Spring Team Skates & Changing Rinks Rumor Season!

[Guest]

Jay and Carl lol. Come on man!

[Guest]

I have no skin in the game. Kid does not play for FE, PHC, JrF or LF. I have been around SJ & SEPA ice hockey for a long time so I have seen a lot.

Go back in MHR rankings and look at PHC, LF & JR F. PHC 2011 team rankings have dropped each of the past 3 years with this year ranking at 88th. PHC & LF 2011 talent left for JrF whose rankings shot up to 13th this year. Does this mean the 2011 PHC and LF coaches all of sudden suck? No! It means you need talent to win. Same thing  happened at PHC 2012. They have their worst rankings in 4 years because all the talent left. Is DK all of sudden a bad coach? No! LF 2012 rankings have moved up 11 spots from last year. Is SM all of sudden a genius? No! Recruiting better talent= better team. PHC 2013 has been consistent because they have basically the same team (give or take 2-3 players) since Venom. LF 2013 has seen their rankings fall each of the past 3 years. Again is SM a bad coach? No! Talent left and he hasn't recruited like he did at 2012. I could go on and on. Are some coaches better than others? Yes. Does it mean JP and CO are bad coaches? No.

Talent is king and no matter how good a coach someone is, they can't turn AA & A players into AAA players in 1 season or at all. If they have to improve kids skating and skills just to keep up with AAA pace, then they have less time to teach game situations. Bottom line is there are too many AAA teams and not enough AAA talent!
 

[Guest]

Definitely takes talent to win.

Yes. They are bad coaches. Have a conversation about hockey with either for longer than 5 minutes and your opinion will change.

Does putting together a good skill session make you a good hockey coach? No. You can get drills off YouTube.

[Guest]

At FE they hide behind the term “development” as a way to justify the losing to the parents and absentee leadership, but at some point, the development should lead to wins or your just chasing the white dragon.

[Guest]

At FE they hide behind the term “development” as a way to justify the losing to the parents and absentee leadership, but at some point, the development should lead to wins or your just chasing the white dragon.

FE was pilfered by Venom/PHC's move to Hollydell after BB bought the rink in 2021. This year is the 1st year FE has had pure age teams at PW & SQ since 2020-21,. the year before Beech took the team to PHC. In 2021-22 the 2011 team was mixed age that never played together. 2022-23 there were no teams below 2010 except full ice Pilots.  Last years teams were mixed ages, which helped younger birth year on team but not older birth year.  I would argue having mixed teams last season hurt the rebuild more than it helped. FE rebuild is in year 2 and takes time.

If you want development, look at 2015 team that has been together 2-3 years on Pilots- #17 MHR & #2 in NJ behind PHC. A PHC team that took 2 of the better 2015 players from FE by the way. If those 2 players stayed 2015 FE the team would be top 5 in MHR.  By the way PHC is only 0.7 points higher than FE 2015 in MHR. 

[Guest]

Leading scorer from 2015 team is from Hollydell. Every FE roster is filled with kids from Igloo, Voorhees and Hollydell. Pennsauken has never developed players. When Comcast/Virtua were a solid tier 1 program it was built with players from other clubs. They never had a feeder.

[Guest]

How did that 2015 team do today? How have they done when they leave the cozy confines of the THF.  They don’t travel like PHC to find the games, they beef up their MHR by beating 83 MHR teams by 7.  They didn’t develop 3 of their top 4 scorers.  And that’s the GOOD team there!!!  BTW how do you chase your top two players in a birth year out of your rink?

[Guest]

Definitely takes talent to win.

Yes. They are bad coaches. Have a conversation about hockey with either for longer than 5 minutes and your opinion will change.

Does putting together a good skill session make you a good hockey coach? No. You can get drills off YouTube.

I have had hockey discussions with JP but not CO. JP is a top notch skills/skating coach, but a below average head coach. JP stubbornly refuses to put in systems that would help his teams win. He just practices outlets, skating and skills. I used him in the past for privates (some of the best around) but would never let my kid play for him.  He needs a complete change in philosophy if he wants to attract talent to his teams. Systems put structure in your team game and once mastered allows the players to be creative inside and outside that system. Without structure you have pick-up hockey. JP's kid play is a direct reflection of his fathers coaching style- great skater, stickhandler, shooter but basically plays shinny to the detriment of his teammates.

[Guest]

This is spot on with one exception. It is not because he’s stubborn, he just doesn’t know anything about hockey. You can’t teach what you don’t know.

Any coach can google drills and put together a good lesson. Kids benefit from his drills not teachings. He doesn’t understand what or why they’re doing it.

If you gave him a loaded roster of kids that didn’t need a practice plan that focused exclusively on basic skills he’d be completely lost. And he’s completely incapable of teaching actual hockey concepts that any high level player needs.

Unfortunately, there are people who need the letters instead of playing for good AA coaches who know hockey.

[Guest]

The amount of hockey experts on this page is truly impressive. Please post your name and number so I can have my child play for you next year, I’ll even bring the iPad for the YouTube drills.