Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

[BU Hammer]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Honestly, I think part of that's because there are less ponds to skate on now. The ponds that used to freeze over every December and stay frozen until February or March aren't doing that any more. In fact, this winter was the first time in a long time that I remember some ponds I know of that actually even froze enough to skate on at all.

*****http://csmoody.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/al-gore.jpg******

[Federal League]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Honestly, I think part of that's because there are less ponds to skate on now. The ponds that used to freeze over every December and stay frozen until February or March aren't doing that any more. In fact, this winter was the first time in a long time that I remember some ponds I know of that actually even froze enough to skate on at all.

Possibly. I haven't really noticed that in Billerica, though. There are 3 ponds within 5 minutes of my house that are pretty solid from about late December to late February/early March.

[Hokydad]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Mass hockey in the truest sense, i.e. the kids and players is just fine. Mass hockey as an organization is a farce and needs a major over haul.

We have lost spots to the national festival camps over the past decade and mainly because we send political kids instead of the best players. We have guys involved who are only there when their kids are playing and do so to make sure they are taken care of. We used to get 20 + slots, now we get around 10.

We do everything wrong to give the perception that we are in a turmoil but "we", i.e. the kids are not, Mass hockey is.

Here are a few examples.

We send our supposed top U-14 kids(again, very political) to Sweden instead of the festival. The first green book comes out and it usually has the kids at festival and not the kids in Sweden in it, thus our supposed top 20 are left out.

At the national championship level, Mass hockey has been fighting with the MBHL/EHF for years and does not allow them to participate. So when our U-12, U-14 and U-16's go to natls they dont see the best kids. This is crazy and gives the usa guys the impression that our teams are soft, when in fact they are not. This is all done so Mass hockey guys can make money off of their select teams and not in the best interest of the kids/players.

The main reason it looks so bad though is because we have a watered down product. In Mass we now have about 40 supposed AAA orgs, it is a farce and way to many teams. Mass hockey needs to step in and not allow them to register in that catagory. We have kids who couldnt make their A town team leaving and playing "AAA". Just look at the EHF, they have now added a AA level, this on top of the AAA Elite and AAA levels. Now we dont even have AAA, we have AAA Elite, all so the owners can make more money of the families. In the end, they destroy town hockey by doing this.

It carries straight thru to the hs levels. Mass hs hockey is watered down beyond belief and is a shell of what it used to be.
We mnow have the EJ, the AJ, the IJ, the Empire on and on. All these tier 3C junior leagues on top of high school and prep leagues. How can you possibly have a good league with parity if we have 500 teams all spread out. You need to play against good comp to get better and in mass, that is not the case. The kids are there but are being over looked because of the geniusues running the leagues/teams, who are all about the money

They have tried to shore up the hs level by offering a supposed elite fall league, hoping it replicates the MN league but does not. They end up giving the teams to puppet regimes who bring all their kids on it. For example one prep school guy will be given a region or area team and he loads it with his winter kids, leaving out about 75% of the best players. They even screw that up. Instead of picking the best players with outside evaluators, they again do it on their own with their own agenda, which has nothing to do with developiong the best players.

Mass hockey is fine but the guys running it need to get out of the way.

[Slasher7]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Mass hockey in the truest sense, i.e. the kids and players is just fine. Mass hockey as an organization is a farce and needs a major over haul.

We have lost spots to the national festival camps over the past decade and mainly because we send political kids instead of the best players. We have guys involved who are only there when their kids are playing and do so to make sure they are taken care of. We used to get 20 + slots, now we get around 10.

We do everything wrong to give the perception that we are in a turmoil but "we", i.e. the kids are not, Mass hockey is.

Here are a few examples.

We send our supposed top U-14 kids(again, very political) to Sweden instead of the festival. The first green book comes out and it usually has the kids at festival and not the kids in Sweden in it, thus our supposed top 20 are left out.

At the national championship level, Mass hockey has been fighting with the MBHL/EHF for years and does not allow them to participate. So when our U-12, U-14 and U-16's go to natls they dont see the best kids. This is crazy and gives the usa guys the impression that our teams are soft, when in fact they are not. This is all done so Mass hockey guys can make money off of their select teams and not in the best interest of the kids/players.

The main reason it looks so bad though is because we have a watered down product. In Mass we now have about 40 supposed AAA orgs, it is a farce and way to many teams. Mass hockey needs to step in and not allow them to register in that catagory. We have kids who couldnt make their A town team leaving and playing "AAA". Just look at the EHF, they have now added a AA level, this on top of the AAA Elite and AAA levels. Now we dont even have AAA, we have AAA Elite, all so the owners can make more money of the families. In the end, they destroy town hockey by doing this.

It carries straight thru to the hs levels. Mass hs hockey is watered down beyond belief and is a shell of what it used to be.
We mnow have the EJ, the AJ, the IJ, the Empire on and on. All these tier 3C junior leagues on top of high school and prep leagues. How can you possibly have a good league with parity if we have 500 teams all spread out. You need to play against good comp to get better and in mass, that is not the case. The kids are there but are being over looked because of the geniusues running the leagues/teams, who are all about the money

They have tried to shore up the hs level by offering a supposed elite fall league, hoping it replicates the MN league but does not. They end up giving the teams to puppet regimes who bring all their kids on it. For example one prep school guy will be given a region or area team and he loads it with his winter kids, leaving out about 75% of the best players. They even screw that up. Instead of picking the best players with outside evaluators, they again do it on their own with their own agenda, which has nothing to do with developiong the best players.

Mass hockey is fine but the guys running it need to get out of the way.

Mass town hockey is a joke now but I wouldn't blame the EHF programs. The creation of those 'second level' programs such as Global Hockey are taking its toll on the towns and charge just as much as EHF teams. Local towns (with some exceptions, Needham, Reading, Duxbury, etc) can't get ice time for their programs and the kids who can play have to go elsewhere.

I dont believe all the EHF programs are doing a AA program. I know teams like the Bay State Breakers do, but I'm not sure the others are. The difference, I see, in AAA Elite and AAA Select is not that great in most programs.

Same thing is happening with baseball as AAU programs are sprouting up all over the place now.

[Rover]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

I think there's something to be said for a strong professional sports team having a lot of pull on youths playing the sport. When I was growing up the Celtics were huge during the Bird era and the courts were packed with dorky looking white guys who couldn't jump trying to pull off the same moves. You can't possibly expect that out of the Bruins, a team with an almost 40 year record of futility. Furthermore, they haven't been a fun team to watch and get behind on a large scale basis since Neely retired. There's no outsized personalities, there's no superstars, and they just play a boring, uninspiring style. Kids aren't skating around hoping to be Savard or Bergeron. If anything they'd be thinking Crosby or Ovechkin.

Next I'd say the problem with pickup hockey is that if you got together and skated on a pond nowadays you'd immediately have the police force descending on you to shoo everybody off the ice unless you had a permit from two dozen town agencies, a team of lawyers, the chaplain, your parents, and some other next of kin, the EPA, PTA, PETA, and you gave a week's notice before you planned on taking the ice.

[joegrav]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Next I'd say the problem with pickup hockey is that if you got together and skated on a pond nowadays you'd immediately have the police force descending on you to shoo everybody off the ice unless you had a permit from two dozen town agencies, a team of lawyers, the chaplain, your parents, and some other next of kin, the EPA, PTA, PETA, and you gave a week's notice before you planned on taking the ice.

This. Whenever my dad would want to take me pond skating, my mother would veto the idea. The ice could break!!!! Of course there was as much a chance of that as there was me getting hurt in a freak accident at an indoor arena. C'est la vie.

[mookie1995]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Maybe 10 years ago... It was nice one day so I tell my nephew to get our online skates and we pick up the net and skate down to a dead end to stay out of traffic next to a store that is closed for the day. We are playing when a local cop rolls up and stops. We see him and after a couple minutes he rolls the window down and waves me over. "yeah?" I say. He asks what we're doing. I tell him how the two of us are just screwing around. He laughs and says some neighbor woman called the station and complained that a bunch of kids were breaking things and making noise. I asked if we should move? He looked past me toward a house and said "no. You're fine." and left. Whatever.

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Hilarious, I was about to say the same thing. Some entitled DBag that lives on a lake will call the police and say you are disturbing the peace and they cannot enjoy the peace and quiet they thought they would get when they moved there.

[jcarter7669]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Hilarious, I was about to say the same thing. Some entitled DBag that lives on a lake will call the police and say you are disturbing the peace and they cannot enjoy the peace and quiet they thought they would get when they moved there.

Well Nick, the next time you see some kid skating on the pond, take a deep breath and your finger off the phone. Problem solved.

[Federal League]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

I think there's something to be said for a strong professional sports team having a lot of pull on youths playing the sport. When I was growing up the Celtics were huge during the Bird era and the courts were packed with dorky looking white guys who couldn't jump trying to pull off the same moves. You can't possibly expect that out of the Bruins, a team with an almost 40 year record of futility. Furthermore, they haven't been a fun team to watch and get behind on a large scale basis since Neely retired. There's no outsized personalities, there's no superstars, and they just play a boring, uninspiring style. Kids aren't skating around hoping to be Savard or Bergeron. If anything they'd be thinking Crosby or Ovechkin.

Next I'd say the problem with pickup hockey is that if you got together and skated on a pond nowadays you'd immediately have the police force descending on you to shoo everybody off the ice unless you had a permit from two dozen town agencies, a team of lawyers, the chaplain, your parents, and some other next of kin, the EPA, PTA, PETA, and you gave a week's notice before you planned on taking the ice.

I haven't had this problem on any of the ponds near my house, but sadly, I can definitely see this happening elsewhere. It's like how college students aren't allowed to play a pickup game of football at Amory Park in Brookline anymore because we were ruining the grass or some bull****. Now you need to get a permit and it can't have rained in like the last week or something. Stupid.

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Well Nick, the next time you see some kid skating on the pond, take a deep breath and your finger off the phone. Problem solved.

Corky, I don't live on a lake. But I see what you did here ... Next time you make a post about loud UVM hazing incidents happening close to your house, I'll know exactly what to type when I quote and bold your post!!!

[jcarter7669]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Corky, I don't live on a lake. But I see what you did here ... Next time you make a post about loud UVM hazing incidents happening close to your house, I'll know exactly what to type when I quote and bold your post!!!

Corky? Are you now making references disparaging mentally challenged people? Low Nick, low....

[Slasher7]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Corky? Are you now making references disparaging mentally challenged people? Low Nick, low....

He's making fun of you, so I guess he is. So mean, Nick. So mean...

[mwade]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

I know this belongs in alum thread, but due to time-sensitiveness I'm putting it here - you can watch Redlihs right now Latvia/Canada - http://www2.tsn.ca/window/mwhc2010/video_player.aspx

(in the past they've always checked to see if you are in Canada, but not so far for Worlds broadcasts).

[Agganis]

Re: Boston University Offseason Thread 2: Moving Forward by Booting Forwards

Rogie, it appears someone (who can barely spell) has taken to your name on the Freep comments sections:

DFP reported that it was 13 to 15 players so it looks like is really is half the team. Parker has completely loss this group. Question is how the players will react to his favoritism toward some of the players. Parker supposedly was down on Saporoni ever since he got owned by that BC player at the Beanpot pot.

I just heard several players on the team have threatened to transfer if one of the captains on next year's squared isn't suspended or kicked out because this captain did a lot worse than the 3 players Parker singled out but got nothing because he's a Parker favorite.

and just to make SteveF happy they also used Alex once

I'm hearing the same thing as the previous posters regarding how unhappy the players are over their captain facing no discipline at all. According to the players I have talked to, the captain is a Parker favorite and never gets punished or singled out for anything - slacking in practice, showing up to meetings late, and even openly breaking team rules such as drinking before a game.