Scores??

[SpiderRat]

Any scores yet for last nights games in XIHL?

Blah Blah Blah, Shoot the puck already

[Db55UD02]

Sat night
Glads 10 - Thunder 4 ( i believe)
Glads 18 - Sting 11
Sunday, 10AM, a fabulous time for hockey....
THunder came out victorious in a blowout versus the Sting....

Glads looked strong playing two consecutive games on Saturday night, and the thunder rebounded today against the Sting. As far as I could tell, all of the games were pretty clean, and the reffing was pretty stellar. Check out the XIHL website to find out the stats and what not ( few shout outs for Tim Missimer, Curt Sidano, for their respective fisticuffs against JJ Deviney and Jon Biscoe). Not much else to say, as I am recovering from the stick that clipped me in my lip....Back to the drawing board....

XIHL-Philadelphia Sting
PIHA-Is there a league this year?

[born2runPROgm]

congrats to the thunder goalie. He played a tremendous game.

The Gambler

[MDE3]

Did anyone else happen to see the post and perspective on what happened at Marple after the Cougars dropped out, written by a member of the Thunder and posted on the XIHL general message board....before it was removed from the public eye by the admin. of the XIHL board?

While I wish the XIHL all the best, this kind of heavy handed censorship smacks a little too much of paranoia....The post..no doubt intended by the author for "the general public", was removed to the "players board" and thus no longer viewable by the general public, along with all the general banter between the players....I for one see no more reason to bother participating in a board which cannot deal with any public criticism of it's patriarch and removes the only topics of interest from the public eye.....no doubt my posting privelges will also be suspended there for speaking my mind....

[NuHusky]

yeah them taking down that post was shady...I will see what I can do to get that person to copy the post over here.

Its pretty clear after 3 weekends the XIHL really does not have their act together.

[MDE3]

I am going from recollection so bear with me for any innacuracies.

Basically as I recall the post raised 5 questions:

1) Why was the Thunder not notified of the changes before 4:00 on game time.

2) Why was the Thunder required to play a PM and an AM game the next day, when they had the farthest to travel, and the most vested interest in finishing early?

3) Why would the points for a win count for Marple if they won but not for Thunder should they have won?

4) Why were there no league officials present to answer the above questions when there was going to be some obvious contraversy?

There was one other point raised as well, but I will defer to the poster and the league to raise and answer that question.

There is no doubt that the posing of these questions will have an impact on how people and viewers percieve the league. That is why I have raised these questions outside the XIHL board..to give the league a chance to respond to them in an honest and legitimate fashion. These are legitimate questions which will be raised most importantly by the players who participated in the Festival...not just us idle hockey forum watcher/fans with too much time on our hands. Better they should be addressed publically and promptly to the best of the league's ability, not just swept under the proverbial carpet to fester and possibly create an even greater credibility concern.

In fairness to this league, there is a hell of a lot of work needed to get it off the ground and instill player and fan confidence. I take my hat off to those who have been working so dilligently to make this happen, and whose interests at heart are the long term success of this venture. I understand that maybe the league founders may not yet have all the answers to these questions, and so may have wanted to remove them from the public eye until they did. But.....that said, rather than simply removing the questions raised from public view, which the player had every right to ask and be answered for, simply say "we are working our damdest to sort it all out fairly, having been put in a very difficult situation by the "non events" of the passed weekend", and then come back and address the resolvable issues with an equitable solution.

[vitaminchi]

here is what i posted on XIHL:

Ok, here goes...

We (the HT) travel down to Marple thinking we are going to play the South Jersey Cougars and the Philadelphia Sting. I'd like to emphasize the THINKING. We reach the rink at about 4pm (game time at 530) and walk into the rink hearing the news that was posted on the website on 11/20/04. Now, maybe someone in the league knew about this earlier, maybe they didn't. Maybe someone on our team knew about it, maybe they didn't. So, now it's 430pm, and we find out that now we have to play the Marple Gladiators as an exhibition game, but if they win, they get the 2pts to count towards their standings. If they lose, we don't get the 2pts for beating them, but we still get 2pts for a forfeit by the South Jersey Cougars. Confusing? Maybe, but let me ask you this, the first weekend (October 30-31st in Hartford) a no show by Marple and the Ottakringer? The Werewolves and Thunder were forced to play eachother twice that weekend, and it was fun, sure, but there were no forfeit wins/losses handed to the teams involved. Instead, it's deteremined that the teams that weren't present would not get to play as many games. Fine. But now that the SJC didn't show up, and there is an exhibition game against the Thunder scheduled, that gives them a chance to make up a game in the standings? Doesn't seem right to me. By the way, I forget to mention that the Marple arena may have already knew what was going on with this past weekend, since they did have fliers all around the rink about how they were playing the Thunder on Saturday night. But hey, who knows, maybe they posted them earlier in the morning while we were on the road down there thinking we were going to be playing the SJC. Oh, and wouldn't it make sense to have the the Thunder play the Sting at 8pm on saturday night, so they can leave first thing in the morning and not worry about not showering (no showering facilities at Marple) after the game on Sunday morning and then having the Sting play Marple on Sunday since the two teams are from the area? Of all the teams that I've played against, I'd have to say the Werewolves are the only ones that have this thing down legit. They are the most responsible and respectable team both on and off the rink surface...but we still have the best rink

I'd like to thank the league for making this possible. I really do appreciate the hard work that everyone has put into it, and the games have been fun. But as a league that is just forming, I feel that it is important that the league founders be present at a "Festival Weekend" in case something like this happens. Yea, I'm sure every one of them has another job or something else to do, but the schedule did come out in early October, and we all have jobs/school work, etc. as well. I mean, it's not like we're getting paid to do this stuff. We take the time to travel, and a league representative should do the same.

As for the scores go:

Game 1
Marple 10 or 11 ( i don't remember)
Thunder 4

Game 2
Marple 18?
Sting 11

Game 3
Thunder 15
Sting 0

[yokes]

I do know that this was a last minute thing for 99% of us. I play at Marple all week and did see small posters but they all said we were playing the Sting as we were supposed to on Saturday night. Just wanted to say i did see them for myself so i know they existed. The players werent informed till late friday and some on early sat of the changes for games times. Not sure that you should point your finger at Marple on this, more at the Cougers who held out that they didnt have a team and didnt let anyone know ahead of time forcing the late scrambling.

Goalies do it better with their eyes closed!!

[SpiderRat]

Just a quick correction, Ottakringer was not scheduled to appear in Hartford the weekend of Halloween. I wish we were, it's closer to me. Anyway, no big deal. Great letter by the way.

Blah Blah Blah, Shoot the puck already

[NuHusky]

I don't think the last post was trying to 'point a finger' at Marple, with the exception of the lack of showers. I think he was just trying to shed some light on the situation that occurred and how the league handled(more so mishandled) what should have taken place.

Hartford had to make a pretty lenghty trip down to Marple to play. Everyone was put in a bad situation with the cougars backing out. however, since Marple and the sting both are from the area and Hartford had to travel, the right thing to do would have been to have the thunder play saturday night and be able to leave early sunday to get back to their family, jobs, etc. and have the glads and the sting play sunday morning.

Now I know Marple may have been expecting fans and the fans may have been disappointed to see that their world champion team was not playing. But Hartford had to deal with a similar situation on the first weekend when they were going to open their season against Marple only to find out Marple couldn;t make the trip. Basically, Hartford was inconvenienced twice by having Marple back out on the 1st weekend and by having the Cougars back out this 3rd weekend.

I think these problems swell into a bigger problem when you consider that no one from the league has been present at any of the weekends. The players make the sacrifices and the committment to show up and play, why can't the league officials? I would think that if you were trying to start a new league and you were having a festival type weekend, that someone from the league would be there for the teams and as well as a league ambassador.

I am not sure what the problems were with MLRH and I know the XIHL is probably still working out a lot of kinks, but so far I would have to say that the MLRH was a lot better then the XIHL.

But thats right now, who knows, maybe next year XIHL will be running smoothly and there will be no problems. For right now though, Mr. Seeger and Mr. Gulakiw have their work cut out for them getting some legitimacy into this league.

[yokes]

I wasnt taking it as pointing a finger just wanted to point out that as me being a player i didnt know till late friday night not any earlier. I understand the travel thing also, but would the Thunder of rather of played back to back opposed to what they did?

Goalies do it better with their eyes closed!!

[vitaminchi]

play back to back? the point is, the thunder didn't have to play marple. there should have only been 2 games that weekend: marple vs. sting, thunder vs. sting. With the league having marple play back to back games, it makes them seem like they did a HUGE favor, but in reality, it only benefits them if the league allows them to count that Win vs. the Thunder.

basically, the league should have had an official present at the games to help dissect the situation, which would have prevented me from calling an official and voice my opinion on their voicemail, for which i still have not received a phone call back from.

[NewarkBears1]

To say that the MLRH was is any better based on the fact that the cougars dropped out is not only ridiculous but also ignorant. I dont know if you have ever played in either the MLRH or the XIHL, but i have now played in both and the MLRH has had the same exact problems. Teams like the Fredricksburg Sabres, Mass Jokers and Capital Crunch just to name a few, all forfeited games and were suspended by the league.

[NuHusky]

Before you use words like ignorant and ridiculous, please re-read my post. Teams dropping out is indeed a problem. From what I had heard the XIHL was formed and had strict guidlines that needed to be met in order for teams to compete. I don't know the whole situation with what happened with the Cougars and that is a mute point at this stage.

What I am saying is the way things were handled by the league could have been done a lot better. If the league could not find a replacement team to play an exhibition game against the thunder when the league knew in advance the cougars could not field a team, two things should have happened: Number 1, a league official should be at every weekend to discuss a situation like this with all the teams, owners, captains, etc. Number 2, the league should realize that some teams travel futher then others and try to accomodate the team that has the furthest to travel and change a schedule accordingly.

I too have played in both the XIHL and the MLRH...and the ECRHA(college) and Narch and Torhs and USA hockey, etc. I've been around the roller hockey scene. Benny Gulakiw posted tons of messages saying how great the XIHL was going to be. I am still waiting. And let me make it perfectly clear I am not ruling out the XIHL either. Next year who knows what is going to happen when all the teams know what is required to pull a league off and when the league itself knows how to pull it off as well. Growing pains are expected, especially in a venture such as this.

All i am trying to say is, I think if you would ask 10 players at random who played MLRH last year and XIHL so far this year and ask which one they prefer, probably 9 out of 10 would say MLRH.

[5_hole_master]

wrong, mlrh was not and is not better then the XIHL, making teams from northern NJ drive to the middle of no where VA for one terrible game on a weekend is not the signs of a great league, or how about letting marple have 7 straight home games because of the rink time, seems biased and unfair, not a problem in XIHL everyone travels everywhere.

newarksbears has a point every league has this problem, which is why roller hockey can not develop a professional status... until players are drafted you are going to have teams getting a lot of great players and teams who have none.. the team s who have none lose all the time, and then eventually get fed up with it and the team ends up folding. to say that mlrh is better then xihl is not even close to correct, is MLRH even having their "super sleeper" league this year?