1979 Collapse of playoffs perils school hockey

Hockey does not have mass appeal in Southeastern Pennsylvania. It never will, either, if the inconsistencies and lack of firm organization that allowed the collapse of the regional scholastic tournament are not corrected. The sport is one of the best, maybe the best, when properly played, but public perceptions are formed more by what happens off the ice than on it. The image of the sport is at stake, and when a tournament collapses because of scheduling problems. When important ” teams refuse to play, the whole sport suffers. Hockey is not governed by any of the usual organizations that run scholastic sports in this area. Hockey has its own organization, run by officials of the three area leagues, but it has no overall supervisor. Coordination among the three leagues here and between the leagues in other parts of the state is > sparse, to say the least. Coordination between the three leagues on local issues usually is excellent, but it lapsed this month, and the tournament went with it. Whether the postponed tourney resumes is not the point. The fact that it had to be postponed because of poor communication between the directors and the teams is the issue. It points out that hockey can’t simply wait until the end of its season to throw together a tournament. Scheduling also is complicated by the fact that nearly all the best scholastic players also play amateur hockey, which is considerably more advanced.

The schools understandably defer to the amateur clubs (such as the Little Flyers) since they begin their programs on the grade school level and develop the future high school players. Rather than make a player choose between his high school and his amateur club, the scholastic leagues draw their schedules around the amateur teams. Thus, regional and state playoffs have to be held before or after amateur playoffs. The impossibility of holding a scholastic tourney at the same time as the amateur tournaments is apparent. This year’s state playoff which no local team participated, was held in early March for that reason. The local leagues dismissed the state tourney (held in Erie) because they felt it was better to have a strong regional playoff here and make the rest of the state come to them. Since three-fourths of the teams in the state are in the southeast, that was sound thinking. But it also made a sound regional tourney mandatory. The local leagues have wasted their advantage. Hockey officials have to start now for next year. A decision to avoid conflicts with spring vacations and amateur nationals seems necessary. Easter of 1980 falls on April 6. The local hockey organizations have 51 weeks to avoid running into it.