There doesn't seem to be the overall level of competition at the high school level this year that there has been in the past few years. There are fewer kids coming up and less overall talent to go around.

Agree or disagree?
Comments and solutions?

I disagree...the league im in is more competitive then ever

competiveness is up but skill level is down i think thats what he ment

i dunno the icshl south has a lot of skill

ICSHL south has the best talent compared to the other leagues but if you look at the best players in that leauge now and compare them to ICSHL players or most of the other leagues players Tim McGarry is pretty much the only one that compares, I know Latta's only a sophmore so he could end up being up there but we'll have to see

I think the depth within the teams and the overall pace of the games has changed dramatically over the past two years.
Even with the new standard of play the pace of the games seem a lot slower.

There have been a lot of boring match ups this year with not enough rival games. It seems schedulers are just filling in the blanks with games instead of leaning towards more rival games that tend to be more exciting. In rival games the players seem to have more spark which leads to better play. (at least thats what I think)

For instance, (and I'm not saying their should or should not be an exception to the rules regarding Lower Merion I'm using this as an example)let's just say the FC allowed LM to participate this year? Would it be safe to say this would add another skilled team in the mix which could create more exciting games knowing LM is a contender that could knock out some of the better AA teams?

Again, I'm just using this as and example of a decision that could add some excitement. Another example which happened in the Eastern League was Haverford High was scheduled to play Upper Darby twice at the end of the season. It was no secrete that Upper Darby was struggling this year (before the season even started)and would most likely finish last. That being said, Upper Darby had to play Haverford a 3rd time at the end of the season in a 1st round playoff game. Instead of having Upper Darby play Haverford 2 times in regular season play knowing it would not be a good match up why not allow Haverford to play a best of 3 with O'hara this year? During the one match up between those two teams this year it was a standing room only event with a lot of excitement. People wanted to see two fast skilled teams play. Not only the game was exciting ,there was a large gate$ as well. In the only match up Haverford beat O'hara, Ok.. Now what if their was a second game scheduled, is it safe to assume O'hara would be more pumped wanting revenge? You cant tell me this wouldn't be exciting for not only the fans but the teams as well. The curiosity to see if Haverford could pull off back to back wins or could O'hara redeem themselves in itself makes this more exciting then watching Haverford 10 goal Upper Darby.
The point of all this is the scheduling/match up's of the games impacts the quality of the games. In the future leagues have to start looking into scheduling more rival games. The crossover games seem to work very well but their needs to be more thought put into inner-league games....

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

I think that high school hockey still has some very talented players in all the leauges. You have campli, haeberle, hazelton for Haverford. You have the Masciantonios for Conestogo, and myself, Wolf, and gottlieb hollies for Lower Merion. Mcgarry is a fabulous players, and so is latta and cottle. I think that the drop off is in depth of each team. The top lines are still there but the problem there isnt the depth of Radnor when they had brennan, ryder, devine, cohen. My freshmen year, the top teams in teh central league, Radnor, Springfield, and LM had three lines that could score, now your lucky if you have two. I think that is what is missign the most, the depth.

I'd agree with both aces and Big Jim.

There are some great players out there but farther down the bench is pretty weak.

Some of the games I've seen have been completely void of any fan excitement.
Lasalle vs Ohara at Skatium - two top teams in AAA and there was 15 students in the building, granted it was a Monday night, but...

Malvern has played most of their games on Rink 4 at Iceline. Noone is coming to see them.
This may be a political thing, but I digress.

The West Chester schools have had some good crowds, D-Town has had some, Haverford gets some kids out for regular games.

Best crowd I've seen was for Unionville vs Kennet - Rink 2 at Iceline, place was NUTS!
Rematch this Friday at Iceline -Rink3

Obviously some games will be better than others, you need to play each team in your league and schools will have up and down years, but some creative scheduling based on expected performance couldn't hurt.

Zam, You hit the nail on the head. In most cases everybody has to play each team Etc. After that there is normally 2-3 open slots which should be scheduled with the exciting match up's. Even that little bit could make a big difference.

I think we need to create more natural rivalries....the one's that allready exist in Football and Basketball.

While La Salle and O'Hara is a great game to watch for you and I and the other HS hockey fans.....the student bodies of both schools probably don't give a hoot.

When they are playing the same teams that kick the heck out of each other in the other sports, suddenly the fans will pack in the building.

and if possible(BIG IF) schedule around the same time.

I know in some of the local college hockey they do this, Lafayette vs Lehigh is a prime example.
Hockey game on Friday, football on Sat.
Or football Sat afternoon and hockey Sat night

The reason I only mentioned McGarry and Latta in response to the ICSHL South has some talent comment, if I were to include the central league in that I would mention Lundy, Both of the Masciantionios, and that would be in. I am just thinking of players who would do just about as well a few years ago when the talent level was higher (Circa 2001-2004. although Wolf is a strong player I think he gets a lot of his points because he is on a line with Lundy and I don't think that 2 or 3 years ago he would be getting as many points.

I name Lundy because in 2003-2004 in a strong central league he got 24 points as a freshmen and he has improved since his freshmen year so I feel he would still do just as well a few years ago

Mascantionio's- I just think that as long as they play together they are both very talented that they can make things happen. I heard Rich is out of the flyers cup and that will defiantly hurt Conestoga down the stretch

I haven't seen HH enough to comment on specific players but I did notice that they do not have any stand out players like they have had in the past (Finnerty, Povey, Fitti, Golato) but they are strong this year from all around good team play and should get the #1 seed because of weak competition in the AA division.

I will have to AGREE & DISAGREE with whether talent is down compared to years past. First, I think talent seems to be cyclical, for whatever reason (i.e. success of local NHL team, college team, HS team OR even success in other local sports teams which shift the interest towards them and away from hockey as well as other factors as well). A friend of mine (who scouts talent for a Sports Agency - his clients include Sidney Crosby & Evgeni Malkin), has indicated to me as much (see if the Flyers find an impact 1st round pick this year if you don't believe me - this being a down year compared to the past 3). I actually think talent based on skills such as skating, shooting and passing are better now than they were say ten years ago. Ten years ago you might have a handful of club players on your team and the rest played exclusively for the HS. Now you might only have a couple kids who DON'T play club on your varsity team. Ten years ago the Middle School and Elementary school programs were just getting off the ground. Now almost every school has a JV and middle school program. Where I see dramatic differences in then vs. now are 1) though skill (particularly offensive) is up, defensive skills are WAY DOWN. No one wants to (or can) play good fundamental defense, let alone be a defenseman. 2) Split commitments with club & HS teams. In the "old" days, you only had a handful of club players that might have conflict in scheduling with your HS operations, which meant that the great majority of your team stayed intact throughout the year. Now with almost all of your varsity squads carrying club players, conflicts abound. I believe this leads to a significant drop in team play, and in particular defensive play because you simply are not getting to practice together as a unit.

To summarize:
Individual skills, talent & depth - as good or better compared to 10 years ago. I do think we are in a down cycle period though (i.e. not quite as good as the past two years).

Defensive skills & team play - down

high school hockey is cyclical. theres several things to take into consideration. in the last 5 years look how many schools have split. council rock, central bucks, downingtown, west chester have all added another school that i can think of off the top of my head. also schools have added teams, and many schools programs have gotten much better.

3 years ago everyone said jr b hockey was watered down, but the problem is fixing itself, and while there are alot of teams, its not nearly as watered down as it was 3 or 4 years ago.

the 88 and 89 birth years in the district are very good years. many of the 88s have graduated, and alot of the late 88s and 89s have left the area. the 90 and 91 years arent as strong. in my opinion the 1992 birthyear is the strongest in the last couple of years. so 2 years from now, high school hockey may be very strong again. the 1993s are pretty solid, but it looks like the 1994s may be just as good as the 1992s.

I agree with Lemieux66 the defensive play in HS hockey has gone down from the past few years. There is only a handful of decent defensemen in the leauges including Lowry from Hav High, Hollis from LM, McGary, myself and maybe a few others. The offensive side has become better every year. My freshmen year at Ridley (04-05) I played against Povey, Finnerty, Malicia, Cauley, Cross, Flynn. The past two years, the offense has been increased to where myself as a defensmen, I have to worry about two or sometimes even three players on one line that have every skill...ie Campli, Haberle, and Karp or Lundy Wolf and Wolf. But all of the players that are "standouts" are club players and have been since we were young. On the other side, there are HS players who just play hockey becuase they want something to do or have something on there transcript. Some players playing at the varsity level don't deserve to be there which is terrible because before i was in HS i would go out to the rinks and watch players on every team and every line be able to score and pass and check. The Ridley/Interboro games were great, now they are just an excuse for fans to yell back and forth at each other and players to go after one another which is not what hockey is all about. I don't know about other schools, but Ridley will be lucky to have a team in 2 years.