It sounds like Pearl River is going to make a few teams nervous when the playoffs start after giving Suffern and Scarsdale the runaround. And we might have to add Hen Hud to the list of teams capable of pulling an upset. The Sailors have won eight in a row.
And it sounds like some of the favorites deserve a little praise, too, with Pelham and John Jay each finding a way to win two big games upstate over the weekend. I’m thinking Section 1 really deserves a little more credit than is being given in the state rankings. And more teams from upstate need to come down here to experience a different style of play.
Enjoy the Super Bowl, leave a prediction is you like. Since they’ve had two weeks to prepare for that crazy San Francisco offense, I’m taking Baltimore in a close game, 31-27.
February 3
No games scheduled
February 2
Pelham 3, Rome Free Academy 2 OT
Scarsdale 4, Pearl River 3 OT
Iona Prep 1, Chaminade 1
Glens Falls 9, Clarkstown 1
Hen Hud 2, Carmel 1
ETB 6, Mount Pleasant 3
John Jay 3, Ogdensburg 1
Lakeland/Panas 7, Pawling 1
Nyack/Tappan Zee 3, North Rockland 3 OT
Worcester Academy 3, RCDS 3
61 Comments
Who scored for Pelham?
schauer had 2 and peters scored in ot
Was a legit barnburner. RFA had 18-19 penalties and 1 ejection, Pelham had 11-12 penalties and was called for a penalty shot late in the game which the Pelham goalie stopped. Shots were even 23-21? Big crowd very physical game. RFA scored on a 5-3 PP by Rutkowski and scored a shorty by Siefert. Pelham had 3 pp goals by Schauer and the GW in OT by Petters. Pelham had two players not finish with injury and RFA had 1 not finish. Packed house
chshl playoffs are set. although chaminade, st.anthony and fordham have games remaining, decisions won’t mean anything. standings are set.
1 st.anthony
2 chaminade
3 iona
4 fordham
game 1s
sunday, feb. 10
iona-chaminade, ice hutch, 6:55pm
fordham-st.anthony, coney island, 7:15pm
game 2s
friday, feb. 15, iona-chaminade, coney island, 8:15pm
saturday, feb. 16, fordham-st.anthony, ice hutch, 8:10pm
game 3s (if necessary)
saturday, feb. 16, iona-chaminade, coney island, 7:15pm
sunday, feb. 17, fordham-st.anthony, coney island, 7:15pm
the chshl is assuming wins with that playoff schedule. this week – if st.joe’s beats st.anthony (likely won’t happen) and chaminade beats fordham (should happen), then chaminade is 1 and st.anthony is 2
and is fordham going to cancel their game against scarsdale on monday 2/11?
monday greenwich hs at rcds
should be good
Pulling for a close game. Don’t care who wins
Love Frank Gore,...and Ray Rice.
If the Ravens win, it will be because they the best player on the field….the unstoppable weapon…
And not talking about Ray what’s-his-face (that guy cannot retire soon enough)
sincerely, Anquan Bigby
Looks like the Pel/RFA game was great special teams practice. When RFA ws DII, they used to run a DII Xmas invitational at their small rink that Rye used to play in. Always a lot of banging. Now that RFA is DI, their Xmas tourney is a DI event. Thinking Pel top 3 in state at least, Rye top 6, and Jay top 12.
SF 35 Ravens 21
looking at the roster even though they are young with three seniors they are tough and seasoned group of players. They just keep coming at you. The matchup at Massena next week should be another exciting game
Hey, how many Section 1 kids do we get to root for as NFL superstars?
Come on—Go Ray Rice!!!!!!
Isles 5-2 over Devils
Ravens 33-27 over 49’ers
GREAT JOB JJ!!!! They are foe real, and we can only hope they continue to move their program forward!!!
Congrats to Pelham and coach Witz. Schedules the toughest teams in the state. Does not win them all, but by the end of the season his whole team is ready to play.
N-W ABSOLUTELY!
The players must really love it, every game is a huge challenge and a test. Looking at their results and schedule they have only the 4 losses, two to Suffern and one each to Williamsville E and Niagara Whestfield. The fact that they won the others on the schedule is really good. Awesome program
@chisel. This is a section 1 blog,could you please post your info on the catholic league blog
I m not going to be as harsh as strength but the chshl is not very exciting. I know theres one team Iona that has westchester county kids on it, fordham has some and that is it. I think the league is as bad as the BIA house league everyone complains about. The chshl plays the same teams over and over again, no teams have home ice and the games are all over the place at late times and no ice cuts between periods as its a low budget operation. The teams going into the playoffs of the chhsl have probably already played each other 3+ times. and they play a best of three? thats weird. There is also no state tournament, just a game with whoever wins in Buffalo and its only for the A division. the B division gos nowhere. There should get there own blog
What happened in the Mamo / Suffern game? I blacked out after Bigby picked up the pre-game dinner check at Sutters…..
NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE CHSHL
Suffern Strength-
No it isn’t. It is a blog for high school hockey in the lower Hudson Valley, i.e. the Journal News’ coverage area. That includes Iona, Stepinac, RCDS, and Harvey as well as the section 1 teams. Personally, the CHSHL doesn’t interest me much, so I skip most of the comments. I invite you to do the same. And while I don’t read them, I will say the fans of those teams have every right to post about and discuss their teams here.
Have to agree Pelham
Pelham is an awesome hockey program! By far the smallest school of the “big four” of Section I and does not even have it’s own town rink! Remarkable really… to be as consistantly good as they have been for the past 15 years!
No doubt about it Pelham is THE model program, but the Ice Hutch is THEIR rink.
The Hutch is in Pelham?
Obsessive
Huh!
Are there still non-believers in John Jay? Have you seen the light? John Jay is the real deal!
Pelham has he most ice of any program. the hutch is their rink!!
The Ice Hutch is in Mt. Vernon, just outside of Pelham. Literally 2 minutes from Pelham High School.
Make that 2 minutes walking
Similar to the way SOR is in the East Ramapo school district, who, like Mount Vernon, no longer has a team. But the rink is just as close to Suffern HS as it is two the two ER high schools (Ramapo & Spring Valley), so it is always thought of as Suffern’s rink…even when East Ramapo did have a team.
Section Won
It’s a good 5 minutes by car unless the lights cooperate.
oh boy are we going that route again? Teams are only good because they have a rink? Mamaroneck has one on campus and so does Rcds. Every team has pretty much access to ice. Theres plenty of rinks.
Having a rink certainly helps. As far as upstate teams going down to play section 1 teams. We would love to at Niagara Wheatfield, it’s just not economically feasable at this point. Our program is in it’s 5th year and we are just starting to get a booster club going, and that’s just to fund our non-league games since those were dropped from school funding this year. Our kids were amped up to play Pelham when they came to Buffalo. It would be great for both sections (1 and 6) if we were able to see each other on the ice more often.
Just read the Syracuse blog posts regarding the RFA/Pelham game. It seemed like the host fans were misbehaving and the RFA players lost their cool. Not surprising that Pelham maintained focus. Something Witz makes sure all his teams do. It would be great to get some color from a fan who attended the game.
5 or 10 years ago there were not a lot of rinks. Today there are so many rinks and so many high school age kids playing travel that the rink in the home town is not a big of an advantage as it once was. Almost all the better programs get two to three practices a week and those teams with lots of travel kids get more ice too. For the comments about Pelham they were good and solid long before theice hutch rink was built
N-W
Good to have you up-staters on this blog
FOTG- What’s the link for the Syracuse blog? Would love to read that.
Section One- look on the “other links” tab on Cliff’s website.
In summary, RFA apparently has some history with taking liberties at home. Having been to that rink many times for tourneys that Rye played in, I didn’t see evidence of that. The Black Knights do play a physical brand of hockey. Pretty clean from my perspective. But, apparently earlier in the season RFA went after a bunch of Mamo players in a game at Kennedy and didn’t get penalized, but did get penalized for doing the same thing on Saturday.
Thx
Yes, it is a good thing that Pelham plays at the Ice Hutch, however, that is not nearly the reason Witz has so much success. His teams play well on the road year after year, and 200+ of his wins were before the Hutch was even built.
FOTG …...glad you want commentary on Pelham upstate. You should have gone in person instead of standing at the Ice Hutch Friday night. It is a nice view from the top row there.
Evidently RFA got called for 18 penalties against Pelham, and all of Pelhams goals came on the pp, RFA also had a player ejected for a head hit. RFA tried to push the Pelham team around but Pelham was not having it yesterday. The game was even, shots 23-22 and all the goals were scored on specialty teams. Pelham really had worn RFA down by the end of the game, they were playing at least 3 lines throughout. It was physical, as physical as I`ve seen in that arena. It was an entertaining game and a huge crowd was in attendance. The refs had their hands full but did a nice job
Looking forward to hen hud vs John jay and Saturday night. They should get msg varsity there that’s how good it might be. Hen hud is hot and Last game they played it was very close 3-2 John jay. If hen hud could of held there penalties to a minimum they might have won. Looking forward to it. Who do you think will win?
My opinion is that while Hed Hud is playing well they cannot possibly match up with John Jay which has a loaded roster of travel high level kids and they too are playing well. It has to be a 5-1 5-0 game Jay
Warning
...reading the upstate blog may actually suck the intelligence right out of the reader’s brain.
N-W, you are an excellent representative of the upstate hockey point of view.
Always enjoy reading your posts…keep it up.
Lets be realistic…..JJ outshot HH 55 to 15. The goalie was unbelievable but the score didn’t reflect the game .
State ranks
3 Suffern ,
14 Mamaroneck
D2
4 Pelham
6 Rye
11 JJ
Congrats John Jay
Those ranking are so impartial.
How did Clarence jump 7 spots?
Why didn’t Pelham move up at least a notch?
Why didn’t Suffern jump over RFA at #2 after their loss to Pelham?
Weird!
Congratulations JJ, Welcome to the Dance!
WE aren’t going the rink argument are we.
My opinion is… yes it is HUGE to have a rink in your community. HUGE. Why do you think Mamaroneck, Pelham, Rye and Suffern always have good teams. Throw in WP and Clarkstown for good measure.
Name a consistently good team that does not have a rink….. Thats what I thought. Then throw in coaches and section 1 chairs who make sure to give their teams optimal practice times and game times… and it is even more an advantage. So please don’t tell me it is a level playing field. Farrrrr from it.
Yeah N-W, thanks for your input from Western NY.
When you get a chance let me know why Clarence had a huge jump. I would think to see Lancaster jump up, not Clarence.
Pelham has a loss to #3 Williamsville East so I doubt they would leap frog Pelham past them. I was surprised Suffern did not get past Rome Free Academy as Pelham beat Rome, and Suffern axed Pelham twice. Its also interesting looking at the division 1 rankings and see that Pelham plays the 2, 3, 4, 5 8 ranked division 1 teams this year. Insane stuff
who doesnt have rink access? Scarsdale has had Murrays and Rocket, please do your home work, almost all the teams practice 2-3 times a week, you can practice all you want but you need players who can play. Rye has been bouncing around all year and has no rink and they are doing fine. Jay has rink access to BIA and they are fine, I think every team except maybe MTP, Ossining and SHI are without regular rinks to call their own? Lets remember how many kids are playing Brewster or Avalanche high level travel, those teams are stacked
Rankings- Looking at state rankings, Pel plays a brutal schedule. Mamo not far behind. Arguabley, WP next, then Suffern and then Rye. Here are the breakdowns:
Pelham: DI state ranked opponens- 2,3,3,4,5,8,14; DII state ranked opponents-3,15 (also number 6 if the Rye game is rescheduled)
Mamo: DI state ranked opponents- 2,3,3,7,15; DII state ranked opponents- 4,6
WP: DI state ranked opponents- 3,14,14; DII state ranked opponents- 4,6
Suffern: DI state ranked opponents- 8,12,14,14,15; DII state ranked opponents- 4,4
Rye: DI state ranked opponents- 5,14; DII state ranked opponets-11, (also number 4 if the Pelham game is rescheduled)
Suffern shines when you look at the records in these type games:
Suffern: 6-1
Pelham 4-4 (with 1 or possibly 2 to go in regular season)
Rye: 3-0 (with possibly 1 to go in regular season)
WP: 1-4
Mamo:1-6
I’ll start by saying that I don’t find the Sportswriters Poll to be very accurate in my opinion. I find that ushsho.com has what I believe to be the most accurate rankings. I believe Clarence moved up so much in the polls because they went 6-1, beating Frontier twice, Lancaster, Orchard Park, (all highly ranked), and losing 1-0 to Canisius of Buffalo. Also had two blowout wins against a weak Niagara Falls team. Clarence will be dropping though, as last night they lost 3-1 to West Seneca East. Currently the #24 ranked D2 school. As far as Lancaster goes, they’ve gone on a skid since their best player has been hurt. After beating Potsdam and Massena up North they dropped games to Frontier, Niagara Wheatfield and Clarence. I will say this. Section 6 is up for grabs between 5 or 6 teams in D1.
John Jay and Hen Hud will not be a game- JJ woll won 4 or 5 to 1. HH had a good goalie but JJ has some serious players and are for real.
N-W- what are your thoughts on DII for Sec 5 and Sec 6?
In section 6, I think it will be one of two teams. West Seneca West is big and skilled. I have only seen them play once against Lancaster. They were taking it to Lancaster early but couldn’t score, when mo changed in Lancasters favor pucks started going in against West and they lost. Just beat West Seneca East 6-2 last night after East beat Clarence. West can play. The other team is Williamsville East. We played them and tied 2-2. They are ok offensively, not extremely skilled, but they play hard all over the ice and have a goalie that is absolutely lights out if he is on. I think 5 of his first 7 games were shutouts. Something crazy like that. If he gets hot. They will be very tough.
Can’t tell you more than you probably know about 5. To me it looks like Webster-Thomas is the best along with Churchville-Chili. Brockport and Hilton are tough too. CC just beat Hilton 3-0 last night.
Hope this is helpful.
Did Sutters get closed when Bigby opened his wallet, and released all the toxins that hadnt seen oxygen since he stored his Bar Mitzvah money?
Thanks for the scoop N-W.
Thanks N-W