Beyond the Scoresheet

Shore Conference gets it (mostly) right

The much-maligned Shore Conference has heeded the advice of ice hockey coaches and administrators and scrapped its plans to have one tournament. Instead, there will be a six-team Shore A tournament four-team Shore B tournament. Regulations for the tournament, always an interesting read, can be found here.

My only beef with the set-up is the following lines: “Division winners are granted an automatic entry to their respective tournaments. The seeding committee will determine the remaining entries and all seeds.”

I am still mirky on the criteria that will determine “division winners” and how that fits in with the private school requirement standard to most Shore tournaments. More importantly, what’s the point of all these league games if seeding is not going to be determined by league standings. All the Shore B teams are playing each other twice; take the best four records from those games? Or count the Shore A games, for all I care, but let the seeding be determined by standings, as in the other leagues, and not by subjective seeding.

Otherwise, a big thumbs up. Any chance Paul McInnis and the NJIHL will sell off the Handchen Cup and Dowd Cup trophies to the Shore Conference?

A big thanks to all the Shore Conference coaches and administrators who pushed for this.

Delbarton vs. Hill-Murray updates

Yes, it’s a scrimmage, but we all want to know who wins when Delbarton takes on Minnesota power Hill-Murray this afternoon in the Great White North. Thanks to an enterprising Delbarton parent, I am privy to a few updates this afternoon, so here’s what’s happening:

1st half: Delbarton 2, Hill-Murray 2. I’m told Hill-Murray has twice taken the lead, only for Delbarton to tie the score. The first Green Wave goal came on a point shot deflected off of a Hill-Murray stick. Delbarton’s second goal came from Mike Smigelski, assisted by Andy Bell. Delbarton is rolling four lines so far, I hear, and Infante has played well in goal. Hill-Murray with a 14-13 shot advantage.

2nd half: Hill-Murray 6, Delbarton 2 (cumulative). Sounds like it actually was a scrimmage. The teams tried some special-teams situations in the second “half” and rotated most of their players in. The play continued to be very physical, particularly toward the end. Sounds like Delbarton definitely held its own.

Shore Conference playoffs

I had the Shore Conference hockey playoff system explained to me Saturday. It took about 20 minutes. I have been told by a local that Shore Conference rules may appear to the unfamiliar to be “quirky.”

He was putting it mildly.

While there may be changes in the future, I’m being told the first Shore Conference tournament (Shore Cup? Jim Dowd Cup? I don’t know if there’s a name yet) will be conducted by Shore Conference by-laws. Which means an 8-team tournament featuring:

• Shore A North public team with best divisional record
• Shore A South public team with best divisional record
• Shore B North public team with best divisional record
• Shore B South public team with best divisional record
• private school (not sure how they will choose)
• at-large
• at-large
• at-large

Is that bizarre or what? I’ve got so many rants and raves about this, I don’t know where to begin.

At-large teams will be chosen by committee. Let’s look at it slowly and figure out how this will play out.

1. Wall / Middletown North (Shore A North public)
2. Brick Memorial / Brick (Shore A South public)
3. RFH / RBR (Shore B North public)
4. TRS / Jackson (Shore B South public)
5. St. John Vianney (private)
6. Red Bank Catholic (at-large 1)
7. Monsignor Donovan (at-large 2)
8. the other Brick school (at-large 3)

Not an awful tournament. Assuming seeding is subjective, you have 1-SJV vs. 8-TRS, 2-MD vs. 7-RFH, 3-RBC vs. 6-Brick; 4-Wall vs. 5-Brick Mem. … or something like that. Semifinal matchups would be SJV-Wall, MD-RBC. But there’s not much of a level playing field or incentive for Shore B teams.

Now, to my questions:

Why are Shore teams forced to schedule 17-19 games within the conference if only 6-8 of those count for postseason seeding?
Why are the private schools treated differently for purposes of the postseason tournament but not the regular season? That screws over teams that have to play four division games against private schools.
Why does the Shore B schedule make all Shore B teams play all other ones twice?
What the heck will happen when CBA comes in next year?

But I guess it really boils down to this: Why does the conference mandate that its teams play all these games that have no bearing on the conference postseason?

first-win shout-outs continue

Edison picked up its first win in school history by beating West Orange 5-2 on Saturday. Congrats to the Eagles! And I think I forgot to give Dayton some love for its win over Old Bridge on Thursday. We’re still looking for Old Bridge and West Morris to garner victories, but they’ve had winning seasons before. Hats off to Edison - that first win is always special.

NJ HS hockey makes the Uni Watch Blog

If you’re an online blog junkie like I and some of my friends, you may be well aware of the Uni Watch blog, which occasionally turns into a Uni Watch Column on ESPN.com’s Page 2.

Well, the Uni Watch blog in this post linked to a slideshow of the high school hockey jerseys hanging at the Prudential Center - which I think is really awesome, by the way - and so you should all check out this post. Maybe if enough people follow links from my blog, the Uni Watch will link back to mine!

Also, if you missed it, Rick Nash scored a ridiculous game-winning goal in the final minute that was SportsCenter’s top play of the night last night - still waiting for a YouTube link.

NFL playoffs digression

Let me talk football for a moment. What a series of games the NFL had this weekend! Between my high school sports coverage, my Sunday soccer league and my occasional social life, I haven’t watched a ton of football this year. But I managed to watch three of the four games this weekend, and they were all terrific. The fourth one - Green Bay’s win on Saturday - was played in one of the crazier snowstorms in NFL history. Quite a weekend!

Tonight, I had arranged to DVR the Giants-Cowboys game and watch it later this evening with one of my old roommates, a Cowboys fan. Driving into my apartment complex, I caught a glimpse of a neighbor’s TV and thought I saw somebody in white being interviewed. So I spent the whole game thinking the Giants were going to lose, only to see them pull it out in the end! Holy crap! I still can’t believe the Giants won that game after being completely unable to stop the Cowboys for most of the game.

Having been in Texas Stadium when the Giants beat the Cowboys in the fall of 2006, I can appreciate just how quiet that place got and how big it was for the Giants to win a game in that rivalry. I’ve hated the Cowboys since I was a little kid and they got the best of the Giants every year, it seemed, after Super Bowl XXV. So it’s nice to be on the other side of that.

Now I just wish I could be at Lambeau on Sunday.

Thursday update

A couple of results from Wednesday games that are worth noting. First of all, and most importantly, East Side got a win! The Red Raiders beat St. Rose 5-4 on Thursday for its first win since beating St. Rose 7-1 on Feb. 1, 2006. Of course, that’s only about five games ago, since East Side did not field a team last year. Next time these teams meet (Jan. 14), I’ll root for St. Rose.

I also wanted to point out an article most people may have missed on Delbarton’s 6-2 win over two-time defending Rhode Island state champion Bishop Hendricken.

I’ll be flying back to New Jersey for a brief holiday stay on Friday night, which means Saturday will probably be my only day of checking out N.J. hockey games this year. Any suggestions as to where I should go?

Thursday update
Just to explain several updates to various schedules … I’m told Hackettstown and Hudson Catholic had five players EACH given game disqualifications in their Dec. 17 game. That’s from one skirmish, in which I’m told no punches were thrown, and both coaches were baffled by the referees’ decision. It happened in the first period, and Hudson Catholic played the rest of the game with only six players, total.

Due to mandatory two-game suspensions (which will also yield state tournament ineligibility for both teams) for roughly half of its players, Hudson Catholic has chosen to forfeit its next two games: Friday against High Point and Sunday against Dumont. Assuming my schedules are up to date, that could save Dumont from playing on three consecutive days, which it should be noted is NOT legal. Dumont, Nutley, and Parsippany are all teams in danger of playing three games on three days at some point this month. This is a violation of NJSIAA rules and has, in the past, been punished with forfeits.