Want to see some good midget hockey! Weekend series between Jr Flyers and Valley forge Minutemen should be excellent hockey. Saturday Feb 9th, 7:45pm at Center Ice in Oaks and Sunday Feb 10th, 2:30pm at Iceline in West Chester. These 2 games will decide who plays NJ Colonials in Districts. Hope to see you there.

If they split this weekend, who ends up getting the tie breaker?

It would be tie - probably another game to decide it.

I was told that if the Jr. Flyers win 1 they finish 2nd and go to the district playoffs. Since VFMM lost 1 of thier 3 of the games to Comcast and the flyers won all 3 of theirs against Comcast.

why would it matter about the record against comcast?

Actually I believe the tie breaker is the fact that the JrF have a 1-3 record against the Colonials and the MM are 0-3-1. The rest of their records against similar opponents are the same. BTW, one of the MM wins is an OT win against the JrF 4-3. The JrF received a point for the OTL and the MM got 2 points.

Correction: Jr flyers are 1-3 against colonials and MM is 1-2-1 against colonials. In that scenario, MM would get tiebreaker.

VFMM won both games against Jr flyers sat 5-2 and today's game 6-4. VFMM losing in 3rd period with 11 minutes left 3-0, tied score 3-3, losing 4-3 then scored 3 goals in last minute. Congrats and good luck in districts against NJ Colonials.

The first game VFMM played great and flat out beat the Flyers and the shots were even.

The second game was much closer than the 6-4 score makes the game seem like it wasn't close when it was. The flyers made a big mistake in their own zone and turned it over to Berkle about 2 feet in front of the net, berkle wrapped around the net and scored making the score 3-3. than with about 2 mins left the flyers scored to make it 4-3. Again a costly turnover inside their own zone led to the score being 4-4 with about a minute left. The flyers pulled their goalie because a tie would still have VFMM a point a head. After the empty net goal with :40 seconds left the Flyers just deflated and gave up a nice brekaway to Schmiit who beat Brogan.

This game was very exciting, Brogan played great in net as did Pyne (he stopped 3 breakaways in the 1st period)

JR Flyers lost Straig and Newman for the season a few weeks ago but I think Daaads and Silberstine filled in nicely, they also played these last 2 games without Ikkala (leading scorer) and Sean Coll.

quote:

Originally posted by Snipe:
Anyone know when is the last time Bud's team didn't make it to districts?

This may be the only time this decade.

Last time JF didn't make it was 12 years ago.

In the past, the U16 team has been weak and the top team still strong (as early as last year). I don't think it's a reflection of the Jr Flyers as an org but more of a reflection of the changing face of midget/jr/high school hockey....Buds team was always the benchmark mark in the area, and has traditionally drawn a lot of talent to tryouts that came from outside the JF's other teams. He has done a great job getting exposure for players which was always a part of the draw, but with the drop in the number of competitive Atlantic league teams at U18 AAA and increasing number of Jr teams that provide exposure (with less travel and cost) I think you're seeing a change in the guard so to speak.

I think it's interesting to note that the core of the two teams playing off to go to nationals are made up of a high school team (NJ Colonials/St Augustine Prep and VFMM/LaSalle).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ralphy,

VFMM/Lasalle being basically the same team made scheduling of both teams easy for those involved.

NJ Colonials are already high school friendly, the Colonials district schedule usually finishes early to prevent high school conflicts.
Some of the Colonial kids would have been playing Jr's but the NJ Rockets JR A/B coach is not high school friendly. Like some of the other local Jr teams.

Bud did lose some players early in the season with a few kids persuaing Jr options. But I think your right with the changes in progress within the area. The VFMM team has alot of young players 91's and a 92 playing up also.

The 16U team is no longer the major feeder to Bud's team. The Jr B team seems to be where the players that need a bit more development will go. No it was not a rebuilding year for the Jr Flyers, they just had 2 very good teams to beat to make districts and didn't do it. But I think its much too soon to write off the Jr. Flyers 18U entirely. Every year they seem to be able to be able to bring in top-notch talent from the area. I would say that Bud has gotten the most players noticed and moved to a next level than any coach in this area. I also think they ran into a bit of bad luck with losing 2 d-men for the year and not having Coll or Ikkala for the last 2 games VS. The VFMM. I don't think those 2 would have changed the outcome of the first game, but I would have the Flyers don't lose that game if Ikkala plays in the 2nd one.

The VFMM team showed how much of a role team chemistry can play. When I first heard they were having a club team of mostly La Salle players with Wally coaching I figured it could either be a great success or a big disaster. Sometimes when players are playing with the same players/coach too much they tend to either burn out, or problems that occur one team can carry over to the other team, the player doesn't really have an escape. Also what if flyers cup and districts are in the same week and there is a conflict? However I didn't hear of any internal issues within the La Salle or VFMM program and Walley runs a very tight ship, so kudos to all of the VFMM players.

Also I am pretty sure New Jersey Colonials team is mostly made up of Del Barton kids not St Augustine players.

these were two of the best games i have seen in the area all year, be it high school, junior or club. great competition between two bitter rivals. i think the best thing that could come out of this would be if there was a renewed effort to put together a team of high school kids on a yearly basis who wanted to play a split season. if the colonials and vfmm both were successful i hope this would prompt others to follow suite. a good starting point cuold be the Chicago showcase team, and then build from there. of course this wuld require high school coaches to work together and that may be the most difficult part.