Beyond the Scoresheet

Offseason 2012: Realignment affects most leagues

August 19, 2012 on 3:11 pm | In analysis, breaking news | Comments Off on Offseason 2012: Realignment affects most leagues

If it’s August, the school year is close upon us, and that means hockey can’t be far behind. I’ve started seeing preliminary schedules for a few schools, especially those in the MCSSIHL and Big North leagues, so I thought I’d post an update on a few things I’m seeing:

In Morris County, as had been previously reported, Gill St. Bernard’s (back to varsity status) and Sparta (NJIHL West) have joined, bringing the league total to 22 teams. I’m not sure how Pingry (asked to leave the MCSSIHL ostensibly because it wasn’t a Morris County school) feels about that, but it creates three very competitive divisions, in my opinion. It will be the first season for Gill St. Bernard’s in the MCSSIHL since 1979-80 or 1980-81, back in the days of Chatham Township, Chatham Borough, Hanover Park, and Whippany Park each competing separately.

The Mennen Division will play 11 league games (five division opponents twice each, plus one crossover game), which will leave a lot of room for creative non-league scheduling.

The Halvorsen Division and Haas/Charette Division will play 14 league games (seven division opponents twice each), with six Halvorsen schools playing crossover games against the Mennen Division that won’t count in the league standings.

Six teams will qualify for each of the three postseason cup tournaments. Here’s a look at the alignment:

Mennen	Halvorsen	Haas/Charette
Chatham	Jefferson	Gill St. Bernard’s
Kinnelon	Montville	Madison
Morris Knolls	Mountain Lakes	Morris Catholic
Morristown	Pequannock	Morris Hills
Morristown-Beard	Roxbury	Mount Olive
Randolph	Sparta	Park Regional
	West Morris Central	Parsippany
	West Morris Mendham	Parsippany Hills

With such a large non-league schedule available to Morris County teams, I’ve been wondering if some of the top publics will need to look out of state for games. New Jersey private schools have long played their Pennsylvania counterparts (LaSalle, Malvern Prep, Holy Ghost Prep); why not the public schools? Who wouldn’t want to see Randolph face Pennsylvania Class AA state champion Council Rock South or Kinnelon take on Flyers Cup Class A champion West Chester Rustin? These would be competitive, interesting matchups.

Pennsylvania public schools, however, run their hockey teams under the auspices of USA Hockey, a club organization. Would the NJSIAA allow varsity teams to play club teams? I have to believe it’s happened before, and it already happens when private schools play their Pennsylvania counterparts, so I hope the answer is yes.

If the NJSIAA were to approve non-league games against USA Hockey high school teams from Pennsylvania, it seems to follow that it would allow games against USA Hockey high school teams from New Jersey as well, which would allow teams from the SJHSIHL, such as AA Flyers Cup runner-up Cherokee, to play NJSIAA teams in non-league games. The SJHSIHL’s seven Tier I teams are all single-school clubs, so it would be a fair fight. I bet Paul VI, St. Joseph Hammonton, and even some CVC and Shore Conference schools would be a big fan of that option! Just speculation on my part, but interesting.

Moving on, the Big North Conference also saw major realignment. I haven’t been able to confirm this yet, but it seems to have had more to do with rink location than anything else. As reported by NorthJersey.com in July, the Dumont and Demarest hockey programs were at risk of being shut down, so even though Dumont was already running a co-op with New Milford, they sought to add Demarest to the puzzle. A team known as “Dumont-Demarest” is listed in the Big North, so I don’t know if New Milford was cut out of the co-op or if another solution was found. (EDIT: Based on an August 19 NJSIAA meeting, the hold-up is Dumont’s co-op arrangement with New Milford in swimming; the NJSIAA is considering a waiver to allow multiple co-op agreements and should rule in September.)

It’s a little odd, since 24 teams are broken up 9-9-7 instead of 9-8-8, but again, it seems to mostly go by rink — the entire Green Division plays at the Ice Vault, the Gold Division is split between Floyd Hall and the Ice House (plus Bayonne), while the Silver is split between the Ice House and Sport-O-Rama (plus Mackay).

Gold	Silver	Green
Bayonne	Glen Rock	DePaul Catholic
Clifton	Northern Highlands	Indian Hills
Dumont-Demarest	Old Tappan	Lakeland
Fair Lawn	Paramus	Mahwah
Hackensack	Pascack Valley	Ramapo
Paramus Catholic	St. Joseph Montvale	Ramsey
Passaic Valley	Tenafly	Wayne Hills
Ridgewood		Wayne Valley
River Dell		West Milford

The most infamous realignment, of course comes in the Shore Conference, where I’ve heard a number of complaints from hockey coaches and parents over the last six months about some of the matchups we’re going to see. I have to agree that the divisions don’t make sense for hockey, and some of the games involving CBA and Red Bank Catholic really do seem like they could be dangerous to players.

These divisions are based on the normal Shore Conference alignment, with each team playing each division opponent twice (12 games for all divisions except Shore B North, which will have 10):

Shore A North	Shore A South
CBA	Brick Memorial
Freehold Township	Brick Township
Howell	Jackson Memorial
Manalapan	Southern Regional
Marlboro	Toms River East
Middletown North	Toms River North
Middletown South	Toms River South
Shore B North	Shore B South
Ocean Township	Colts Neck
Red Bank Catholic	Freehold Boro
Red Bank Regional	Jackson Liberty
Rumson-Fair Haven	Manasquan
St. John Vianney	Monsignor Donovan
St. Rose	Point Pleasant Borough
	Wall

I expect the various regional leagues – Union County, the Greater Middlesex Conference, and the Skyland Conference – to remain the same, while the NJIHL West appears set to carry on with five teams and the NJIHL Northern with its set group. No word yet on the status of East Side for 2012-13. Finally, Don Bosco Prep and Bergen Catholic switched spots in the Gordon Conference, making the American Division a pretty good group of CBA-Delbarton-Don Bosco-Gloucester Catholic-St. Augustine. CBA will once again sign up for 25 league games (13 Gordon, 12 Shore A North), two over the listed maximum, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a few of those games never got (re)scheduled.

I’ve got my schedules started, so feel free to send them my way at jty [at] njhockey.org, and I’ll post them publicly at some point this fall.