are headed to Chowder Cup.
Well I see the bloggers NEVER die. ESG …I will keep my fingrs still on that one but all who have been around know how thatr selection goes and how I feel! lol Well I heard some VERY exciting news, if true, so if anyone else knows…please confirm. Greg Squirres from WP who left for prep signed with the FLYERS! YEAH Greg. Hope it’s true Good Luck to you. Also read that Santini possibly commited to BC…and only going into 10th grade. That’s scary!
Call me crazy but I’m pretty sure you can’t commit to play a NCAA sport at the end of your freshman year of high school, it’s not scary, it’s just plain false.
You can commit verbally just about whenever you want…
It’s not binding from the school’s standpoint…
Last year, a seventh-grade QB verbally committed to USC…
Santini has verbally committed to BC. http://www.youth1.com/hockey-headlines/expresss-santini-commits-to-bc.html
It’s great that he says that he wants to go to BC….
And, it’s great that the school has expressed interest..
But, until the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed on the Letter of Intent, it doesn’t mean a thing…
It’s not binding…
Steve is a great player – he may get a better offer…or take off to play juniors up north…A lot can happen over the next couple of years…
no big thing,
Just what better college offer would there be than Boston College? Three NCAA Championships in the last decade and one of the top Schools in the country. Good for this kid and I hope the offer is still on the table when he can commit in writing.
delbarton with another draft pick…is that 3 in 3 years? i know its definitely 2 in 2 years…
140th overall, pittsburgh, 5th round, winger ken agostino
To Alumni,
All I’m saying is that it’s a nice story..But I’ve seen these things all fall apart pretty quickly…Three years is a long time…Things change – on both ends…I’m not knocking the kid, the school or the offer – all I’m saying is that it’s pretty ridiculous when a 9th-10th grader commits…And, I think the NCAA agrees with me since they are giving serious consideration to backing the commitment timeline to July after junior year of high school.
Not playing travel senior year.
What fall hockey league options are available? What do Ice Hutch or WSA offer either as an individual player or when entering a team?
The rosters for Empires are out. Here is the link:
http://www.empirestategames.org/summer/rosters/event_rosters.asp?year=2010&sport=IC&division=S
Lots of section 1 guys (and girls) on the teams. Congrats and good luck to all.
Empire State (Hudson Valley Region) boys hockey team: 20 kids
10-Westchester
6-Rockland
3-Dutchess
1-Ulster
0-Orange
0-Putnam
0-Sullivan
Political:Maybe,Maybe not.Either way I just wonder if this group is the best 20 from 7 counties? Did kids from Orange,Putnan,and Sullivan not try out?
Congratulations to all that made the team and good luck in the tournament.
coach is from westchester so he took kids he knew whether or not those are the best 20 is anyones guess.
How didn’t fuchs from suffern make it. I had heard he made it already
Saying the coach is “from Westchester” is quite silly. Forever with ESG it has always favored the travel players. It has always been that way. I cannot believe that just because the coaches reside in Westchester that they take more Westchester players. If there is any politics or any benefit of the doubt given its to travel kids. One of the coaches has his son on the team and he is one of the top players I am sure the coach wants to put the best team he can together. The roster looks good let the kids go play and compete. This roster looks far less poltical as ones in years past. There were no games last year and the last team HV put together had a few kids that clearly did not belong. Looking at this years roster it looks as though all belong. Are there others not selected who belong? sure, but you only can take 20
The selection of the Hudson Valley team was as fair as it could be. If you don’t think they wanted to put together the strongest possible team you are mistaken.
What made it frustrating was knowing that there were a very talented group of kids that chose their Junior team’s tournament over the ESG. Look at the list of players who weren’t there…RJ Burns, Reagan, Fusco, etc. Richie Prunesti and Byrnes were selected for the camp but didn’t attend. Richie is playing with the Core that weekend and Byrnes is living in Massachusetts above some rink. The point is, the players selected were the best who showed up and practiced over the past month. The alternates should be honored to be counted amoung them. This team is very competitive and will perform very well at the games.
Don’t forget kids like Peeples, Guberti,Reagan and others are playing at Chowder Cup.
To bad other interests come into play. The Hudson Valley Team is a shell of what it can be.The roster is good but not great.Key talent is missing. Maybe the other teams in the ESG have the same problems.
With so many summer hockey options (Chowder Cup , for eg.) as well as some other kids likely playing on other Empire sport teams (Hagan, Caffrey), the Hudson Valley ESG hockey team is not going to have all the top players. But, this one has a strong defensive core. Goaltending is young, so strong D important. The forwards may lack individual firepower, but I see some names that should work well together. Good luck. Hudson Valley has won a bunch of silvers and bronzes recently. Would be great to get a gold.
Rye is gonna run section 1 next year
But Rye will not beat Mamaroneck
or Suffern
I beg to differ.
Hey Fanotgame,
You are right, the goaltending is young and the defense is strong. But youth is precious! I hope those guys stand on their heads!
Great to see a little chatter about next season.
In DI, Suffern will be the clear favorite. Maybe even a preseason state number 1. Mamo has something to prove after their early playoff exit last season. L/P will be pushing hard to show they are something more than a 1 year wonder. WP has a bunch of solid skaters.
In DII, Rye and Pelham will be relatively evenly matched. Both teams lost only a few players to graduation. The Garnets return the best goalie in the section (sorry Stark), but need to replace some scoring-which may come in the form of a sophomore prep transferee (who played DI prep Vermont Academy as a frosh), while the Pelicans need to replace a goalie. DII newcomer EastBronx could challenge if they settle the goaltending issue. Not sure about SHI. Heard Pesce may go prep. Whoever wins Section One DII will have a very good shot at Utica, as Queensburry is no longer the regional oppponent. Heard it might be Section 9 (which has only 1 DII team left-Burke Catholic, I think).
In Catholics, Iona gets a new coach to lead what is alays a strong roster. Fordham has good goaltending. Stepinac has its usual numbers issue.
Is that really the name we are going with for this year? EastBronx? I personally like Bronxchester. East Bronx really sounds like a place I wouldn’t want to visit much like the unfortunate tag that was hung on the Sleepy Hollow/Edgemont merger for about 10 years (Sledgemont).
And yes, Section 1 is hosting Section 9 in both D1 & D2 this year. And since O’Neill dropped all sports and I heard that Newburgh may have cut hockey (although I am not certain of that), it looks like it will be Burke Catholic and Monroe Woodbury coming down to play our champions this year (not that it would be anything different with O’Neill and Newburgh still in the picture).
Lohud- Bronxchester does sound better. Are they going to buy new sweaters, or will they just X out the “T”?
Pre season top 10:
Suffern
Mamo
Iona
Rye
WP
RCDS
L/P
Pelham
Fordham
Bronxchester
Pre season top ten
Suffern
Mamo
White Plains
Pelham
L/P
Rye
Eastchester Bronxville
Fordham
Iona
Mahopac
Rye will be better than Pelham, the first requirement of a good team is a good goalie, something Pelham will clearly lack.
My recollection last year was that Ryes goalie was good but he did struggle especially against the better teams. I believe Pelham almost beat Rye at Playland last year the game was a tie. Pelham had just played Mamo the night before. Rye is losing almost all of their scoring with Taka and Mundinger leaving. Pelham had the same problem last year losing Florie and some complimentary players. I think Rye has no idea as to how that plays out. Replacing that much offense will be quite a challenge. Pelham is very deep and has numbers almost equal to a large school. They appear to have built a core foundation of incoming freshman through the bantam program. Rye has solid D, good goaltending and maybe they and Pelham are neck and neck. I think it will be a battle and hope that they are scheduled for games against each other during the regular season.
Ryes goalie is fine. He will only get better. Agreed Rye lost major firepower. Pelham does have depth and a plan on the ice and even if the goalie for Pelham is not ready the Pelham team defense may protect him. They rarely give up scoring chances. Rye has good defense too and this will be a battle
Rye and Pelham have developed a great rivalry over the past 5 seasons with Rye bagging 3 Section One championships and Pelham the other 2. I see that rivalry continuing for the forseeable future. Rye, like Pelham, also has a deep roster. The Garnets graduated only 3 forwards. They are getting a prep transfer at forward who played DI prep varsity as a freshman. That leaves precious few slots for the many upcoming freshman and sophomores who will try out for the varsity. As is usually the case, a few will depart for the Catholics where they can get playing time on a JV team right away.
Goalie coach Kelly will find a way for Pelham to be at least OK in net. Witz runs a very good defensive system. Pelham won’t be easy to score on. Reilly and his junior linemates could have a breakout season. But, Rye has the big, mobile, technically sound Senior goalie and all its defensemen back. One incoming senior that played all last season with a compromised knee has had it surgically repaired. The two freshman D that logged major ice time last season are a year older and bigger. At forward, the Garnets graduated a lot of speed. But, Rogers is poised to break out. Rosenfield is a big body who can skate and score. There are a few other big, fast seniors who can bang. And the prep kid is supposed to be a physical player who can finish. Look for Rye to be very physical this coming season. And they will still have plenty of skill up front. In the end, my money is on a 4th Garnet Section One chamionship in 5 years. But, it won’t be easy.
Agree on most fronts FOTG. Outstanding breakdown as always. Pelham has those two junior defense players both are quick and strong. I say great defense always rules offense and Pelham has always had great defensive forwards and D players. It will be a rumble as long as neither team gets taken down by one of the other looming contenders
I thought there were a lot of players who opted not to tryout for the Hudson Valley ESG team because of the Senior Chowder Cup in Massachusetts. But in looking over the rosters I only counted five local players. Are the rest at another tournament? I only saw these listed on the rosters:
RJ Burns – NJ Hitmen
Basmajian – CD All Stars
Byrnes – Cranston Reds
Ciotti – Elite Gold
Hagen – CT Yankees
That is only five. So where are all the rest?
There is a bunch more up here you are missing. Complete rosters aren’t posted yet. Rausch on Elite Gold also. Bunch of kids on HV Selects out of Brewster.
Rausch, Ciotti and Hagen are all to old to compete on this years ESG team.
Elite Gold and Hitmen game was terrific. It ended in a 3-3 tie. Stupid penalties hurt the Hitmen.
The 2010-11 schedule has been out for a few days now.
Rye vs. Pelham at Playland on 1/5/11
Rye at Mamaroneck on 1/29/11
The only ‘92s eligible for ESG are the ones with birthdays after August 31. Older Belger is an example.
I like the date of the Rye/Pelham match. Most kids back from college will still be in town.
Can we get some updates from tonights ESG games?
Where can one find next year’s schedule?
Hudson Valley 4 – NYC 0, shots were about 40-12.
Great to see incoming Pelham jr Reilly banged one home and Harwood got the shut out. ESG website had shots at 26-15. Lets rememebr that the NYC team is a perennial bottom fisher. It gets much, much tougher against Central, Western and LI. Even Adirondack will be solid. Good luck boys.
Tough schedulnig coming up for Hud Valley. Belger is superb. Adding the Pelham kid adds some much needed blue collar approach to the team
Test
The schedules are out at the Section 1 website
For those who said they couldnt find local players there are plenty on the Hudson Valley Selects
Here they are:
Conor Lawrence – white plains
Eric Mearsheimer- Hen hud
mike delavergne- pawling
jordan gluck- scarsdale
dan broderick- white plains
brett jackson- mamaroneck
Any of the local kids teams moving on to the playoff rounds up at the Chowder Cup?
hudson valley beats western sunday and they finish with possible gold depending on central game. good luck boys!
Western 7 Hudson Valley 1 Western wins GOLD, HV wins SILVER
Congratulations to all the players and coaches on the Hudson Valley team and everyone who made this years games possible.
Who got gold silver and bronze?
Western Gold
LI: Silver
Central: Bronze
Hudson Valley went 2-2-1 for bronze tie it seems.
http://www.empirestategames.org/summer/results/SportResults.asp?year=2010&sport=IC&division=S&clean=0
unfortunately Hud Valley came home empty
I am sure that must be very disappointing for the players to come home without a medal. The competition is fierce when you get upstate. Kudos to the Long Island team for bringing home the Silver.
Looks like the 2-1 loss to Adirondack was the killer. Still, good effort by a young team.
Young team?
Usually, it is “your” year for Empires the summer between your jr and senior year of HS. So, the kids who just graduated lost out when the games were cancelled last summer. This summer’s team had a bunch of kids who will be juniors or younger this coming school year (including both goalies, a top dman and two centers) who each have another year, or more, of eligibility.
A top player can compete against older kids. Look at the USHL and other junior routes. Unless you are a good player skating around unskilled players in a high school hockey setting, the year won’t matter that much.
Those top players will bring home the gold next year for Hudson Valley. You can take that to the bank!
Well the website shows the results,in the standings with HV AND LI tied for silver ,so is that a typo
yes those are wrong. HV got nothing
What a choke! 2 wins and 1 tie after three games and come home with “NADA”!
Tough to evaluate in such a short tournament and with only limited time playing together.
I think the ESG’s have not recovered from their one year sabatical, the prestige level seems to be down from previous years. A lot of top individual athletes (from track, field, wrestling, etc.) and team athletes (lacrosse, baseball) passed on the games this year.
With high school athletics morphing into a year-round activity, between club teams, high school teams, maybe a second sport (think all the hockey-lax, hockey-baseball, kids), strict training programs, the need to have some down-time in the summer has affected the games.
I aggree with you Al. Unfortunately, the games have lost a lot of their draw for the kids.
By the way, is your neighbor Marcy single?
Dave,
Is that you?
Just to clarify, the kids who represented the Hudson Valley are terrific players. We should appreciate they stepped up and did this. Same for the coaches too.
I’ll pass along your greetings to Marcy..
Cant say I agree. I believe the talent level was per norm. The team probably should have medaled but I think the team was well represented with enough of the top area players
Interesting thread. You had enough of the top players in the area, and yet you come home empty handed. Must have been a tough ride home for the coach. Does he have any experience in high level games or maybe just owned a franchise? I don’t know. Any thoughts?
Hudson Valley has never won a medal in hockey so this year was no different than any other.
HV won bronze in 2008. Santini the coach played D I college hockey years ago, still plays and has coached hockey for years. The team came up flat against Western. Western always has great teams, Pat Kane skated for them at the Ice Hutch couple of years ago. If they won their last game they would of had gold. Gotta love this blog with all the experts weighting in. It is better than the comics.
hmm- No games in 2009, bronze in 2008 and 2007 (at Ice Hutch), Silver in 2006 (Kane’s Western team won gold- but HV played them close 3-1 EN).
Dont think Kane played at Ice Hutch ,Thought he last played in 06 when HV scored a Silver.
Fan got it right 1-1 late in 3rd took 2-1 lead with a few mins left and EN in last min.
Kane played in the Ice hutch. I was there chasing him around. He was pretty good. LOL
I worked the clock/score box for the Empires at the Hutch. Believe it or not, I still have the printed program. No Patrick Kane on the list. But, the gold medal winning Western team was still loaded. Studs included NTDP’s Ryan Grimshaw at defense and Shattuck St Mary’s Sam Alferi and St Joes’ Cole Schneider at forward. I am pretty sure all those guys are playing at college and beyond by now.
alferi is on lincoln(ushl)
Schneider is going to uconn in the fall
so back to the high school league what do you guys think the top ten teams are for D1?
hockey love- Under the new state guidelines and taking into consideration the North/South merger, there are only 12 DI teams next season. I rank them as follows:
Suffern
Mamo
WP
L/P
Pac
Clarkstown
RTH
North Roc
Carmel
New Ro
Mt Pleasant
NTZ
It drops off a lot after the top 4.
That leaves 16 DII teams. The top 2 DII teams (Rye and Pelham) would be right behind Mamo.
Who is going to be Pelhams goalie next year?
I know Silverstein is brutal, how about Franzino and Borofsky?
Franzino’s older brother was an excellent lacrosse player, hopefully they have the same athletic genetics.
Way to throw the Pelham kid under the bus. Real class there Mr. Hockey.
Kid threw his team under the bus when he quit. Nuff said.
I would not be the least bit concerned about Pelham in goal or in any position at any time. That program always figures it out. Always has.
Kane is an 88 birth year. He was allowed to play in 06 because of a special rule that western is very good at exploiting. Western had several 88’s on that team to HV’s none (oldest players were 89 birth years). Besides having several great skaters on that western team they largely won due to goaltending. HV outshot western in that game and had multiple quality scoring opps. They were stone walled by Anthony Borelli, the only future D1 goaltender competing that year. Borelli is at Brown and GTended in the USHL 08-09.
Anyway, no Kane at the ice hutch unless he has a younger brother.
Additionally, HV was missing at least 2 of the best players available in the region. Niether Shattenkirk or New (both Hockey East Defensemen) participated although they were eligible.
That HV team was pretty darn good even missing them. At least 3 D1 players and several D3.
Didnt think Kane played at Hutch ,If you are talking about New on 06 team he had an injury and couldnt go,and team was very good that yr,game against Western and P.Kane was great
Does anyone know what willows is doing next year?
I had heard that he gave an oral commitment to BC when he was younder. But when he didn’t make the NTDP that fell through. I believe he is playing another year with the Hitmen. He was one of their leading scorers last year.
The Hudson Valley was killed by the Chowder Cup and EJHL Showcase being the same weeknd. There were at least 7 players that would have played if not for these conflicts. No offense to the kids that did go but at least 6 or 7 of them would not have been picked. Think of some of the players that did not go because of these other showcases. Prunesti, Broderick, Basmajian, Lawrence, Nolan, Caffrey. The big thing it looked like the team lacked looking at the scores was scoring. All of these were some of the best finishers the Section had last year and all have played a high level of hockey, whether it be AAA or Juniors. That being said, the HV team did very well in what was a very competitive tournament. For the first time ever, Every team won a game.
Stop…other regions go through the same conflicts. If those other players wanted to be there they would have participated. Judging from what I say at the tryouts, it was clear to me (and others) that at least one of the above mentioned clearly did not want to be there. The lack of effort was obvious.
To Tiger Vet 2:
No one can question the scoring ability of willows, who is a natural goal scorer. To say he had a verbal committment from BC is a bit of a stretch. There is alot that goes into getting a committment from a D 1 powerhouse such as BC of which grades is a piece of that puzzle was lacking.
Where? http://www.section1hockey.com has only last year’s.
I’m unable for some reason to post the URL to the BOCES Section 1 WEBSITE FOR THE SCHEDULES
They are out. Coaches probably have them. Curious who has the most challenging schedule this year. I am sure it will be Suffern and Mamaroneck in D I and Pelham and probably Rye in D II
Playland-
I keep trying that, too, and it’s not working. I thought it was just me.
I have not seen everyone’s non-league schedules yet, but I did get a peek at Pelham’s and outside of their league schedule (which includes Mamk, & WP), pretty much all of their games are against upstate teams. The only exceptions being perennially state-ranked locals Suffern & Rye.
OK, so that post went up. It has to be the link itself to the BOCES site that the blog doesn’t like. If you piece together the following three bits of text into one link, it should take you to the BOCES site where you can get schedules for any team in any sport in section 1:
http://sportsp
akdb.lhric.or
g/mainindex.asp
I was a big fan two years ago when suffern, rye, pelham and mamo were strong.
I followed Mamo and Pelham to the finals.
What happened to all those players:
Hiller, talgo, mundinger, powers, fine, zwieg, flory, mamone… that was a strong year….
Hiller played club at U Michigan (Ann Arbor) last year. Talgo played club at Lehigh. Sganga played club at Ithaca College. Mundinger, Katsuta and Powers played at Rye their senior year. Katsuta playing varsity at Waseda University in Tokyo this coming school year. Mundinger going to Colgate where they have DI and club hockey. Powers attending Maryland (with Suffern’s Norwin) where they have club hockey. Fine?, Zweig?, Flory played club at RPI. Mamone?
I saw a post about Cole Schneider…I believe he is Rui’s roommate at UConn this fall. Can’t wait for Hockey season to start…in withdrawal after soooo many years of 11 months of hockey and no hockey this summer! UConn is playing at West Point 10/23/10….Rally time!
Some additional players from 2009
O’Connor played club at UMBC.
McIndoe played club at Northeastern
Meany played club at Univ of Buffalo
Hill went to Providence not sure if he played club
Shuman ?
Also, Benincasa played club at Lafayette last year.
None of those players went on to D1? any of those club players have shots of trying to walk-on.
All a great group.
Alumnussssss- DI and DIII rosters are a hard nut to crack. There isn’t much difference between good DIII (like Middlebury or even local Manhattanville) and average DI (Army or UConn). The crowds at places like Middlebury are huge. Maybe the DI players are a little bigger/older. For example, when Iona folded their DI program, some Iona skaters went to Manhattanville and had to fight hard for ice time. From what I have heard, there isn’t much difference in the level of play between average DIII and the Japanese college league Katsuda will play in at Waseda University except the players in the Japanese league are smaller. Still a very fast game. So, Rye’s Katsuda may actually be the one from that group that gets a shot at the highest level of college play. Of course, he had to go to Tokyo to do it.
Meany- i heard had very good year
Flory- as well i heard put up some numbers and has a shot
reycraft and clay- prep pelham players are playing next year as well
Mcindoe played backing up senior goalie
Impressed about taka- best of luck
I think the Clay kid is playing lax.
Flory probably will take a crack at the RPI roster either next year or the year after. He apparently was the best player on the club team by far.
If they hadn’t had such unreal recruiting classes (D’Amigo) it would probably be easier.
And Clay is going to GWU, which has neither hockey nor lacrosse.
From what I’d read and heard around the area he was a d-1 level lacrosse goalie, wonder what happened.
hockey-
Maybe clay – good academics?
Flory- siw him at the Hutch not too long ago, really bulked up.
mamone- st. thomas
best of luck to mundinger, crack that roster.
What about jackson?
N congrats to Taka (sp?) thats an awesome opportunity,
“best player on their club team”...you think would have a chance to make the RPI varsity team ?
you no nothing if you say that
I agree its not reason enough to have a chance to make varsity alone, but hes 25 pounds heavier and theres interest from the rpi coaching staff.
Long shot simply because of what RPI has been recruiting. The kid can score and goes both ways.
fanotgame,
Benincasa, yes played D-II club @ Lafayette. Fordham D-III beat them 9-1 and Benincasa got pulled after 2 periods??? Maybe he should not be in conversation of elite from Westchester??
HNL:
For goalies not every start is a good one.
Flory:
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2010/08/10/leafs_damigo/
Interesting for Flory I guess…..
hockey nite- During his HS senior year, Benny was one of the better goalies in the Section. Not sure how much support he has in front of him at the college club level. If a skater has a bad game, he gets no points on the scoresheet. If a goalie on an overmatched team has an off nite, gruesome stats can result.
Does anybody know what the ice hutch situation is? Heard that target was buying them out for a warehouse. It is a dump, but used by a bunch of people.
Not a chance. Ice Hutch is ready to go for another season. I called for ice rentals and they are almost sold out. Our adult skates there and its fine. Was there the other night and they were painting the locker rooms.
What does the roster look like this season? any changes?
Ice Hutch could not sell out to Target even if they wanted to the city owns the land and Ice Hutch has a 25+ year lease. The land is also recreation property and has to stay that way. Playland might have an issue if the county exec keeps pushing it
Doubt Playland will ever get knocked out but I guess you never know. I hear WSA is struggling with this economy like many other businesses. I am sure private rinks with huge over heads are a challenge in this economy.
I could not believe how expensive the price of Vipers travel teams was when I heard it.
Here attached is the opinion of one Rockland resident who seems priced out of hockey:
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100806/OPINION/8060314/1016/OPINION02/Too%20much%20emphasis%20on%20travel%20hockey
I tend to agree. Not enough moderately priced options available for the kid in the 5th or 6th grade who tires of little league baseball and would like to try hockey.
He’s correct in that the mall rink is poorly managed and that there are no house leagues there, but seriously, people in the Clarkstown School District are not that far from SOR (I would even say that some parts of the district are closer to SOR than they are to the mall).
SOR has house leagues which are considerably cheaper than travel teams. It’s not like saying you have to go from New City to Brewster to find a house league. It’s really not far at all to drive to Monsey.
Also, comparing the Nyack/TZ merger to the North/South merger is a bit of a stretch. Nyack & TZ merged due to lack of enough interest at either school to field a team without merging. North & South merged to save money. They have enough interest in hockey to easily field two varsity & two modified teams. Nyack & TZ merged are lucky to have enough to field one varsity and one modified team.
Lohud,
Maybe it has changed at SOR (I know it is another Hockey Director their), but the winter house leagues, as I remember in the last couple of years, are pretty sparse after squirt years. So a middle school kid looking to play hockey for the first time has to convince his family to lay out a couple of $$ grand $$ to play on a pee wee travel B team. Well, I know what my father would have told me! (Of course this was pre-historic times..)
I am not current on the Saints tuition schedule, but I heard about their merger with the Pearl River hockey club. Now I know that Pearl River had very reasonable season rates and I hope that incorporated in this consolidation was a plan to maintain a modest season tuition amount that the former Pearl River club family was used to paying.
I think the letter writers point was that these hockey mergers were seemingly accepted by the public without any opposition or protest. I think he is alluding that this would have been a big to-do just a couple of years ago.
Follow-up articles on the Clarkstown school sports cuts have highligted angry parents opposed to cuts in freshmen basketball and merging of some other modified teams. At least hockey was not mentioned.
I’m not sure what the winter house leagues will look like this year, but I know with the new hockey director, they are making a concerted effort to re-build the house leagues at SOR. They have been holding a ton of learn-to-skate clinics over the past year, and while it may take some time to build up the numbers at pee-wee level and above, the main goal seemed to be to start building up the mite & squirt programs which would in turn build the older levels. As long as you keep a steady flow of kids playing mites, you will always have a decent amount of kids at the rink playing.
My daughter played in the mini-mite league this past spring. When they held the evaluations before the season, they had all the mite & mini-mite kids out there together. There were probably 100 kids out there to populate the two leagues. Now, there was a decent-sized dropoff as you got older, but then again, this was spring when people aren’t necessarily thinking about hockey (at least those who haven’t played before). Between all the Rockland & Nothern NJ kids, those leagues will build up once again and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a really good turnout in the fall & winter leagues.
And as a side note, Al, do I need to direct you back to all the previous blogs where we pounded into the ground the difference between there, their, and they’re?????
I am pretty solid on “they’re”. It’s always the “their” and and “there” that I usually mess up on..
I hope the older kid house league’s start to return. It just seems like always a big push to get kids on travel squads by time they’re (good heh…)of pee wee age. To often hockey commitment does not allow fall weekend time for other sports like soccer or football.
Sure, their (ok?..) are lots of multi-tasking kids that play both hockey and another in-season sport, but alot of families have to give up one of these sports for the cost and time associations. There (??) are not many sports more expensive and time consuming than travel hockey.
It’s very anecdotal, but I know a couple of families, including dad’s who are big hockey fans, who bemoan affordable hockey for 12 and up age kids, and subtly (sic) steer their (guess..) kids to soccer, lacrosse, etc. for affordability.
Anyway..I am submitting this essay for grading and correction!
hes playing roller hockey for university of miami
Top teams for 2010/11 in the Westchester/Rockland area:
1. Suffern
2. Mamo
3. Iona Prep.
4. Pelham
5. New Rochelle
6. Lakeland/Panas
7. Clarkstown N/S
8. Rye
9. Kennedy Catholic
10.Fordham Prep.
Taxi squad – Rye Town, Yorktown, John Jay, White Plains and Scarsdale.
Agree with top 2 HNL but Iona is ranked way too high. They have a new coach and some of their key players have transferred out to other schools. Goaltending is probably still at issue. I think Rye should be higher above New Ro
1 Suffern
2 Mamo
3 Panas
4 pelham
5 rye
6 Iona
7 new ro
8 EB
9 North Rockland
10 Fordham
Al Bundy you’re 100% correct. The Vipers have really gone down hill over the past few years. You’re better off playing for Pelham. They think that their organation can match up with the Ramapo SAints or Brewster programs. Which never will happen because the Viper Coaches are very “Weak”, (except for maybe two?) Their coaching staff is watered down with various coaches coaching numerous teams at the same time! Hence, coaches can’t make all the games because of scheduling conflicts. “Now that’s Funny”! But the parents put up with it!
Eventually, all their “TOP PLAYERS” leave for a better program or for better coaching.
Gotcha, the statement you made about weak coaching at the vipers is extremely misinformed.
Hey Vipers,
Question: Have you EVER heard of a player joining the Vipers because of their Coaches? Answer: No “ALL” the Vipers good players leave because the coaches can’t take them to the next level….And that’s the Truth!
Hey Al Bundy,
Not only is the Viper price too high but what do you think about an organization that changes their jerseys so that they make over 100 families buy brand new Jerseys. Figure it out…Approximately 100 families…two Jerseys at $140 a piece…..This means more money for the pro shop which means more money for the rink! And additional fees to the parents….They think we’re just stupid! That another reason why we are leaving!
I have to agree unfortunately with some of the negative postings about the vipers and coaching etc. It is what it is and thats why the organization has dropped off in the last several years. Not much you can do about it I guess.
Just wondering, who transferred from Iona and to where, public school pickups? Some nice players there.
Lets here everyones top player thoughts here my top 5 fwds and dmen
1.Prunesti[NewRo]
2.Belger[L/P]
3.Jaegar[Suffern]
4.Baker[Suffern]
5.Caffery[L/P]
DMEN
1.Pesce[SH/I]
2.Santini[JFK]
3.Fuchs[Suffern]
4.Christiansen[Mamk]
5.Basmajin[ByramHills]
What does everyone else think?
Viper Lifer,
You’re telling the truth. Look at the names above….. Some of the top players (Belger, Pesce & Basmajian) mentioned started with the Vipers but left…...Why? Because the competition was terrible, the Vipers had no direction and the Coaches were not able to get the players to the next level!
FINALLY an intersting topic to Blog about!
Don’t you understand why the Vipers use their coaches to coach a few teams….because then the coaches could get paid double and triple . They keep the same head coaches year after year, pay them more money and then jack up the tuition for all the players. Really…... the same coaches, same mistakes and more money! UNBELIEVEABLE! Hence the good players left because there was no future for them!
Question: Name one player who stayed with that organization from Mites to Midgets then ever went on to play any College Hockey?
This organization should “Wake up and Smell the Coffee”, they had a great organization at one time but now… It’s a joke! They should start over and get some Hockey people who really know how to run a program because the struture that they have in place now is terrible.
Didnt they lose the player from Eastchester Riccardi? if so hes a huge loss, and what about the kid from Mahopac Nolan? Hes good too. Those are two that I thought I heard were leaving, there may be others?
Oh, this is great. Slam the entire orgnaization because they could not get junior “to the next level.” What is the next level? Playing club hockey like his brother?
There are plenty of great kids that have remainded with the Vipers who enjoyed the experience. Lets leave it at that.
And as far as those you mentioned that left to find coaches who “could get them to the next level,” they couldn’t even bring home a bronze from the ESG. Not even a bronze! Finishing 4th out of a field of 5 isn’t that impressive. But, I’m sure it wasn’t their fault, it must have been the coach and the organization behind him. I guess we’ll start bashing Brewster next.
One discussion has nothing to do with the other. The reference you make to ESG has nothing to do with the Viper discussion. This Viper discussion is totally separate from the ESG talk. Linking the two may make it seem as if there is a total bash party on all organizations, nope, this is just about the Vipers. My kid is there and its solely out of convenience
The Heisenberg site has Prunesti listed as a D1 recruit for next year.
I have nothing against the Vipers or it’s coaches. I was just surprised how expensive it was.
Mostly I was commenting on the the lack of quality house leagues for pee wee and bantam aged kids. This is a great age to get kids who tire of baseball, soccer, or basketball.
As it stands now, the area Lacrosse team’s benefits most from this age group of kids (12 to 15) who are looking to try another sport. Without cheaper house leagues, hockey misses out on this group of kids.
I think Prunesti and Santini playing Jr A, so not likely making HS games. Heard Pesce going prep. With that in mind, preseason All Section:
Goalies: Rix and Stark
DMen: Christiansen, Lawrence, Fuchs, Basmajian, Byrnes, Scholer
Forwards: Jaeger, Baker, Caffrey, Belger, Hagan, Broderick, Redgate, Luciano, Rosenfield
On the bubble:
Goalies: Harwood, Chiapparino
DMan: Marinelli
Forwards: Reilly, Palfry
Regarding local non Section One teams, heard Iona may be losing some talent. Should still be the best of the local catholics. Fordham has a good HS goalie and that is important. Step has numbers issues, again. RCDS has a deep sophomore class, so are a year away from being strong. Look for them to improve as the year progresses. Don’t know much about Harvey.
For Section One here goes:
1. Suffern- Strength and numbers at every position. Maybe top team in the state.
2. Mamo- Also one of the top teams in the state. Too bad the state outbracket tourney no longer in play.
3T. Rye- Remember this team was ranked as high as #2 in the state last season, before losing a close regional final to the state runner up Qburry to finish #4 in the state. They graduated just 3 forwards, but lots of points. Need Rosenfield, Rogers and the new prep transfer to step up and fill the back of the net. Top goalie and all D return.
3T. WP- lots of skating talent, including Lawrence, Broderick and Peoples. Young goalie, though.
3T- L/P- lots of firepower up front with Caffrey and Belger. 5 Hole’s kid a solid netminder. Will miss all the D that graduated.
6. Pelham- I think that junior class led by Reilly will be very good. They will play everyone hard. Think the goaltending could keep them from being an elite team.
7. Eastville- It drops off a bunch after the top 6. But, if these guys can figure out the goalie situation, they might cause trouble in the DII playoffs. Did knock off Pelham early last year.
8. Jay- Nice turnaround last year. Expect more good things this coming season.
9. Clarkstown- Not a super team, like a merger would have delivered just a few years back. But solid.
10. Scarsdale- Graduated just one player last season. Too bad it was Olivario.
On the bubble: Pac, Fox Lane, SHI. I must be missing something on New Ro. Or is Prunesti really going to try to play HS and Jr A?
North Rockland returns just about everyone. I like the NR skaters. They’ll be good sized and senior oriented. They do have to find a goalie ready for varsity.
I’d slip them in at no. 8 on the FOTG list.
Actually two vipers have been recruited for D1, Alex Hagen and Kevin Clare.
I believe both Prunesti and Santini are playing HS this year because Santini’s dad is the JFK coach and could make the schedule around him. Also look at NewRo’s schedule alot of monday and friday games and Applecore practices are at 4:45 so any late games tues-thurs he can probaly make also I believe Tozzos son played for ACore so maybe he talked to the coach there and he played Jr.B last year and I don’t think he missed many games if any I feel both kids will find away to make it work or at least I hope they can.
pretty sure basmajin is playing Juniors only
To Vipers,
So Alex Hagen and Kevin Clare played travel from mites through midgets with the Vipers. Now that’s impressive! WOW!
Clare and Hagen probably only played there through Peewees. Werent they with the Gulls and Avalanche?
I agree FOTG but Pelham has never lost to White Plains maybe this year? I think you may be under estimating the huge loss on offense Rye will be taking. They will have trouble scoring especially with the schedule they play. I like their defense and goal keeping but scoring is important too
So I guess the easlier blogger was correct. The Good players never stay with the Vipers. Why is that?
Top Ten- agree Rye will need to develop forwards who can finish in tight games (the ones outside their League 3 schedule). Heard the prep transfer will help there. Think Rogers is set for a breakout (much like Reilly on Pelham). Captain Rosenfield is a big body who can skate pretty fast. Saw him this past weekend at Pru Center U20 tourney against some top skaters (New Jersey state all star team) He held his own. Also Holmes has the scoring touch down low on the PP. It’s in his blood. Only time will tell. As long as the screwy seeding formula doesn’t mess things up, I think we will see Rye /Pelham followed by Suffern/Mamo at West Point. I’d pay $10 for that.
Viper thread-
First is I have no axe to grind either way. The Viper’s were the first Tier II organization in the area (as an independent, no league affiliation)So the better kids be it mite, squirt and Pee Wee’s it was the only game in town. Hudson Valley league was Tier III. The only Tier I at that time was in Connecticut. So any kid who’s parents believed their kid was better believed that the Viper’s was a better situation (which may not always be the case)for them, this was how the “Viper” mystique grew. After time the Mariner’s were growing and scheduling a lot of non-league tier I and II teams building the quality of players. Of course Brewster and Santini did a great job creating a legitimate Tier 1 program at the younger levels. So now what do you have – Brewster Tier I, Vipers Tier II (LI Hockey) and Mariners Tier II (LI Hockey) So what is my point, my point is the Vipers have been exposed and their coaches are predictable. For the money they charge I am not sure you are getting what you pay for? but the reason they do not have a midget alumni playing in college or higher is because during a players Pee Wee career he or she defines their path. Meaning once they are identified they move to a tier I organization. It may not be right but that is a fact (hockey parents can be a little nuts).
fanotgame-
Rosenfield is nice but be honest he is no Taka or Mundinger??
Agree with you fotg. Last year I was surprised Rye did not get past Queensbury. I did not think Pelham was that good last year however the schedule they played made them a real dangerous bunch at playoff time. Pelham was not as good on paper as Rye, and having said that and after watching Pelham and Rye tie at Playland Pelham can over achieve. Rye has to find a way to make up those goals, those two forwards they lost were offensive machines and consistent scorers against anyone.
Last year Viper Pee Wee Tier 2 team went undefeated in Long Island Hockey league. Went to NYS tourney and won 1st 4 games then lost championship of NYS to Buffalo. Kids will be playing Bantam this year with only 1 kid who left the team.
Vipers are best Tier 2 option around.
Hockey nite and top ten- We’ll just have to see if this new batch of Garnet forwards can find a way to score off the usual grinding Pelican defense. Should be fun to watch. Hope the coaches schedule a home and home. Probably not, though, as both teams have big upstate schedules. The boces site has them playing only once, so far, just after the new year at Playland.
Hockey Night Live,
Boy did you hit a nerve! How funny! But very true…..
August is offseason let’s all give hockey talk a rest.
Sorry fanotgame- Holmes and Rosenfeld are nothing compared to the elite forwards both Pelham and Rye have had. Mundinger, Taka, Flory, Emerson, Eck, Emmet, and I don’t think either of them stack up to Reilly or even Macinnis.
No MAs….No Mas….How funny!
Hey Pelham, I wouldn’t talk so much of a rematch with Rye, you have to get through SHI and ETB first. 2 teams that are even younger than you are and beat you last year despite Durands heroic efforts. And, I love Reilly, but he is going to have his hands full with Pesce and Palfrey, both of whom are coming back regardless of what the bloggers who think they know say.
With all these kids playing juniors we have to keep our fingers crossed that we have them healthy for the playoffs. It is a long season and the junior teams don’t take a break like the short season midget teams do.
The youngsters at that level can get pretty banged up playing against kids that have been out of high school for a year or two and are pushing 200 lbs or more. May be a wise move to wait until high school is over to play at that level, for some of the kids you haven’t fully matured. Willows is an example. I hear he is doing well and playing another year of juniors with the Hitmen. His senior year he comitted to his high school team first.
I personally like to see these kids make a comittment to their HS team. I think if you are going to play juniors, for whatever reason, you shouldn’t try to play HS as well. Just my thought. I am sure to get blasted for it.
If Pesce stays and Eastville finds a serviceable goalie, you still have Rye and Pelham out front in DII, but with Eastville and SHI closer than many think. In DI, Suffern is out front with Mamo closer than many think and then WP and L/P hoping to stay close. Don’t be surprised if most of these 8 teams find themselves in the state rankings this coming season. Hope the Section One seeding formula puts it that way also.
Hey Joe Blue, who is Pelham? I am looking back before your post and do not see any posts by “Pelham” unless you are assuming that “hockey” is a Pelham fan? Either way I will weigh in. Completely agree that Rye or Pelham can look past Sleepy or Eastville. Rye and Pelham do have more depth and both play much tougher schedules and have experience in the big games in February. For the record my recollection was ETB beat Pelham on a late goal and struggled last year. Pesce is well above anyone in the league and even though Sleepy has very little after him he may be enough
I mean t to say to Pelham and Rye cannot look past Sleepy or Eastville
To go deep in the playoffs, you need either a good goalie or strong defensive system, or both. Rye has a top goalie and returns all their D from a team that played a tough schedule last season and allowed about 2.5 goals per game. Pelham, along with Suffern, has probably the best defensive scheme in the Section. So, they can survive with just an average goalie, which might be the case this season. SHI had a frosh goalie who was OK last season and should be better this coming year. Pesce is a super player, but b/c he must carry alot of the offensive load, can’t cover everything on defense. The Legends lost to Rye in last year’s playoffs b/c Pesce had no opportunities to rush the puck as he had to stay back to manage Rye’s high flying top line. EB has some snipers, but not sure they have the defensive depth or goaltending for a long playoff run.
In DI, Suffern has the solid goalie, plenty of solid defensemen plus forwards committed to two way play. Hard to beat that. Mamo has a similar goalie, stud dman who can rush the puck, stud forward and a bunch of other role players. The Tigers need to tighten up their defensive scheme to compete with Suffern. WP has some very good skaters, but an 8th grade goalie, I think. He can only do so much. L/P has the dynamic duo up front and a solid netminder, but lacks defensive depth. 5 Hole’s kid will need to stand on his head for L/P to go deep again.
heard Belger might not play this year since he is playing Jr.A in Hartford can anyone clerify this?
Not playing Jr A with the Pack in Hartford.
Dave L/P fans hope you know what you are talking about he made the Hartford Jr. A team and is going to try and do both last we heard.
I am sure that Cerella must be thrilled with his lack of commitment to the Junior A team.
fanotgame
Rye’s “D”?? Come on who do you have? Yascatigi (spelling) probably your best defensemen. Sullivan, Alfredo?? not even close. Rye is in trouble based on talent around the county.
With all due respect, Rye doesnt have a top goalie or defensemen this year. They also dont have star forwards etc years gone by.
I think many here are missing the point. The references to Rye not having enough talent to compete with the talent around the county is off the mark. For at least the last ten years the championships in d1 and d2 have been basically dominated by four teams. Pelham and Rye in d2 Mamo and Suffern in d1. They all have taken on the johnny come lately {stars} that do not play the team game. Over the last few seasons we watched etb with Hagan McNamara Ciotti and a slew of travel stars get pasted in the sectional playoffs. We watched last years L/P with a bunch of talent get beat up by Suffern. Point being that Rye may not have the big name travel players but big name travel players do not win sectional championships teams do
name me one section one goalie other than stark who is even comparable to rix
Missed The Point –
You nailed it, in my opinion.
Teams win over individual stars – virtually all the time.
I like Rix. I like his size. There are others that are comparable. Obviously Stark is stronger. I would say Harwood is comparable and is Glavino a senior? No disrespect to anyone but during the pregame warmup you watch some really talented players flying around the ice and if there is a Suffern Mamo or Rye or Pelham team on the other side warming up my moneys on those four teams. My opinion on Mamo is based on the depth they have each season. My opinion for Suffern and Pelham is based on their discipline and total dedication to defense.
We are talking about HS hockey in August way too much. Get outside and enjoy the sunshine. Play some golf, take the kids to the beach. Come on now guys.
glaviano graduated this past season and i would say Rix is just as good as stark or better, Stark had the benefit of playing behind one of the best defenses in the state last year which is why his stats were inflated, although he was still a solid goalie and yes I will admit harwood is somewhat close, but rix is definately better
Rix is fine but not nearly as good as the kid before him Benincasa. Rix is solid but he had some rough games when he was tested. He had trouble in the Queensbury regional game giving up some long and soft ones. Hes fine but not awesome. We will see how he plays when Rye cannot blow the games out due to lack of the offensive fire power they had last year. My gut tells me he will be fine in close low scoring games. Lets hope so.
Goaltending in general will not be as good. Last year there were a bunch of solid goalies. This year there will not be so many
i agree goaltending is down this year, and that Rix is not incredible by any means, he is just good, and i dont see anyone else better than him other than mabye stark and in the end i think rix is a little better than stark also
Fanotgame
do you realize that the only people with points in the rye pelham game for rye was taka and mundinger. Reilly and macinnis are both better than rosenfeld. Pelham have other good Offensive talent in schauer and shea. On defense lambdin and landis are better than anyone rye has. Admittedly pelhams goaltending is weaker but witz usually has good team defense which should help.
Pelham fan,
first of all rosenfield is better than any forward on Pelham next year as he had more points this past year than all of them and has only gotten better this summer, also the prep tranfer will probably be better than all three of these players anyway, i will agree that Pelham does have slightly better defense though and obviously a much weaker goalie
Who is the transfer player? what school is he from? Forward? D?
i’m not sure of his name, but from what I’ve heard he is a big forward who played d1 prep at Vermont Academy as a freshman
I don’t think u can blame any kid for not playing high school hockey this year if they have a chance to play at a higher level and much more than a twenty game limit that the state mandates.
is going to be very strong this season. Pelhams team concept of defense should make for an interesting game. When do the two meet?
Wednesday 1/5/11 at Playland at 7:45PM.
LoHud Hockey any other dates we should circle on our calanders ? gotta be some other good match ups at D1 and D2 scheduled.
Thanks for the Pelham Rye date. Are there any other hard core opponents these two are playing this year? I know both these teams play up against strong programs. Any information on these teams schedules?
how does this years suffern team compare to the 08’ team that returned everyone but two players that played as well.
What do you think about the new Clarkstown team? They have 2 first lines and a decent 2nd line. What do people think?
they r gonna be goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood
Hopefully clarkstown as a unified team will be good…. Not a fan of the North Head Coach, but hopefully things will get better. Still not liking the idea of a join team, very bad in the long run for the kids, and as a whole, I think it hurts the program. I wish they would have found another way to solve the monetary problems.
I am not a fan of combined schools. The combining of teams in all sports was supposed to be a way of building new teams. Across the board hockey is the worst, to my recollection there have been no growth at all with teams combining. For years the combining of schools have created teams that are awkwardly put together and those teams seem to have the most issues. The two Clarkstown teams will put some pressure on the two stronger D one teams Suffern and Mamaroneck. It is good to see that D one has to deal with combined schools with decent talent like D two has had to deal with for a while.
so who is the head coach for the new Clarkstown team? is it the North coach or the South coach, or are there two head coaches?
the combined clarkstown team should be decent, but not in the elite top 3 or 4 teams. not as good as suffern or mamaroneck obviously, but decent.
Combined schools have issues like bonding,which school has the off ice practice,etc.The kids know each other through hockey but when games or practices are over the kids basicly go back to their town friends.It’s more of a weak travel team personality.But without this option schools would have to drop hockey because of numbers.I guess you have to take the good with the bad!
I would rather see less teams. There are 30 plus teams now. Take away the mergers and see which teams can stand on their own. I think we would all be surprised at how many could stand on their own
Clarkstown is an intersting case, most of the kids from north and south know each other, due to the fact that they have one middle school which they all attended, and may of the kids are friends with each other, that being said, at the same time, north and south have always been a battled hard when they played eachother. The merger was, not due to a lack of players, but a lack of funds. Hockey, seems to get the short end of the stick, when it comes to school boards funding the sport. Has anyone even hear of Clarkstown concidering to merge Football, or baseball to save money?? I think not. Yes I understand that due to the fact that hockey rents ice time, it seem more expensive, but has anyone seen the costs associated with maintaining fields? and North’s Astro turf?
Clarkstown-
Andrew Trust (North’s head coach of the last couple of years) is the head coach of the merged Clarkstown team. Not sure about who the assistant coaches will be yet.
Rye-
There are not 30+ teams, there are 28 now that the Clarkstowns have merged. If we got rid of all the mergers, most, if not all of the formerly merged teams would have no hockey whether it be due to funds or lack of players (or both). The schools that are merged for the most part, don’t want to foot the bill for a hockey team, so they merge and only pay half or 1/3 (or in Mt. Pleasant’s case, 1/4). If you now tell them to double, triple, or quadruple their costs they will say no way, especially since they would only have 12-15 kids try out for the team (if they are lucky).
It’s a nice dream that they would un-merge and all of these schools would be able to stand on their own and field a team, but that is more Disney movie-ish than actual reality. The reality is, if mergers were banned, we would have about 20 teams in this league and 2/3 of the schools in section 1 would not have ice hockey.
One of these years a combined team will win the Section. Then there will be arguments about whether it is ‘fair’ for a combined team to advance in the state playoffs. This season, neither L/P or Clarkstown is likely to knock off either Suffern or Mamo, but Eastville and SHI could cause trouble in the DII playoffs. It is interesting that under the new state enrollment cutoffs, in Section One there are almost as many combined teams in DII (4) as in DI (5).
Well after 300 plus posts we come back to the subject of the Clarkstown merger..
(Mike, don’t you think you could throw out a new blog topic?)
I’ll reiterate some of my past thoughts. North and South hockey has been a great rivalry, these teams have usually been above average to very good division 1 teams. Both last years varsitys and modifieds were fully rostered (20 plus kids). I really believe that this merger was short-sighted and will not benefit hockey in Clarkstown.
Financially, I don’t doubt the district is having budget woes, but I don’t think enough consideration was given to preserving both programs through more careful cost planning. The 3 to 4 practices each varsity and 2 practices each modified team was receiving could have been scaled back. Good coaching can maintain a team with 2 practices or 1/2 ice practices quite satisfactorily. Many modified teams also practice once a week and sometimes have to split this ice with the varsity.
fanotgame-
Merged teams advance in the state playoffs all the time, it just hasn’t happened around here yet. It is rare that they make it to the finals, but there are quite a few across the state and many of them have made it to the state quarters over the years.
Greece Thunder (two schools merged) won the D1 title two years ago and back when all four Greece schools were merged into one team in the 90’s they had a couple of state final appearances including one title. Also, Cortland/Homer played in the D2 state title game in the late 90’s.
Thanks Lohud. I was aware of some of the upstate merged teams competing the state tourney bracket. There is precedent for that. My point was that some within Section One might complain that a merged team shouldn’t represent the Section in the state tourney. But, just last season, L/P represented the Section in Class A lax.
Not sure what went on in Clarkstown but at L/P the hockey program is 70% parent funded. In the Lakeland district the two High schools could not stand alone without the merger there would be no team. Other than Clarkstown I would bet the other mergers would have the same issue. Lets remember that these programs are abou the kids. The more kids that can play sports the better. Thats what the parents had in mind at L/P when they stepped up 10 years ago and they funded a team when the distrct said no! Yes the winnig has been great for the program the last few years, but kids playing hockey for their school is why it happened.
fanotgame your correct L/p mens and womens Lax represented section 1 in the state tourny. But remember that Lakeland and Panas are both part of the same district and all the kids attend the same middle school. They are also combined in track ,wrestling ,gymnastics and swimming and without the merger would not have most of those teams. keeping kids involved is what it is about.
It’s a fine line with mergers..
Could L/P hockey survive, probably not.
L/P lacrosse? I’ve heard that Lakeland could maintain a team, Panas perhaps not. If this is the case(and I’m not certain) I would favor a merger if it is necessary to keep a sport in a school.
Well… the L/P merger made sense for the kids… the Clarkstown merger, is a financial one, by the BOE… it will hurt the kids. I will create a stronger team, with more good lines, but as a whole, it will hurt kids, by limiting the number of kids that can play… and as previously stated, Clarkstown North and South had no problem with the number of kids wanting to play.
Great articles in the JN about waste in government and also the savings being realized with the consolidation of certain town services.
Hockey discussion aside, it makes no sense for Clarkstown to have two high schools. One HS is falling apart and in need of major renovations. The town has one middle school and feeds the kids into two separate high schools. They then maintain two sets of principles, duplicate administrative staff, athletic fields and coaches, etc.
The school budgets will be even tighter next year. No one bothers to address the terrible state of the North HS because the most costly repairs won’t happen. Maybe that will be a future topic in the JN.
I think the mergered teams think and sectionals is only a factor in small division 2 schools. The cutoff is what 1100? Rye is 500? now you have that plus combined schools? Not to fair to me
its a good thing-
So what do you feel the cutoff should be? If you are going to complain about it, that’s fine, and if you don’t think it’s fair, that’s fine, too. You are entitled to your opinion. But if you are going to offer up a statement like that, it should at least be followed up with what you think WOULD be fair.
Looking at Ryes enrollment maybe 900 would be fair. At least make a school like Rye in against teams that are close to the numbers. 1100 is more than double Ryes enrollment. I would also think all merged schools automatically be in the bigger school group
L/P- I remember the good old days when the Rye lax team I played for battled Walter Panas (w/o Lakeland support) on the field. Hard to believe Walter Panas couldn’t couldn’t field a lax team on their own now that lax has really exploded in popularity for this part of the country.
For the record, I am OK with merged teams playing in the Section playoffs, and if winners, on to the state tourney. If you are going to let them play in the regular season, let them carry on into the playoffs. But, I do think the state enrollment cutoff is way too high. Put it closer to a 50/50 split statewide. Make the Section 10 schools play DII. I would rather see a Rye or Pelham team battle Massena, Canton or Potsdam in the state tourney than have them face some 1100 enrollment merged team in the Sectional playoffs. Reinstitute the outbracket tourney as necessary to fill out the state tourney brackets.
If they did a 50/50 split and did not allow anyone to play up, the line would be at 1017 students, so it’s really not that far off at 1100. Remember, no matter where they put the line, with only two divisions, there are always going to be teams in the smaller school division that are playing schools twice their size.
Rye’s enrollment for this year is actually 681, not 500. That being said, keep in mind there are a dozen teams in the state who have half the enrollment that Rye has (including one in our own section, Pawling). Maybe they would have been better off with the line at 1000 rather than 1100 (giving the state a 70/61 split rather than a 50/81 split), but I think they were accounting for some small schools playing up in D1. Also, as big of a disparity as there is between the smallest and largest D2 schools, the difference between the smallest and largest D1 schools is way bigger. So to knock an extra 100 off the minimum in D1 eliminates some of that disparity.
There are always going to be gripes from the smaller schools about where the line at the top of D2 is, but there is no way around that without making 5 classes like in other sports. There just aren’t enough teams for that.
I think in Hockey the enrollment has very little to do with the caliber of a team. My beleive is the coaches and how they developed their feeder programs is what has made suffern, Mamo,Rye and Pelhanm every year either the team to beat or close to the top.
I think for 3 or 4 years Clarstown North had the talent to win but they were outcoached by suffern during the big games in 04-07. if I remember correctly North would beat suffern the first game each year and then would lose to them due to the coach of Suffern making the necessary adjustments to offset any advantages that North may have had. where as North would continue to play there offensive style game and rely on their goaltending to make key saves. North did not make any adjustments to offset Suffern’s strenght’s.
Lohud, I think Pawling merges with Dover, puting their enrollment in the low 700s. So, there are actually 10 merged teams in Section One. 5 each in DI and DII. Shows how important the merger concept is to our sport.
In Section One, there are 5 teams with relatively small enrollments. In ascending order: Pelham ((592), Pearl River(624), Byram Hills (634), Rye (681) and the aforementioned Pawling/Dover merged team (709). Then it jumps 150 to 200+ students to the likes of Brewster, Jay, and Greely before the rest of the Section One teams which are all above 1000. I see your point about the classification level. Dropping the line to 1000 might balance it out state wide, but would make a mess out of the Section One playoffs. At 1000, you would have only 8 DII teams and 20 DI teams. But, at the current 1100 level, Mamo and Suffern are both less than 50 students from qualifiying as DII schools. I wonder how those teams would manage that situation?
If they ever went to 3 classes for hockey playoffs like LAX currently has, Pelham and Rye (along with a few of the upstate teams like Massena and New Hartford) would be top 5 in the state virtually every year. My guess is that won’t happen anytime soon, because the state had an opportunity to do so when they made mandatory enrollment cutoffs for this upcoming season. There must be many schools that field a lax team but no hockey team, like all of Long Island.
fanotgame-
At one point I know Pawling was Pawling/Dover, but I don’t think that is the case anymore (if there are any Pawling Parents/Players on here that can confirm, that would be great). I just looked at the Dover HS website and for winter sports offered, the only things listed are Boys/Girls Basketball and Cheerleading, so I am guessing it is strictly Pawling at this point.
As for a third classification, I think there is a minimum number of teams across the state needed before you can add another class. Not sure what that number is to go from two to three, but with the Clarkstown merger this year and O’Neil dropping hockey, the total number of teams dropped to 129 statewide (assuming there were no other changes upstate). I am guessing the minimum number for three classes is at least 150 if not more considering how many schools there are state-wide. So there would need to be a whole lot of districts finding enough money to field a team and enough kids to play on it before we see a D3 (unless Long Island, Orange/Dutchess County, and Section 4 all join the state, in which case that may put us over the top since there are a bunch of already established teams in those three areas that are not affiliated with the schools).
Really good conversation by two knowledgable poster FOTG and LOHUD. Regardlessits got to be hard to have schools compete in playoffs against schools almost twice their size
Most of the DI schools in the state have enrollments between 1100 and 1300. There are only 2 in Section One(North Roc and New Ro) above 1700. There are only a few others statewide above 1700 and Shen, MW and Liverpool are the only ones who seem to get ranked. So, not too many DI schools are playing anyone more than 30% larger than themselves. That is certainly not the case in DII.
You can’t make the arguement of size. Many of the smaller schools in the state, especially the upper class districts like Rye and Pelham, have a lot of young kids who can afford to play hockey. Or in the case of schools like Salmon River, they all play hockey all the time. Look at football, you have Yorktown, Fox Lane, and Ossining (all barely over the 1050 cut-off) playing in AA with Arlington, North Rockland, and New Rochelle. And that is in a sport where a child’s family financial situation is irrelevant. There is no reason for complaints from the likes of Rye with the money and access to rinks in that community.
The line needs to be drawn where it is, 681 to 1050 is not that big of a differance. The only way to improve this would be to have 3 division.
Just a point of interest: I believe gymnastics and wrestling are the only other sports with large/small school classifications, but they are individual/team sports.
fanoftgame
we all miss those days.but that was when P.V. went to the Lakeland schools their high school dropped enrolment way down. mergers as you pointed out make up more than 1/4 of our section. I think the only point that has not been made is that all the teams that have been powers for a long time have home town rinks. So more kids at a younger age give hockey a try. Brewster is a 30 minute ride from Lakeland and even a little further from Panas. The L/P team practices 3 days a week at bear mt. it is closer to the district and is much less expensive.
complaints,
You sound a little resentful of Rye here, was your team perhaps one of the many teams Rye took care of in the playoffs in recent years?
@hahaha
Actually, no. My team is not one of the teams handled by Rye in recent years. I’m just sick and tired of little rich kids and their rich parents complaining about how life isn’t fair in the world of high school hockey. Remember, it is high school hockey, not the NHL. Plain and simple, as L/P put it, the schools districts with rinks and access are and money are bound to produce more legitimate ice hockey players than others. Rye should be the last school complaining about a difference of 419 students from top to them. Other districts who do not have that upper class demographic get smacked all the time by Rye. Maybe they should take a shot and move up and play with the big boys, that is, unless you’re afraid of getting smacked around a bit.
Rinks? rich kids? 20 years ago thats a solid point, today its an excuse for the larger schools who are mediocre. Access to rinks? Sorry but there are rinks everywhere. There are so many travel programs. Years ago only Ramapo and Long Island had travel. Now you have Brewster which is huge and services many high school programs. You have WSA and the Vipers you have the Mariners. That argument that hockey isnt available and only certain schools have access to rinks is irrelevant in todays game. Scarsdale has kids playing travel, ETB has travel kids, New Rochelle has a bunch of kids playing with the Mariners, all the teams in northern Westchester have kids playing in Brewster or at Ice Time. I would go as far to say that all of the schools have more travel players than Rye has and Pelham too for that matter. All the high school teams have rink and travel access.
Rye and Pelham do play the big boys and they both do fine. Whoever knows the travel kids should post how many travel kids Rye has versus the other schools and I bet you will see Rye has the least
Would agree. Rye’s athletic success is through good coaching and organization. It manifests itself in the top performances of Rye’s hockey, football and lacrosse programs.
Sure the demographics help, but plenty of section schools with similar student profiles are unable to replicate Rye’s program level in so many different programs.
Lets get back to the players. Can anyone confirm whether or not Prunesti and Santini will try to play both Jr A and HS? And whether Pesce is staying at SHI instead of heading to prep? Is WP’s Lawrence going to be able to play HS and jrs? Will Byram Hills Basmajian also play both jrs and HS? What about L/P’s Belger? Is he doing jrs up in CT and also HS hockey? The answers to these questions will have a lot to do with early season power rankings, as the above mentioned players are key to their team’s success.
Apparently Prunesti and Santini will be doing both and I believe Pesce is not plaing this year but thats what I heard so can anyone else clearify this
I have also heard that Pesce is not playing, as it will conflict with his avalanche team.
Belger is going to try to do both he is playing JR. A with the Wolfpack great look for him ,like Santini and Prunesti still want to play with their school hopefully it will work for all of them . These players make our H.S. level much better tough on the kids playing 4-5 games in a weekend.
The bottom line is that Rye plays with schools larger than them and still manages to win championships so we are fine the way it is. No one is complaining, merely pointing out that schools like Rye would be even more dominant if more divisions based on size were implemented which is a fact I don’t think anyone can argue. Also, Rye does play the “big boys” all the time, usually multiple times a year and they almost always holds its ground if not wins some games against the big school powerhouses.
Agreed. Rye certainly holds thier own as does Pelham. looking at it from Ryes perspective though Ryes enrollment number is 681 Scarsdale is just around 1100 and they are in the same division. Thata a pretty big spread I think
Just checked the site after being away for a lot of August and saw that the merger conversation had re-emerged. LoHud said that many mergered teams had gone on to the state tournament(correct- some, like Greece, have even won the championship) but that it just hasn’t happened around here yet(not exactly correct.) In 1987-88 Woodlands and Irvington played as a merged team coached by Kevin Kelly. They were the League 2 champs and went on to win the Section 1 Division 2 title and competed in the states.
Could be wrong, but i thought you could not play HS and JR A EJHL. That would rule out prunesti and santini, since both made the Applecore Jr A and dont they play in that league?
That EJHL rule applies to Prep Players.
At the end of each travel season most of the good teams get fed up with HS hockey and vow to not let players play HS again. Then the season starts and teams change their minds. Who knows what will happen?
Of these so called elite travel teams that end up there season with 9 players and play too many games
Old coach- is that the same Kevin Kelly who currently chairs the English dept at Rye High school, was the Rye hockey coach between Zegras and Friesen and also the coach of Rye field hockey before moving on to coach Manhattanville College field hockey?
Yes FOTG, Kevin was the JV coach at Rye in the 70’s and then coached at Ossining as the head coach in the 80’s before taking the Woodlands job. Subsequently he went home to coach at Rye where he had been teaching all along.
the junior league doesn’t make the call on whether players play both high school and jr. A, its the teams call and i think as long as the junior team takes precedence, santini and prunesti wil be allowed to play both. lets not forget, back when lazar coached apple core AND st. marys, he let his players play both so it would be hypoctritical do not let those guys play high school, although he has in the past. i think his relationship with coach tozzo is in prunesti favor since CJ played for the core a few years ago
I don’t think the issue about playing jrs. is being talked about in the proper context. The players mentioned are very good and the real question is should they be allowed to play from the High School end. Let’s be serious what do Prunesti and Santini have to prove at the High School Level. everytime they take the ice this winter they will be putting the opposing team at an unfair advantage. Let them go play jrs. and let the high school kids play for there schools.
i agree that they are dominant, but who are we to tell these kids (and thats what they are – KIDS) who are still in high school, and in prunesti’s case, a senior, that he cant play his senior season with his friends because he is TOO GOOD. that is a ridiculous argument that truly holds no water. kids are raised to work hard and try to be the best and once they get there, we are supposed to say “well now you are too good” so move on, i dont think so. i think they both will do fine to play both juniors and high school then move on to another year or 2 of juniors after which both should have a solid shot at playing D1
I say let them play HS hockey if their coaches are okay with it. Of course they want to play with their high school friends, that and the few hours a day they spend in school, are the only times they spend with them. The majority of their senior year will be spent in the car on the LIE, Southern State or some other highway going to or from practices will maintaining a heavy junior hockey schedule. There will be plenty of time to relax when they are older on a shrink’s couch.
The above mentioned kids are good, but no better than many who played Section One HS hockey before them. Should Willows have been prohibited from playing? Or CJ Tozzo? Maybe this recent crop is committing more time and energy into getting on the college coaches’ radar, but none are so dominant that they don’t belong in the HS hockey league. That is ridiculous. Of course let them play if they can manage playing on both teams and it doesn’t adversely affect the team dynamic on their HS team. You can bet the jr coach will make sure it doesn’t affect the team dynamic on his team.
I believe these are the Westchester area players that will be playing junior A hockey this year
Nick Belger- JR A Hartford Wolfpack
Rich Prunesti- JR A Applecore
Steve Santini- JR A Applecore
Mike Cambria- JR A Applecore
Jordan Gluck- JR A Philadelphia Little Flyers
Rob Molinaro- JR A NJ Rockets
Matt Willows- JR A NJ Hitmen
When was the last time a “junior player” won a Sectional Championship in the Section 1 high school league or the CHSAA?
Ok when was the last time a 4 year player at Suffern Mamk Rye or Pelham went D1 um lets see no one ever did.Just ask a kid like Prunesti who is on a weak NewRo team if he would trade his national championship for a section championship or even ask Halpin or Dorgan yea in the end I don;t think they care
To ?
Nobody has gone D1. maybe we should ask the question if winning a national championship is a better experience than winning a sectional title in your community, with all your friends and school mates and teachers there, and getting some local exposure and excitement. If the travel only route was producing a lot of D 1 players than your argument is a good one, but since unfortunately travel only does not produce very many D 1 players then its not a good argument. When kids graduate high school and college they always remember their high school days and experiences. They remember playing in front of friends and family. You cannot deny that. Winning a National Championship is a huge thing for sure but your team mates change every year and they are not your neighborhood or community friends. The point of the post asking the question maybe was to point out that junior players obviously are good players but they are not so dominant that they do not belong in the high school league. Maybe that was the point of the question?
Travel hockey is an awsome experience especially if you go to nationals. In this metro area travel does not deliver much at the end of the line. Very few make to college programs and most that do go D3 or end playing all over the country trying to hook on to a team. Some of course do make it but the percentages are quite low. To those players who are in the upper 1 or 2 % then it makes sense to disregard everything to take the shot. For the other 98-99 % playing for and representing your school is fun and memories last forever. Nothing wrong with taking the shot at it but since many of the ones who do not make it end up on club teams which is an awesome experience to. You see many junior players going club especially when they have better educational opportunities
? & RYE … that 4 year HS player who went D1 is not from Suffern, Mam’k, Rye, or Pelham, that would be White Plains but Jrs was an absolute must. If you want to play in college, especially D1, you have to play travel/Jrs and then even go out West and play Jrs. out there, which is what he did. Aloooot of hard work!
Hoping/wishing Matt Willows does the same…...would be awesome to see them both skate together and go get a National Championship, now wouldn’t it!
Travel has produced a fair share of D1 and D3 hockey players out of this region. The answer is certainly not nobody.
I’m not suggesting that its a high percentage but its more then respectable. The problem is that nobody knows who its going to be. Thats why you can’t discourage anyone from trying. If someone choses to chase that dream why does it have to come at the cost of foregoing your HS hockey experience. If you can handle the schedule go right ahead. I doubt anyone is going to need a shrink later on. Nobody should have to give up one or the other.
Oh, section titles have been wone by players who have juggled a “junior” schedule at the same time. Funny that the strongest HS program is the one who has had several.
several? Which school?
travel players
Rockland vicinity
Andrew Himelson Clarkson
Bobby Kramer Merrimack
Daniels Northeastern
Daniels Northeastern
Westchester
Greg Squires Western Michigan
Daniel New Providence
Kevin Shattenkirk Boston University
Bradley Peltz Yale
Alex Hagen St Lawrence
Steve Santini Boston College
If you include Long Island travel
Matt Mangene Maine
Jason Deluca Umass Lowell
Joey Diamond Maine
Kyle Solomon Maine
Zak Stone Northeastern
Anthony Bitetto Northeastern
Daniel Markowitz Dartmouth
Paul Lee Dartmouth
Burgdoerfer RPI
Burgdoerfer RPI
James Marcou Umass Amherst
Mike Marcou Umass Amherst
Ken Trentkowski Yale
Nick Grasso AIC
There are more but figured this is enough for now. If you went into Bergen NJ county there are a bunch more. This sin’t a short list by any standard. It proves that local travel hockey is turning out D1 talent.
What is a clear pattern is the level of travel generally played by each of these downstate locals that have made it to D1.I’m not sure what Himelson’s or Hagen’s(maybe Vipers) history was but the rest all played at one or more of the following Tier 1 organizations:
Ramapo Saints (when it was a tier 1 organization)
NJ Devils youth
Westchester Express
LI Gulls
LI Royals
Suffolk PAL
Applecore
The list clearly shows that an argument can be made that the committment to travel hockey isn’t ill conceived. The percentage isn’t great but the possibility exists. If you can compete at the Tier 1 travel level you may have a chance of attaining NCAA D1 status.
thats the worst thing you could have done in my opinion is to post that list. First of all Long Island is no where near westchester in travel hockey. They are clearly well ahead so I wouldnt include them to build your argument. Think of all the players that have played travel through the years. Thousands I am sure. All you have to show is 10 names and a few of them (Santini, Peltz, Hagen) have not even played or made the team yet. so its 7 players in all that time from our area that have made it. Odds are extremely low which is fine. so as pointed out in someones else post if you are in the upper 2% go for it. If not then you see your chances.
By the way only a few played high school. To my recollection Squires played as a freshman, Himelson played at Monroe? Kramer? Dainels played at Suffern, Shattenkirk did not play hs, Peltz did not play hs, Hagen two years? Santini still playing. Only the Daniels kids and maybe Himmelson won sectional championships. None of the others came close.
The guys listed were dominant players in tier 1. To say that “if you can compete at the teir 1 level you could play D1” is false. You need to dominante it
Chuck
I listed 14 for LI and 10 (yes the other 3 count)for hudson valley. Thats a difference of 4 over the thousands(as you stated) of those who traveled this path. Yet that differential of 4 equates to LI being no where near westchester as they are clearly ahead but the 10 from HV is a mere 2% so why bother.
Nobody said the percetage chance is good in HV or in LI. The percentage chance of making a D1 sport is slim period. Should the baseball players stop playing travel baseball? Its a old cliche, you have to be in it to win it. Nobody knows whos going to be in the top 1% or 2%. Each kid matures as an athlete at varying times. Some arrive late and would never have a chance if they didn’t believe and thus try. The list I posted isn’t a commentary that if you try it you’ll make it. It was simply to prove the point that its possible coming from this region. The idea is to stay the course until you think its time to let it go. When that is, its certainly not for anyone else to judge.
I also never said that most of them played HS. Actually most of them barely played at all if any. The telling fact about that is that they recognized that playing local HS hockey has nothing to do with a collegiate opportunity. These kids knew what they wanted and made the attempt. There are others that set their HS playing days aside and moved to prep school or juniors for the chance of a collegiate placement and didn’t make it. They tried and know they took it as far as they could.
Whats your point about the others “never coming close” to winning a section title? Even you made the point that they DIDN’T play HS hockey. How were they supposed to win a section title?
compete?
I didn’t say you can play D1 if you play Tier 1. I said you may have a chance. At some point, pee wee thru juniors, no one really dominates it(other then Crosby type exceptions). What the above mentioned players were at those levels where identifiable “impact” players. They continued to be impact players at each level which is what carried them to the levels they’re at now. I’m not encouraging anyone to be unrealistic in assessing their talent level. I’m trying to stop discouraging those that are willing to work hard from trying to reach their full potential which several on this blog appear to be doing.
I have posted a few times and I m not in favor of tossing in the towel either. You got to try right? I think what happens here is that some posters respond to posts by a few different people. My view is it got started with knowledgable sect 1 fan posting
(Oh, section titles have been wone by players who have juggled a “junior” schedule at the same time. Funny that the strongest HS program is the one who has had several.)
so then the next posters says which team. Then a list of players posted. The original thread was about juniors impact on high school I think not who made it or not?
it is great that players are looking for a more of a challenge and a progression in their careers but it ultimately hurts the players high school which is were their friends and teammates are. It is for this reason that towns like pelham with players like Macinnis shea landis weeks curto and dzenis are so succesful because their players stick with the town for their who careers players like reiley are great but they hurt their teams chances which is why for a team to be sucessful you need some good old town pride and grit which you can expect to see out of pelham from players like weeks dzenis and curto who clocked a lot of time last year because of their grind and passion not for their skill
that last post couldn`t possibly be from Pelham hockey. Lets hope we do not start in with people using false names to star stuff.
Rye
I think you are correct. After I posted I re read the question and also thought differently. I was going to answer it but something better came up. Now that you’ve outed me I’ll answer the actual question.
To “travel players”
The top program with players that won a section title and juggled a junior or travel schedule would be obviously Suffern. There is no argument(imo) against this being the top program. Even if you discount(I don’t) the titles I’ve seen so often debated on this blog, they’ve won what 4 out of the last 7(under the “enlightened” section format). I think the other 3 were won by Mamo so they think they have an argument but thats only 3 to 4 so I’ll stand by my title winner.
In those years I’m fairly certain(I am better versed in NCAA placements) that Natoli, Ruthberg, Ojeda, Wynne and Salt all played some form of travel hockey during their section title winning years. I also believe that one or more of those years were at the junior level for each. I’d also say that its likely that Norwin, Redgate, Baker, Jeager and a few others on this years winning team played juniors or midgets.
I’m sure that someone from Suffern with greater knowledge on the subject who reads this blog can expand on the subject as well as make any corrections.
Yes Agreed on Suffern, but does that count? Suffern does not allow players to miss for juniors ever. So therefore juniors is the secondary program for those kids. I think in regards to those juniors players who come and go and miss high school games. I think Suffern does not allow any conflicts, so I think thats the context of that question. I think but am not sure the poster may have mean t juniors kids like those who played at East, Tucahoe bville, those playing at White Plains, those playing at Lp and Byran etc. Those kids miss high school for juniors and those teams have not been close despite having more talent
I doubt the poster was referring to Suffern. To the person posting as a pelham person I agree, thats a bogus post. One thing Pelham never has is chemistry problems.
To elaborate on the junior players…
Mamaronecks Joe Naclerio is playing Junior B with Applecore which I saw on their website.
Ossining grad Rob Dorgan is playing Junior A for the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Knights out in Pennsylvania. Anybody know where Halpin will be playing this year?
I heard a stat mentioned on sports talk radio that only 2% of HS varsity athletes play a varsity sport in college. So, if 2% of our local hockey guys are playing varsity hockey in college, our sport is doing just fine. College athletics as a whole has become very specilaized and competitive. Just a generation ago a solid, but not spectacular HS athlete could walk on to one or more D3 teams, if he had the drive and commitment. That is simply not the case now.
Having played several D3 sports a generation ago as a walk on, I would equate current DI varsity to almost a semi pro level of play. Current D3 varsity looks a lot like what DI did a generation ago. And current top level club looks a lot like D3 varsity from a generation ago.
Lets applaud those that push for and make it at the college level. And accept the fact that a lot of very good players will never lace them up at the varsity level in college. Just not enough spaces.
sec1fan….still can’t find it in to give him credit can you? He is the ONLY one that played all 4 yrs of HS and Jrs. and made it to D1. Even though HS was not what got him there…it was what he enjoyed the most. If the players listened to you people on here…their dreams would be crushed over and over again. If you dream it….go for it! Everything is impossible if you don’t try but everything is possible if you do! It is worth the effort!
Great post Hockey mom there has to be give and take from both programs.as far as the L/P jr. players they missed 2 games all season and doubled up twice a week for practice and oh by the way we came close last season. These kids love playing for their school and their team-mates love having them, that is what matters. and as was posted above other than Lax this section is probably below the 2% of producing D1 players in all sports. these kids should be respected for pushing to the next level,in the end it makes the level of play better for everyone.
Believe it or not, the 2% stat included DI, DII (practically non existant) and DIII combined.
Virtually every DI and most higher level DIII hockey program rosters have the players’ last team as either Jr A or DI Prep (plus a few NJDPs and other foreign elite age group teams). So, unless you are ready to do what Rui did (take a few years off after college and play jrs out west), then you have to muster up the bucks to do what Daniels, Hagen, Dzenis ect did or are doing- DI prep. But, even there, the coaches will likely ask you to repeat a year of HS, so you are more mature physically and mentally. Only 18 yr olds playing varsity college hockey for DI or good DIII come straight from NJDP.
Please let us clarify something, The USHL, NAHL, and the EJ ARE THE REAL JUNIOR LEAGUES. The rest are watered down versions of “A” hockey. Just look at how many kids from these three leagues go onto college as compared to these other leagues. It really is no contest.
Cold as ice you are so correct.
cold as ice it it right on the head, I’ve heard so many kids talk about playing “juniors”.....well if not major juniors or the above mentioned three…then it’s not that great a feat.Like fanotgame says generations ago…..there were not many junior leagues, now there are tons, kind of like club hockey, D1 club top teams legit middle road ncaa d3….d2-d3 club is bad, but still FUN for kids who want o continue playing.
Wow, this is a great series of posts.
FOTG thanks for the 2% statistic. It puts a realistic perspective on how difficult it is to move on to a NCAA D1, D2 or D3 sport.You are absolutely on target when point out that our local hockey talent is representing itself just fine.
HMOM, I have to apologize. It was my own experiment to see how long it would take for you to post a complaint about Rui not being on the list. For the record I had the over under set at 36hrs. Personally my money was on the under. You lasted a little more then 48hrs which caused me to lose the bet. I’m sure you’re pleased to hear that you cost me money.
Anyway, because he earned it:
Westchester
Rui Encarnacao UConn
I also have to add to what you pointed out in your post that he is the first and the only one to date(last decade or so) to make it to D1 after playing all 4 years at his local public HS. I have always said that this is near impossible to do in this region. Traveling this path decreases your chances of success and he clearly overcame the stacked odds against him. I don’t recommend pursuing NCAA hockey this way but Rui proved it can be done.
I also have to add another Westchester player who I neglected to include:
Kevin Clare U of Michigan
That brings the Westchester total to 8 with HV at 12 (D1 only). It would be interesting to see how many kids from the HV area made it to D1 baseball, football, basketball, lax or any other sport.
cold as ice, best post ever and oldtiger
The leagues cold as ice referred to are the junior leagues from which most of the US collegiate placements are made from. The assessment that the other leagues are watered down versions of junior A hockey is a relative statement. The other leagues serve a somewhat important function in the process. Several of the younger players in these leagues are talented. It is a testament to their ability that they can compete in a league with older players. After gaining some experience in these leagues they move on to play in the leagues you’ve mentioned. My point is that I’d be cautious in assessing someones potential future in the sport because they are in a “watered” down version of junior A without first taking into account the age of the player.
Interesting point about Rui. He played 4 years of public high school because he was accomodated by his high school program. His occasional missing of games for local juniors was a sorely debated point 3 years ago, with mostly detractors. I think the rhetoric of that debate cost him some post season honors that he probably deserved. Now he is being held high as an example of “one of own” who made it.
If he had gone to another school would he have had the same chance to play for the Applecore? I’ll reiterate my point, although it is fun and rewarding, high school hockey is not the vehicle to get to college hockey, unlike high school baseball (see all the pro scouts at Suffern baseball this year) and football.
The White Plains hockey coaches handled this well.
Just wanted to weigh in on the junior leagues. The AJHL has some fine organizations that do a great job of promoting their players. Teams like the Bobcats, Rockets and Wolfpack are run by hockey guys with plenty of connections. In addition to the showcases they put their teams in, you have to realize that the age and physical maturity are factors in breaking into a college roster. I believe that Rui played for the Rockets before going out to the USHL for a year. Had he stayed with the Rockets he probably would be playing D3 hockey instead of D1 hockey. Thornton does an excellent job of helping his players move on to where they belong. So lets not put down the kids and coaches who are part of the AJHL. Take a look at their recent list of committments…
http://www.atlantichockey.org/ajhl_sub.htm?content=ajhl_commitments
Rockland- isn’t the Rockets coach a scout for the North Dakota USHL team? If so, Rockets could be a feeder to that USHL program. Also, many of the current Apple Core EJHL players had to pay their dues on the Apple Core Junior Empire team. It should be a good thing for L/P’s Belger to play AJHL in CT as a possible route to a spot on a team in a “better” junior league next year.
I left out the AJHL..it is a very good junior league.I was thinking of all the other jr b,c leagues when I said they were not that good….anyway imagine if there was only 4-5 top jr a/b leagues. All the kids that don’t make that played for their local HS that would be great.Like the ‘old’ days,top players from various town/cities playing against each other from mite thru HS. I know times have changed…travel hockey has changed.Think sean curtan from Mamk played 4 yrs hs then went straight to n’eastern….maybe 1 yr prep but not sure.
one to do it before rui
jon foster
4 years at suffern hs
4 years at denver u. (won 2 national championships)
did Foster play all 4 years at suffern? thought he finished highschool while playing in the ushl. does anyone no for sure?
Foster did his senior year in Dubuque, but was able to go to his senior prom at Suffern hahaha
CJ Tozzo did 4 years at New Ro before Apple Core then went to Niagara for 2 years before transferring to Plattsburgh, a D III powerhouse for more playing time.
Eric Thomassian went to Rye for 2 or 3 years before heading to Deerfield then off to BU
Bottom line is a great player will develop and has the ability to go to a D1 school if they play 4 years of HS or not, but in most cases, juniors or prep school is a necessity in the process
erik nates, 4 years iona prep (although played only about 1/2 the seasons…as apple core took priority)
full ride to play iona college (then d1)
tom collingham, 2 years iona prep, 2 years rcds
full ride d1 vermont
peter/paul ferraro
peter (2 or 3 years iona prep, then avon i believe)
paul (all years at byram hills)
both played d1 sacred heart
john carter?
didn’t the flyers draft him?
some good posts regarding my Jr. Statements but for those who say that the Atlantic league is good Hockey Just please look at the commitments page of some of these AJ teams. They are getting the scraps left over from the EJ. The EJ is the real Juniors being played on the East Coast. And if Bob Thornton and these other “hockey guys” have all these connections then they are doing a poor job because very few of there kids are getting commits out of there program. As far as kids playing to there age that is ridiculous. Santini is 15 and playing EJ while Prunesti is one of a handful of 93’s in the league. The reason they are playing EJ is because they are good enough while kids playing AJ are not good enough. Besides After Santini and Prunesti could you please name any Section One player who can get a D1 scholarship? These two will get them because they meet the criteria:
THEY ARE GOOD
I’ve heard that Santini has a family connect or something of the sort to the apple core organization. is this true?
his family owns applecore
Mamaroneck’s entire varsity lineup (except for a couple of football players)will take to the ice starting monday to practice and play in their short season midget league which ends right before tjeir varsity season begins.
It is going to be a lot of fun watching Prunesti & Santini play this year. They will be playing to have fun as there “serious” hockey will be covered by Apple Core. Let’s all sit back and enjoy!
Just skip the BS and put Santini and Prunesti on the Rangers NOW. God knows they need them.
The Rangers need alot more then those two!
cold as ice
Didn’t Prunesti play empire jhl last year or the year before? Didn’t Santini play a few or several games at the empire jhl level last year? Many of the EJHL players spent time playing on empire, met or alantic jhl teams before arriving at the EJHL level. Thats not ridiculous, its just how the progression works.
Jon Foster did play 4 years at Suffern because he played Varsity as an 8th grader.
There has not been a blog update since April. I haven’t even seen Mike D’s by-line in the print newspaper for a couple of weeks now. Can we be expecting a new hockey reporter?
Dougherty has been covering golf.
They are gonna squeeze that poor guy til he drops. I’m sure he’s reading the posts here. It’s up to you guys to keep the topics fresh.
new iona prep coach is tim collins (coach in the westchester mariners org.)
did guberti’s son transfer to iona prep? if so, he is eligible to start in goal (he sat out last year at fordham) to play clubs (and maybe with this in mind)
any other transfers in to iona?
who transferred out? i know one or two went the prep school/boarding route..
first day chshl teams can practice with coaches is october 25
new chshl divisions
A
-iona
-fordham
-farrell
-chaminade
-st. mary (last place in A last year…approved by chshl to remain in A due to depth…most games had club/junior conflicts with players)
-st. joseph by-the-sea (B quarterfinalist…approved by chshl to move up due to depth…jv team made jv playoffs last year with st. anthony, chaminade and
-farrell…obviously, they have players)
-st. anthony
-holy cross (B champion)
B north
stepinac (voluntarily applied for B division..will have depth issues..barely any players)
spellman
st. raymond
mcclancy
mount
B south
st. edmund
st. francis
st. peter
xavier
xaverian
post is meant to read…
-st. joseph by-the-sea (B quarterfinalist…approved by chshl to move up due to depth…jv team made jv playoffs last year with st. anthony, chaminade…obviously, they have players)
will be interesting to see if chshl makes st. anthony/chaminade/holy cross play their home games in mt. vernon…or if they go back to the real home ice thing…iona and fordham playing out in kings park, syosset, flushing, staten island will make it tougher..
Unless St JBS and Holy X are better than they used to be, it looks like the CHSHL A league has been diluted. I guess that is what happens when they eliminate the “C” division and move up some teams from B to A. With Section One abandoning the power leagues the year before, there could be even more blow outs this coming season in local HS hockey.
Conference III in Section One has the potential to provide some lopsided scoring. With an Ossining team decimated by graduation swapping places with a revived Jay team and SNS also moving to Conference I, Rye should give up less than double digit goals combined (and could give up as few as 5 goals) in their 5 Conference III matches. Sort of what Suffern did to Conference IV oppponents last season. Not saying that makes Rye a juggernaut, just that there are more than a few weaker programs in that conference. Having Greeley, Ossining, Byram Hills and Mt Pleasant in the same conference with Rye doesn’t make any more sense from a competition standpoint than it does from a geography based standpoint.
FYI – New Iona Coach – Tim Collins last year coached Fordham University D-3 club team (Conference champs) and Westchester Mariners Midget Tier II 16U, Iona should be fine.
Rye could get ham strung from too many weak league opponents. Interesting to see where Rye gets offense from. Goaltending and defense will be strong. You need to score to win. Their rivals in the small school bracket all will have improved scoring. It will be exciting
Yes- while Pelham and Rye are likely to have very similar non league schedules, the Pelicans have the advantage of honing their skills in league matches vs. DII contenders Eastville and SHI, as well as DI powers Mamo and WP. Rye’s league matches don’t match up to that.
Still think the Garnets will hoist the Sectional trophy for the 4th time in 5 years at West Point in ‘11.
Iona Prep vs Rye Garnets at playland.
this is not a scrimmage, this is a real game sometime in January i believe.
prediction
Iona 5 Rye 3
suffern’s (so far..)
sat, nov 27, tappan zee at suffern, 6, sporto
friday, dec 3, mamo at suffern, 7, sporto
saturday, dec 4, suffern at pearl river, 7, sporto
tuesday, dec 7, suffern at pelham, 6:30, ice hutch
friday, dec 17, clarkstown at suffern, 7, sporto
saturday, dec 18, suffern at north roc, 5, sporto
friday, feb 4, pelham at suffern, 7, sporto
saturday, feb 5, suffern at mamo, 8:15, hommocks
friday, feb 11, white plains at suffern, 7, sporto
Iona vs. Rye should be a good game. Long time coming. Not sure the Gaels get 5, though. Nicky P might slip one by Rixy. Iona’s new coach lives in Rye and has 2 sons at RHS. Football, LAX and baseball players.
Not so sure on the Iona Rye game. I think we need to wait and see what Iona has left after a few quality skaters have departed. We need to look and see if the goaltending has improved. Last year the goaltending was damaging to the Gaels. Rye is a solid team going into the season
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Dallas-Stars-goalie-doesn-t-wear-his-Chuck-Norri?urn=nhl-270487
He must be from New Rochelle.
few locals made the manhattanville team
lou balzano, frosh (staten island-apple core)
brian elser, frosh (hopewell junction-bay state/shattuck st. mary)
kevin gaughran, frosh (pawling hs/apple core/jr.huskies)
team opens up at home on a friday-saturday doubleheader, hosting suny-fredonia…friday night, 10/22 at 7, saturday, 10/23 at 3
question. Now that Oniel has dropped hockey section 9 has a total of 3 teams 2 in div 1 and only Burke in div 2. so as of today burke is the section 9 champ. why dont they put them in our Rockland conference and send 2 teams in both d 1 and d2 to states? Monroe and burke are usually pretty good but are they both better than section 1’s top 2 I think not both lost in the first round last year.
L/P-
Simple answer. Because they are not a part of Section 1. Even if by some chance the two sections agreed to that for the regular season, when it comes to states, section 9 would still stand alone as it’s own entity, just like Ithaca does in Section 4. They are the only team in their section, they play in the league with section 3 during the regular season, then for states, they get an automatic bid into the quartefinals as the D1 Section 4 champ.
they should just apply for chsaa
they already schedule farrell, chaminade, fordham, iona regularly
at least half their league games will be home
geographically, the league already operates with far distances (st. joe’s and farrell in staten island, st. anthony’s and chaminade out in middle long island, and iona up in westchester…goshen isn’t THAT far away…iona/fordham won’t mind the ride up to ice time, the others probably will…)
thanks good answer… just seems crazy that the best teams may not make the state tournament. I think if Burke play in the chsaa they have to do it in every sport not just one that is why they stay in section 9 in hockey.
L/P-
That is correct. They cannot join the CHSAA in only one sport, otherwise I would imagine Iona, Fordham, & Stepinac would probably seriously consider joining Section 1 to play locally in hockey instead of travelling to Long Island, Staten Island, Coney Island and every other island in the tri-state area while remaining in the CHSAA in the other sports.
As for the best teams not making the states, it happens all the time. Some sections are more stacked then others. All season long last year, four of the top ten teams in the D1 state rankings came from Section 6 (Willy North, Orchard Park, Lancaster, & Niagra-Wheatfield). If you simply took the best 8 teams in the state (which is subjective in and of itself), you would have had a few teams from the Buffalo area and none from some other sections. Unless the state decides to revamp the tourney again to allow multiple teams from some sections (with a re-done version of the old out-bracket tourney), you will always have teams who are in the top two or three in the state that don’t make it out of their section because one of the top two was there as well.
The best way to do this which would lessen a lot of the travel and knock out the outbracket tourney over one weekend would be to have MW (The annual default section 9 champ) and Ithaca (The annual default Section 4 champ) each host a four-team out-bracket tourney to get into the states. So the champions from Sections 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 10 are in automatically and MW hosts a four-team, 2-day tourney against the runners up in Sections 1, 2, & 10 while Ithaca hosts the same with the runners up from sections 3, 5, & 6 for the last two spots. This way the teams in the smaller sections have to play their way in and the runners up from the bigger sections get a crack at the tourney.
In D2 you would do the same thing, but it would be Sections 9 & 7 hosting the outbracket tourneys since Section 7 is perrenially weak, only has D2 teams, and only has about 4 or 5 teams in the section.
North (with the brothers Willows and Shuman and a young McIndoe) solidified its state power credibility with that memorable run in the 2007 DI outbracket. Criss crossing the state on a bus for a week in search of a state tourney slot. You could make a movie about it. Would love to see some version of that return, so that the losers of some close game at West Point have another shot. Agree it does not make sense for Ithaca, MW and Burke to be able today to pencil in a 2011 state tourney quarterfinal on the their respective schedules.
Best teams? I would hardly call Burke a best team. They are usually competitive but lets face it they do not have to play in any sectional games to make it to regionals. They and Monroe have basically gotten a free pass every year. Maybe competing in a playoff setting would change it. The jury is still out on both of the section 9 so called powers as they have had a free pass through sections every year.
doubt the state will make any changes with all the budget talk and shortened season. and oh ya it makes sense so we know it wont happen at least it is something new to talk about here.
with the way the budgets are we should feel lucky to have hockey
Just moved back to the county and getting into LowHud Hockey again. Clarkstown South put together some surprising teams in the early 90’s. I was at the game they beat Suffern 5-4 at Low Tor. Mike Araneo, Brent Swarbrick, Brian Boggan … I think they averaged like 9 goals a game back then. Anyone remember Roc-Ice?